Liverpool dealer jailed over Wrexham county lines operation

📱⚖️ A drug dealer who ran a county lines operation supplying heroin and crack cocaine from Liverpool into Wrexham has been jailed for three and a half years.

Declan Skimmings, 33, was involved in the operation in the Caia Park area for four months last year, using a “graft phone” to send messages advertising available drugs to known users in the area.

A joint investigation by North Wales Police and Merseyside Police tracked the supply of Class A drugs from Liverpool into North Wales. Officers discovered the phone was being used in July last year, with messages indicating the supply of drugs being sent to known users in Caia Park.

From October, the same phone continued to be used with a different number, once again sending out “flare messages” about available drugs.

Skimmings was arrested outside his home on 4 November last year. Police seized the graft phone and searched his property, where they found white powder suspected to be drugs, although it has not been formally tested.

At Mold Crown Court today, prosecutor Thomas McLoughlin outlined how the two police forces worked together to investigate the operation. The court heard that Skimmings, now of no fixed address, has 35 convictions for 65 offences.

Defence barrister Catherine Elvin described his criminal record as “unsavoury”, particularly regarding his drug offending. She told the court that his drug use is linked to his offending, and that being in custody is helping to “normalise” his “chaotic” lifestyle.

Skimmings is on a methadone prescription and wants to “wean” himself off drugs. He is a father of two, though he has no contact with his children, but hopes to reconnect with them and find work as a grounds worker upon his release.

Sentencing him, His Honour Rhys Rowlands told Skimmings he had a “really bad record (with) depressingly regular appearances before the courts”. The judge noted this was his 13th conviction for drug offences, with 12 drug-related convictions before today’s hearing.

Skimmings was jailed for 42 months for being concerned in the supply of heroin and for the same term, to run concurrently, for being concerned in the supply of crack cocaine. He was also made subject to a Criminal Behaviour Order for five years, and the mobile phone and drugs will be forfeited.