A former British Army bomb disposal officer has been jailed for 14 years after Merseyside Police stopped his van on the M62 and uncovered a major drugs operation. Samuel Newton, 41, was caught with 8kg of high-purity cocaine and 5kg of ketamine in the vehicle, and a subsequent search of his home in Mansfield Woodhouse, Nottinghamshire, revealed a further 38kg of heroin in his garage.
Newton, of Bryony Way, was sentenced on March 5, but Judge Stuart Rafferty KC imposed a reporting restriction forbidding publication until legal matters involving other co-defendants had concluded. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply cocaine, heroin, ketamine and conspiracy to transfer criminal property.
Judge's remarks on service and PTSD
Jailing Newton, the judge said: "You have served your country honourably and at great risk of harm, both physically and mentally, to yourself. Your tour of duty was in the most difficult of circumstances, and you saw colleagues maimed and killed, and it is therefore unsurprising that you came out of the army with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder)."
The judge added: "That does not mean, of course, that you are entitled to commit crime as a result of that. PTSD is a lifetime condition, and you can medicate it but never escape from it, and you made a mistake to self-medicate with cocaine."
Scale of the operation
Judge Rafferty said Newton became involved in an enterprise that was "professionally run and involved the importation of drugs in bulk quantities and of high purity." The prosecution said there were 369 journeys made in vans and estimated 1,472kg of cocaine was involved.
Claire Fraser KC, prosecuting, said Newton was part of a gang that flooded the country with "hundreds of kilograms" of class A drugs during 2021. He first became involved when he was paid to adapt delivery vans to hide large quantities of the powders, but later became more organised, employing a team of drivers and collecting shipments at ports.
Drugs hidden in frozen chickens
The prosecutor said: "Some of the drugs would be hidden in frozen chickens. He bought an electronic money counter which could count thousands of notes per minute. He lived an extravagant lifestyle, buying a Porsche and saying that cost him a week's profits."
On December 22, 2021, his van was stopped on the M62 near Warrington and in it was 7,954.7g of cocaine and 4,900g of ketamine. The street value of the cocaine was between £318,000 and £795,000, and the ketamine was £123,000 to £148,000. Following the stop, his home was searched and 38,159g of heroin was found in the garage, valued at more than £3m on the streets.
Sue Rodham, mitigating, said Newton joined the British Army aged 16 and volunteered for bomb disposal training, serving tours of duty across the world. She said: "This is a man with impeccable references who served his country to the highest standard. When he got out of the army he started up businesses and cared for his father who had stage four cancer."
Co-defendants sentenced
Abi Holbrook, 32, Newton's partner and mother of his two children, of Samuel Unwins Court, Sutton-in-Ashfield, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to transfer criminal property. She was jailed for two-and-a-half years, suspended for three years.
Her father Gavin Holbrook, 57, of Birkland Avenue, Mansfield Woodhouse, admitted conspiracy to supply class A and B drugs and was handed a five-year prison sentence. George Marshman, a 33-year-old former teacher of The Fairway, Ashbourne, Derbyshire, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply class A and B drugs and was sent to prison for five years and 11 months.
Amiel King, 30, of Bearwood Road, Smethwick, Sandwell, West Midlands, also admitted conspiracy to supply class A and B drugs and was jailed for five years and one month. Judge Rafferty said: "No matter how large or small your involvement was, you were all cogs in the same machine and without you that machine would not have operated as comprehensively as it did."
