A Swansea woman provided “safe out-of-town drug dealers” a safe home to operate from, a court heard.
Laura Gammon was also the gang’s driver and chauffeured members around town while they were selling drugs.
After Gammon was caught with a stash of heroin in her car, he was released on an investigation – and caught again when police went to her apartment to investigate an alleged violation of Covid restrictions.
Swansea Crown Court heard that on July 21, 2019, police stopped a three-person car in the Blackpill neighborhood as it drove into town. Gammon was driving and there were two male passengers from the Midlands in England. Also in the car were 20 packs of low-purity heroin, about £ 400 street value.
Robin Rouch, prosecutor, said a number of cell phones had been confiscated from the vehicle and a subsequent examination of the devices revealed that they were all in contact with a known gang of circular lines. The mother of one was questioned and released as part of an investigation.
The prosecutor said 15 months later, on the evening of October 23, 2020, police went to the defendant’s basement apartment in Brynmill to investigate reports of a possible violation of Covid restrictions. He said officials knocked on the door but Gammon delayed her entry by claiming she could not find the key.
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When they were allowed into the St. Helen’s Avenue property, the two men the police believed had been in the house had fled through the back garden. The court heard that police had found £ 2,600 worth of cracked cocaine and heroin in the apartment.
The officers also found a woman in the garden who told them she went into the home that evening to buy drugs.
Mr Rouch said it was law enforcement that 34-year-old Gammon was a safe home for drug dealers and was also involved in driving her around town in her car while they made deliveries.
Gammon of St. Helen’s Avenue in Brynmill, Swansea admitted two cases of concern about the delivery of Class A drugs. The court heard she had a previous 2020 conviction of drug driving.
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John Allchurch for Gammon said the defendant suffers from anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder and has been a drug user for some time. He said these factors made them “easy prey” when contacted by drug dealers outside of town who used them to facilitate their operations in Swansea.
Judge Geraint Walters told the defendant: “Drug dealers need bases and drivers. Anyone who provides these things knows if they will be caught, which will have serious consequences. Without people like you, people from outside our city could not operate.”
The judge gave the defendant a quarter discount on her guilty confessions and sentenced her to a total of two and a half years in prison, consisting of 12 months for the first offense and 18 months for the second. Gammon is serving up to half that term before being released under license.
The court heard that the two men in the car with Gammon when it was pulled over in 2019 were the subject of separate legal proceedings.