DEFENDANTS convicted over a cocaine supply conspiracy in Widnes and sentenced to 30 years imprisonment between them have been told to cough up more than £11,000 worth of their ill-gotten gains.
Michael Bennett, 35, of Sandstone Drive in Prescot, and Terry Cowan, 25, of McKeagney Gardens in Widnes, had a Proceeds Of Crime Act hearing on Monday, January 11, at Warrington Crown Court.
A court spokesman told the Weekly News that an order was made against Bennett for £11,436, while an order was made for a ‘nominal amount’ of £1 against Cowan but is not to be collected.
Bennett and Cowan were caged for 16 and 14 years respectively in October 2014 for conspiring to possess class A drugs with intent to supply cocaine, two offences of possession of a prohibited weapon and one of possession of ammunition without a certificate.
Terry Cowan, 25, of McKeagney Gardens in Widnes, had an order made against him to pay a nominal amount of £1 which was not to be collected at a Proceeds Of Crime Act hearing held at Warrington Crown Court. He was sentenced to 14 years imprisonment for one count of conspiring to possess class A drugs with intent to supply cocaine, two counts of possession of a prohibited weapon and a count of possession of ammunition without a certificate.
At Monday’s hearing, the court spokesman added that prosecutors discontinued their interest against Rebecca Shepard, 25, also of McKeagney Gardens in Ditton.
She had originally been sentenced to four years imprisonment for being concerned with the supply of class A drugs after she drove Cowan to Southern England to either deliver drugs or collect money.
But Shepard’s sentence was later cut to three years in June 2015 by three senior judges at London’s Criminal Appeal Court.
Upon sentencing in 2014, Cheshire police said that the defendants were arrested following Operation Caiman, an investigation into the supply of class A drugs in Widnes and Southern England.
Officers said that raids at two homes in Widnes and one in Liverpool in 2014 recovered ‘significant’ amounts of class A drugs, as well as a firearm, silencer and ammunition and that the defendants had conspired to supply more than £370,000 worth of drugs.
Source: http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/