Young drugs gang ran phone lines and peddled 'misery' on the streets of Ilkeston

-Credit: (Image: Derbyshire Police)
-Credit: (Image: Derbyshire Police)


A teenager who led a gang of young drug dealers selling heroin and cocaine on the streets of Ilkeston was found with designer clothes at his mother’s home. Nottingham Crown Court heard how Che Burgin was in charge of a four-strong group peddling what a judge called “misery” on the streets of the town.

Then aged 17, he directed Ryan Chapman, Ethlan Vincent and Stuart Clarke to run phone lines and deliver the class A substances to addicts. Raids at Clarke’s address uncovered high purity cocaine as well as £870 in a teacup inside a kitchen cupboard.

Chapman, the eldest of the gang members at the age of 34, has been jailed for three years for his part in the conspiracy. But as he has served more than half of that on prison remand he is likely to be released immediately.

However the other members, then aged 17 to 22, and who have spent time on remand and on electronically-monitored curfews, have been handed suspended sentences for the roles they played.

Judge Michael Auty KC said: “What you sold were three of the most pernicious and evil drugs - heroin, crack cocaine and cocaine - and you all played a part in this enterprise. It was supply at a low level but it was an enterprise on the streets of Ilkeston which causes misery and suffering from the people who produce it in other countries to the end users who turn to dealing it to get their fixes and who end up playing Russian Roulette with their lives in terms of what they are ingesting..

“Think on should you ever be inclined to involve yourselves in this kind of business again. Mr Burgi , it was not your enterprise but you certainly performed a function that led you to have designer clothes and all of the trappings consistent with the supply of class A drugs.”

Steven Taylor, prosecuting, said the conspiracy ran between August 2022 and February 2023 and involved the four gang members, under the direction of other unidentified people higher up the chain, running four telephone lines where users would contact them for their drugs. He said: “All of the offences relate to Ilkeston and all of them (at the time) lived in Ilkeston and they would supply at a street level.”

The prosecutor said all four were arrested at various times between September 2022 and February 2023 and that messages were found on mobiles which were consistent that all three different class As were being sold by the gang.

Burgin, now 19 and of Stafford Avenue, Balderton, Newark, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply class As. He was handed two years youth detention, suspended for two years, with 180 hours unpaid work and 35 rehabilitation sessions.

Vincent, also now 19 and of Wood Street, Ilkeston, pleaded guilty to the same charge and was given 18 months youth detention, suspended for two years, with 120 hours unpaid work and 25 rehabilitation sessions

Chapman, of French Street, Ilkeston, also pleaded guilty to the conspiracy charge. And Clarke, now 24 and of Belper Road, Stanley Common, pleaded guilty to possession with intent to supply cocaine and was handed 18 months youth detention, suspended for two years, with 100 hours unpaid work and 20 rehabilitation sessions.