It’s not in Bedfordshire — we make no apology for publishing this story.
It illustrates the pervasive nature of the drugs problem with have in this country. It’s a trade that doesn’t respect boundaries.
A caretaker at one of the the country’s most prestigious public schools had tens of thousands of pounds worth of cocaine at his home which was in the school’s grounds.
Justin Terry was part of a drugs supply gang which moved drugs all over the country.
At his home and in an outbuilding which was in the grounds of Haberdasher’ Aske’s Boys’ School in Elstree in Herts, police found a large quantity of the Class A drug, a hydraulic press, a metal pressing plate, a mould, along chemicals and cutting agents.
It was all used by Terry in his role in the gang to store cocaine and adulterate it, before pressing it into kilo blocks to make it go even further on the streets of the UK.
By day Terry was a respected and hard working member of the care taking staff at the top public school which counts Matt Lucas, David Baddiel, Sasha Baron Cohen and businessman Sir Martin Sorrell among its alumni.
But he had a darker side and when back in doors he would follow a recipe the gang had prepared, for “cooking” the drugs for their onward journeys.
When he was sentenced for his role in the organised gang, Judge Philip Grey said what he’d done amounted to a massive breach of trust against the school.
The judge said “had a pupil sneaked into that outbuilding the consequences could have been horrific.”
Terry’s address at the school which was named The Sunday Times Independent School of the Year in 2017, was just one address used by the gang for the preparation of the drugs
On Wednesday, October 7, 2020, he appeared for sentence along with two other members of the gang at St Albans crown court.
Terry, 45, of The Lodge, Haberdashers’ Aske’s Boys School pleaded guilty to conspiring to supply cocaine between August 2019 and November 1, last year.
He pleaded guilty to conspiring amphetamine between the same dates
Martin Walsh, 54, of of St Pancras House, Churchfields Road, Watford admitted identical charges.
Phillip Blackburne, 38, of Mimas Road, Hemel Hempstead pleaded guilty to conspiring to supply cocaine and Ketamine.
Prosecutor Simon Wilshire told the court that it was in early August of last year that Hertfordshire Police acting on intelligence, began an operation to target gang members and disrupt their supply network
Called ‘Operation Distant’ undercover officers mounted secret surveillance on the three defendants along with others in the gang which was involved in the supply of drugs across the country.
On October 31, last year Walsh was seen by the police team to drive a van from Hertfordshire to Birkenhead.
There he was observed delivering packages to various people before checking into a Travel Lodge Hotel near Liverpool.
That evening police raided his room and found two kilo blocks of pressed cocaine and £37,000 in cash hidden under bead.
The van he had driven had a secret hide inside for the storage of drugs.
That same day police raided Terry’s home in the grounds of the school where they found a large amount of cocaine, a hydraulic press and chemicals and cutting agents and mixed bowls along with amphetamine.
Blackburne who was higher in the chain of command than Walsh and Terry was arrested in February of this year.
The court was told on Wednesday, October 7, that the conspiracy that Terry was part of involved taking a one kilo block of high purity cocaine and skimming off 250 grams from it.
The remaining 750 grams would then be adulterated using cutting agents and chemicals which would bulk it back up to its original weight and it would then be pressed back into a block.
Then a small amount of the skimmed cocaine would be used to cover the block so that it could be passed off as being of a higher purity than it actually was.
The court was told those involved in the cooking process and re pressing of the cocaine involved Terry and Walsh who had visited him at his home in the school grounds to preparer the cocaine.
Passing sentence Judge Grey jailed Terry for eight years; Walsh was jailed for seven years and eight months and Blackburne was sentenced to ten years and two months.
“It’s plain this was a professional operation for obtaining and the onward sale of cocaine,” he told the men.
Priceeeds of crime hearing against the three are set to take place next year.
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