Drugs trafficker linked to 18k narcotics ring arrested after not attending court for guilty verdict
A drugs trafficker linked to an 18k narcotics ring has been arrested after failing to attend court to hear the jury verdict.
Robert English, 41, failed to turn up to the last few days of his trial at Teesside Crown Court. He missed hearing the guilty verdict and a warrant was issued for his arrest. English was part of an £18,000 drugs conspiracy, alongside Nico Easton, 31; and Mark McKeswick, 49.
Middlesbrough taxi driver Scott Highfield, 31, of Norton Road in Stockton, was acquitted of all charges against him.
The drugs conspiracy was uncovered after French police managed to hack an encrypted messaging platform in 2019. They successfully accessed millions of texts, before they were encrypted, and by 2020, the National Crime Agency began analysing communications.
The authorities gained access to EncroChat for a short while before the platform realised their security had been compromised. The "Encro-phones" that the drugs gang used have never been found, but the trial heard details of the messages they sent to each other.
Easton, from Ingleby Barwick, was trying to buy a handgun. McKeswick and English were caught arranging the sale of 1kg of heroin, made up to 4kg once mixing agents had been added, to Easton. The trial heard that Easton planned to sell the class A drugs on Teesside at a significant profit.
He was paying the £18,000 "on tick" during the Covid lockdown.
Newcastle-based English appeared to fall out with his co-defendants, after he chose to give evidence at the trial and the others decided not to take to the witness box.
The businessman, of Woodlands in Throckley, Newcastle, tried to blame incriminating messages and calls on a man who he said was staying in a caravan in the yard of his gardening supplies business, in Eachwich, Northumberland.
English was found guilty of conspiracy to supply heroin; conspiring to acquire a firearm without a certificate and to the possession of criminal property. On Monday he admitted an additional charge relating to the breach of his bail conditions when he absconded.
He'll be sentenced alongside Easton, of Lowfields Walk in Ingleby Barwick and McKeswick, of Muswell Hill in Newcastle, on October 24. Easton and McKeswick were found also guilty of conspiracy to supply heroin; conspiracy to acquire a firearm without a certificate. McKeswick was convicted on additional charges of being concerned in the production of heroin and the possession of criminal property.
English was found by the police after five days. "He realises the game is up" Judge Chris Smith told the court, when English appeared in the dock, flanked by security men. The court heard that English was found locally by police, on Friday September 27.
"Well" Judge Smith added, "I didn't think he'd gone to Spain."
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