Dealer with 23 previous convictions sentenced to 46 months

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A Milton Keynes drug courier who had brought over £9,000 worth of crack and heroin into Luton was jailed for 46 months on Wednesday December 16, 2020.

Kareem Barker, 27, was spotted by suspicious two undercover officers in a Milton Keynes taxi in Dunstable Road, Luton. He got out of a rear door and ran off into Atherstone Road, where he was seen to throw something into a garden, Luton crown court heard.

Prosecutor Christopher Martin said that the two officers lost site of him in Weatherby Road, but a resident directed one of them to behind a wheelie bin where he was hiding. Barker told him: “It’s taken you a while to find me.”

A Nokia phone was found snapped in half. When he was arrested Barker asked: “If you haven’t found anything on me you know the CPS will throw in the towel so why are you bothering?”

But a small bag was found in a garden in Atherstone Road.

It contained around 25 grams of Class A drugs: heroin with a street value of £3,600 and cocaine with a street value of £5,500. Barker of Fortescue Drive, Shenley Church End, Milton Keynes pleaded guilty to two charges of possessing Class A drugs with intent to supply.

He had been arrested at 4.45pm on Wednesday 28 October this year.

He had 23 convictions for 34 offences and had been released on licence from his previous sentence in August. Anne-Marie Talbot, defending, said Barker had been brought up in care from the age of 7. She said she he was a trusted drug courier.

She said he was dealing because people higher up in the drug chain wanted recompense for the drugs seized when he was arrested on an earlier occasion.

Although only 27, she said he had spent almost 10 years in custody. Now she said he had “seen the light” and wanted to stop offending, having a girlfriend and a child.

Judge Steven Evans jailed him saying: “Crack and heroin are pernicious drugs bring misery to tens of thousands of people. You put profit before the concern for the damage this is caused.

“If you continue offending sentences will get longer and longer.”

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