AN ALLEGED drug dealer involved in a county lines network which centred on Holywell was caught out when he left a drugs stash in a pair of jeans he tried on at a menswear shop, a court heard.

David Taylor’s trousers were too big for him so he left the Peacocks store in haste, only for the owner to discover the package inside one of the garment’s pockets.

Taylor is standing trial alongside Lisa Farragher with both accused of conspiring to supply cocaine and heroin.

It is alleged that Taylor was a street-level dealer ferrying drugs to Holywell users, while Farragher acted as a driver for dealers heading from Birkenhead into Flintshire.

Mold Crown Court was told that Farragher’s VW Scirocco was tracked by police using Automatic Number Plate Recognition cameras (ANPR) as it journeyed frequently from the Wirral to North Wales last year.

Police had suspected there was a county lines drug operation in the Holywell area last year and prosecutor Brian Treadwell said: “It is characterised by dealers from other areas moving into the town employing violence and weapons.

“While it is not alleged that both defendants have engaged in that level of activity, each of them had a specific role.”

“The case against her (Farragher) can be described as circumstantial, but the only explanation for her actions was that she was ferrying others to Holywell and she did that on eight or more occasions.”

Taylor, the court was told, returned to the store claiming he had left his medication in the jeans pocket, but the police were called and he was caught outside the shop with 31 wraps of heroin on him.

He said he had put the jeans back and denied the drugs were his, while also claiming that a phone police seized off him belonged to a friend.

Phone cell tracking and APNR indicated Farragher’s car and a phone used to send messages out to users was travelling along the same route.

She accepted she made journeys to Holywell but she was taking the men to see friends they had in the area.

Farragher, 37, of Connaught Way, Birkenhead, and Taylor, 39, of no fixed abode both deny conspiracy to supply Class A drugs.

The trial continues