Sarah Spina-MatthewsNorth West

Three members of a Greater Manchester gang responsible for “flooding” communities in the area with millions of pounds of drugs have been jailed.
The Wythenshawe-based group was behind a “sophisticated criminal enterprise” which supplied cocaine, heroin and amphetamines across the city, Greater Manchester Police said.
Bolton Crown Court heard the recovered heroin had a street value of more than £1.1m.
Alan Entwistle, 48, Stephen Findley, 64, were both convicted of conspiring to supply Class A and Class B drugs and were jailed for 10 years and six months and four years and four months respectively. William Reilly, 40, was convicted of conspiring to supply Class A drugs and jailed for five years.
Findley was arrested after police searched his house in July last year and found what turned out to be around 4kg of drugs inside a drawstring backpack.

Later that month, a search of Entwistle’s garage uncovered large quantities of drugs, drug adulterants like caffeine and paracetamol, and digital scales.
Police said Entwistle, of Kennett Road, managed safe houses for the gang, prepared drugs for sale and distributed them to other drug dealers.
They said Findley, of Carloon Road, managed the group’s warehouse and Reilly, of Altcar Walk, was a street dealer for the organisation.
Det Sgt Richard McCorry said: “This was a sophisticated criminal operation that was flooding our communities with Class A and Class B drugs on a large scale.”