A Consett mother has been jailed for her part in a drugs gang which flooded the North East with millions of pounds of import-strength cocaine.
Anita Towler, 43, claimed that she had been put under pressure by her "dominant and violent" champion cage fighter brother Darren Towler, who she said physically and emotionally threatened her to join his drugs ring, which saw amphetamines and cannabis as well as the cocaine couriered to the North East from Liverpool.
Professional MMA fighter Darren Towler, 41, who was the head of the North East-based gang, is still on the run after being convicted in his absence of orchestrating the conspiracy alongside his sister, half-brother and girlfriend. He was sentenced to 24 years in prison earlier this month after a jury found him guilty of conspiracy to supply class A and B drugs.
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Darren Towler's former partner, Jodie Smith, 42, of Main Street in Consett, County Durham, was jailed for six years and six months for conspiracy to supply class A drugs, earlier this month and his half-brother, Jonathan Kitson, 28, of Riding Hill, Great Lumley, near Chester-le-Street, was jailed for nine years and eleven months.
Teesside Crown Court had previously heard that Darren Towler recruited contacts he had made in prison, while he was serving an earlier sentence for the supply of drugs. He used encrypted phones to communicate with Merseyside drugs boss Ricky Hemmings, in an operation which saw huge bundles of cash totalling £1m being sent to Merseyside in payment for the drugs.
Police put the group under surveillance in 2017 and followed ten journeys between the North East and Merseyside within five months. Their investigations showed there were multiple kilos of drugs exchanged for hundreds of thousands of pounds. Anita Towler, of Second Street in Consett, was found to have stored, divided and packaged the drugs before they were sold on a wholesale basis.
TeessideLive reported that Anita Towler's defence barrister Oliver Cook told Teesside Crown Court that his client started taking drugs when she was 13, and that she grew up in a household with domestic violence. Mr Cook said Anita Towler had pleaded guilty on the day her trial was due to begin: "She wanted to plead earlier than she did. She pleaded for the first time she sat in court on her own, away from her violent and domineering brother."
The court heard that Anita Towler's mother is terminally ill with cancer: "One of her brother's is in custody, the other is at large. She is her mother's primary carer. Ms Towler also now has her children back in her care. She has been free of drugs for two years. This offending took place four five years ago," Mr Cook said.
Anita Towle was jailed for two years and eight months for conspiracy to supply class A and B drugs, during a five month period in 2017. Judge Jonathan Carroll told her that she will be subject to a proceeds of crime investigation.
Two men from Kirkby on Merseyside were sentenced for supplying the drugs, as part of the conspiracy. Ricky Hemmings, 40, was handed a 12-year-six-month sentence; and John Campbell, 48, was jailed for six years and eight months.
Four other members of the North East drugs conspiracy have also been jailed.
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