A DRUG dealer involved in a county lines network which centred on Holywell has been found guilty by a jury.

At Mold Crown Court on Friday, David Taylor, 39, of no fixed abode, appeared in the dock alongside Lisa Farragher, 37, of Connaught Way, Birkenhead – who were both on trial accused of conspiring to supply cocaine and heroin into North Wales from Merseyside.

During the trial, the court heard that North Wales Police had suspected there was a county lines drug operation in the Holywell area last year which lined up with when the offences before the court were alleged to have taken place in the summer months of 2018.

In summarising the case, Judge Niclas Parry said Taylor, by his own admission, has a history of using drugs.

It was alleged during proceedings that Taylor was a street-level dealer who was ferrying drugs to users in the Holywell area.

Taylor was arrested in the town centre when he was caught out after leaving 31 individual wraps of heroin in a pair of jeans that he had earlier tried on in Peacocks, the court heard.

Taylor had returned to the store claiming he had left his medication in the jeans pocket, but the police were called after a security guard spotted the class A substances and called the police.

On his arrest, a mobile phone was seized from his hands that was later linked to county lines drug dealing but he claimed that it belonged to a friend.

In relation to Farragher’s charges, when questioned in court on Thursday, September 12, by prosecuting barrister Brian Treadwell about the nature of her trips to North Wales, she claimed she had been taking a family member to visit friends in Holywell and denied knowledge of any activities linked to drug dealing.

Phone tracking and automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras were analysed and were able to indicate that her VW Scirocco and a mobile phone used to send messages out to users was travelling along the same route a number of times from Merseyside to North Wales.

He asked her whether she ever questioned the brevity of these visits – which she said she hadn’t – and on some of those occasions she may have been there to pick up or drop off her relative, but that she could not remember in detail.

She also denied hearing any phone conversations while driving to Holywell or back to her hometown of Birkenhead which raised her suspicious saying that she had ‘no reason to question them’ or suspect they were involved with drugs.

Farragher wept in the dock as Judge Niclas Parry told the pair to prepare for a long custodial sentence after a jury found both defendants guilty on all charges against them.

Taylor was remanded into custody whilst Farragher was granted bail.

The two will face sentence on Monday, September 30.