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19
Jul 2021
Ripon cocaine and heroin dealer jailed after police raid
A cocaine and heroin dealer has been jailed for over two years after police raided her home in Ripon.
Jemima Walker, 27, was found surrounded by drug paraphernalia when police entered her ground-floor flat on Aismunderby Road.
They seized drug bags, two sets of weighing scales, a notebook with customer lists, £480 cash, four mobile phones and two relatively small amounts of heroin and cocaine.
Analysis of her “telephone traffic” showed she had been dealing for “quite some time” and had a “large client base”, York Crown Court heard.
Prosecutor Anne Richardson said there were 118 incriminating text messages in total, in some of which her customers referred to her by her nickname, ‘Mima’.
Walker was charged with two counts of possessing Class A drugs with intent to supply following the drugs bust on May 16, 2019. She was also charged with one count of simple possession after being found with cocaine at an address in Gallows Hill Park, Ripon, in September of that year, while on bail for the dealing matters.
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She admitted all three offences and appeared for sentence on Friday.
Cocaine in Harrogate
The court heard that Walker had a previous conviction for drug possession from February last year after she was caught with cocaine in Harrogate.
Richard Reed, for Walker, said she was leading a “fairly chaotic” lifestyle at the time and ended up losing her home.
She had a drugs relapse and started dealing to pay debts to ‘county lines’ suppliers and feed her own habit, he added.
Recorder Abdul Iqbal QC described Walker’s drug enterprise as a “reasonably slick operation”.
He added:
He said it was clear that Walker had used her flat to “package and process” hard drugs and that it had been going on “for some time”.
Although she was feeding her own habit, she had been profiting from “multiple supplies of Class A drugs…for a matter of months and significant amounts of money were being (made)”.
Walker had played an “operational or management” role in the supply chain, added Mr Iqbal.
Walker was jailed for two years and three months, of which she will serve half behind bars before being released on prison licence.
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