Taxi Driver Online

Detectives found £25,000 of heroin in Richard Barrett's taxi

TWO men will be sentenced today for their part in a conspiracy that delivered heroin worth £25,000 to York in a single drugs run.

Police caught 22-year-old Adam Thackway outside his home in Alcuin Avenue as he prepared to take delivery of the drugs from taxi driver Richard Lengthburt Barrett.

Today a judge will decide whether Thackway is the drug addict doing a favour for others that he claims to be or an established member of a heroin gang linking York with Leeds.

When police arrested the two in Barrett’s taxi with two women passengers, including Latalia Pyke, 18, they found two bags of heroin weighing 246g and 122g, worth about £25,000, behind Barrett’s seat.

Prosecutor, Tom Storey, said: “The reason for his journey to York from Leeds was obviously for him or Latalia Pyke to deliver heroin to Thackway.”

Thackway and Pyke, of Sholebroke Terrace, Leeds, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply heroin. In his plea, Thackway claimed he was a drug addict who was collecting the drug on behalf of someone else and that he would be paid some money for doing so. He did not say how much.

But the prosecution said call records of mobile phones used by the three show they were in frequent contact with each other and that Thackway was part of the same drugs ring as the other two which was operating between August 2 and October 22, 2009.

Barrett, 39, of Cross Francis Street, Leeds, denied conspiring to supply heroin, but was convicted yesterday by a jury. He was remanded in custody overnight and will be sentenced alongside Thackway. Pyke will be sentenced at a later date.

Barrett claimed to the jury Pyke and the other woman flagged him down in Leeds when he was not working and asked him to drive them to York, giving him the address mid-journey. He recognised them as being from Chapeltown in Leeds, but claimed he did not know them. He claimed he allowed other people to use his phone on payment of a small fee and denied knowing either Thackway or Pyke.

Giving evidence, he alleged he did not know Thackway, but may have seen him in a nightclub.

Sentencing was expected to take place today at York Crown Court.

http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/

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Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin

it sounds a little too suspicious to me either he knows them or he doesn't I think maybe he didn't realise quite what they were up to but was lured by the prospect of a big fare