A TEENAGER has been jailed for his role in a drugs gang who conspired to deal heroin and crack cocaine in Kendal.

Thomas Crehan, 19, of The Shires, St Helens, was sentenced to six years today (February 20) at Liverpool Crown Court.

He was sentenced after pleading guilty to conspiracy to supply Class A drugs, following an investigation by Cumbria Police.

Crehan was also sentenced for two other offences relating to the supply of Class A drugs in Merseyside and Cheshire, for which he had had previously pleaded guilty.

The Southern Area Drug Squad in Kendal used extensive analysis of telecommunication date to piece together the movements of Crehan during January this year.

Evidence showed Crehan was travelling between Merseyside and Kendal on a regular basis during this time period.

Once he arrived in Kendal, Class A drugs users would be alerted to the availability of heroin and crack cocaine by another member of this organised crime group.

Interrogation of his phone showed that the teenager was travelling to Kendal each morning between January 4 and 8, returning to Merseyside each evening.

On one date during those dates Crehan was observed carrying out what officers believed to be a drugs transaction.

Crehan was arrested on the 30th January when officers witnessed Crehan at the monument on Beast Banks, Kendal. Upon approaching him, Crehan was seen to remove a package from his pocket and place it under his bottom.

This transpired to be 12 street deals of heroin and 14 street deals of crack cocaine, worth a street value of more than £500. Police also recovered £640 which they believe was the proceeds of previously supplied drugs.

PC John Renshaw, of the South Area Drug Squad said: "Crehan had been recruited by a Merseyside organised crime group so that they could send him to Kendal to supply drugs. We were determined to work hard to ensure that we had evidence to bring him before the courts, and I am glad that today he has been put behind bars.

"All too often people from the Merseyside area think that they can get away with coming to Cumbria to conduct criminal activity, but we will keep reinforcing the fact that they will not get away with it. Prison sentences such as Crehan’s should act as the best deterrent to demonstrate that it will not be tolerated in our county."