Keith Storer (Image: South Wales Police)
Last Updated: 2 minutes ago
A Swansea man who used his teenage daughter to deliver drugs has been sentenced to three years in prison after absconding to France to avoid justice – only to end up behind bars there too.
Keith Storer, 51, of Castle Street, Loughor, received the sentence at Swansea Crown Court after admitting two charges of being concerned in the supply of cocaine and cannabis. Recorder Greg Bull KC told the court he could see no prospect of rehabilitation.
The raid
Officers executed a search warrant at Storer’s home in the Waunarlwydd area of Swansea in June 2020. Inside the property and his vehicle, they discovered several hundred empty snap-seal bags, weighing scales, notebooks detailing money owed, £465 in cash, and 1.2g of cocaine.
Phone evidence
Prosecutor Regan Walters told the court that analysis of Storer’s phone uncovered messages linked to the supply of cocaine and cannabis stretching back six months. The messages also revealed he had been using his teenage daughter as a “runner” to carry out deliveries on his behalf.
Storer’s account
During his police interview, Storer claimed the drugs were for personal use and that the snap-seal bags had been left behind by previous occupants of the property. He maintained the cash was from wages and savings.
Fleeing the country
Storer was charged but failed to appear at Swansea Magistrates’ Court on 11 November 2020. An arrest warrant was issued the following month but was never executed. It later emerged he had left the country entirely.
By October 2025, both the warrant and the original drug charges had been withdrawn. However, South Wales Police received intelligence in 2026 that Storer had returned to the UK. The charges were reinstated, and he was arrested and brought before magistrates in March.
Offending in France
The court heard Storer had continued to offend while overseas. In July 2022, he received a suspended sentence in France for drink-driving, failing to stop, and simple possession of drugs. Two years later, in July 2024, he was handed a three-year prison sentence for being concerned in the supply of controlled drugs.
Time in a French prison
Defence barrister Jon Tarrant told the court his client had spent two years imprisoned in France, initially in a specialist facility designated for foreign-national drug offenders. Storer was the only UK national at the institution, where he was subjected to “considerable violence” and other forms of abuse. The situation escalated to a point where he had to be placed in solitary confinement for his own safety while arrangements were made to transfer him elsewhere.
Mr Tarrant acknowledged Storer was the “author of his own misfortune”, but said the experience in the first French prison had left a “stark and long-lasting punitive effect” on his client, both physically and psychologically.
Sentencing
Recorder Bull said he accepted Storer had experienced a difficult time in prison in France and had “suffered greatly”, but said the defendant had brought that suffering upon his own head.
Describing the Swansea operation as “relatively straightforward”, Mr Tarrant conceded the offending was aggravated by Storer committing a further similar offence while in France, along with other “peculiar aspects” to the case.
Storer has six previous convictions for 13 offences, including the matters dealt with in France. With a one-quarter discount for his guilty pleas, he was sentenced to three years in prison. He will serve up to half in custody before being released on licence.
