Dozy dealers led police to a £28,000 drugs haul when they fell asleep in a car with the engine running and half a kilo of heroin in the footwell.
'Hapless and shambolic' Neil Coates and Vikki Hoyland drew attention to themselves when they parked up and nodded off in a vehicle. Police officers attended the scene and found the pair, who appeared to be under the influence of drugs, with the £10,000 batch of heroin, 21g of cocaine, a knife and baton in the car.
This discovery, in Nottingham, led police to search their home in Newcastle, where another half kilo of heroin, worth more than £10,000, was found stashed in a safe, along with £1,500 in cash and weapons, including machetes, a crossbow and BB gun.
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Newcastle Crown Court heard two days later their house was the target of a break-in and arson attack and when police arrived at the scene to assist them, officers found more heroin, worth over £6,000. Prosecutor Helen Towers told the court the total value of all of the drugs that were seized from the pair was £28,310.
Coates, 51, of Kingsley Terrace, Elswick, Newcastle, was found guilty of possessing heroin with intent to supply after a trial and pleaded guilty to possessing the knife and baton found in the car. He has been jailed for six-and-a-half years. Hoyland, 38, of the same address, admitted possessing cocaine and heroin with intent to supply. She has been jailed for 40 months.
The court heard it remains unclear what their exact roles in the drugs trade were. Mr Recorder Tom Moran told them: "I bear in mind the court's experience that people who are engaged in the supply of this amount of class A drugs generally do not want to take risks of being caught with it in their home, they certainly don't needlessly drive around the country with it in their car and fall asleep with it in their car."
The judge said the pair, who both have previous convictions, were "hapless and inept" told them: "In this particular case there was ineptitude and a shambolic element to your behaviour which shows, although the quantities were significant, you were not sophisticated drug dealers.
"You are incompetent people involved in this quantity of class A drugs. This is seen particularly in the fact you were asleep in the car with the engine running while you had a large amount of heroin in the car, which was obviously going to attract attention."
Tony Cornberg, defending, said Coates was a collector of weapons and there was no evidence of them being used. Mr Cornberg added: "People have cuckooed, taken advantage of someone who won't rat on them and won't fight back. Obviously this is a house where both of the people living there were taking drugs every day." Hoyland told the court she was a drug user and vulnerable at the time.
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