Big city drug gangs are using vulnerable young men and women to supply class A drugs in Hyndburn, a court heard.
Prosecutors said there is a ‘worrying’ increase in gangs flooding the borough with heroin and cocaine.
The concerns were raised after three people were convicted of being involved in a drugs operation in Accrington.
Officers executed a warrant at Sheree Neil’s home on Marsden Street in Accrington on December 13, 2016.
Paul Dockery, prosecuting, told Burnley Crown Court how they were met with barricaded doors and before forcing entry through a window.
Officers found Neil, 36, and co-defendants Jak Phillips and Thomas Grimes Callaghan hiding in the attic.
The court heard bagged drugs were found under the floor containing heroin and cocaine. Police also seized mobile phones hidden in a boxing glove and £540 in cash.
Paul Dockery, prosecuting, said: “What is alleged here involving all three defendants is a method of going about drug dealing that’s certainly seen by the local police more often.
“That is to say those who deal in drugs in the big cities are sending their representatives to smaller towns.
“They are often young men who have no convictions, don’t have a job necessarily, and using them for a short spell to go to that town and to sell drugs in a house often of a drug user who gets the benefit.”
Judge Simon Medland QC said: “It’s sometimes referred to as ‘county lines’.
“The idea that it provides a subterfuge of respectability in that the people who are chosen as sales reps might be thought of as being people who would not immediately attract the attention of the police, and thus establish a foothold for the dealing of these drugs in places and bring with them the utter devastation which class A drugs always bring wherever they are.”
Neil, now of Fox Street, Accrington, pleaded guilty to allowing her premises to be used for the supply of drugs. She was given a an eight-month jail sentence, suspended for two years with drug and rehabilitation requirements.
Phillips, 21, of Brookdale, Southport, and Callaghan, 20, of Hornby Road, Liverpool, both guilty to being concerned in the supply of class A drugs.
Phillips was jailed for 32 months and Callaghan given a 10-month sentence in a young offenders institute, suspended for two years with a 30-hour attendance centre requirement and 150 hours unpaid work.
Defence barrister Phillip Boyd said Sheree Neil was a ‘hopeless drug addict’ and she was targeted because of her ‘vulnerability’.
He told the court that Neil ‘felt sorry’ for Phillips and Callaghan, who claimed to be ‘sleeping rough’ at the time, and she allowed them to live in her attic. The court heard how she ‘received no financial benefit’ from the operation and that her co-defendants had only been living there for several days before police raided the property.
Mr Boyd said Neil had been addicted to heroin and cocaine since the age of 30 and she was ‘used for her vulnerability as camouflage for what was happening’.
Charles Lander, defending Phillips, said he had a drugs debt and was ‘seeking to reduce it’.
He told the court that Phillips was ‘exploited’ and it has been a ‘salutary experience’ for him.
Magill, defending Callaghan, said her client had not come to Accrington from Liverpool to sell drugs and didn’t realise his friend Phillips was involved until he got there.
She told the court he became involved ‘through his naivety’ and was a man of good character.
