(Image: South Wales Police)
Last Updated: 30 March 2026
A man caught selling cocaine outside a Neath bar and the woman supplying him have both been sentenced to three years in prison.
Stewart Parker, 34, of Wern Road, Skewen, was spotted by undercover officers from a specialist organised crime team on February 5 this year as he repeatedly entered and left Merlin’s bar in Windsor Road before approaching a parked vehicle nearby.
The arrest
Plain-clothed officers watching from Neath town centre believed they had witnessed a drug deal and moved in to detain Parker. He immediately told them he had bags of cocaine in his wallet, and a search uncovered five small snap-seal bags containing underweight half-gram deals.
Swansea Crown Court heard Parker told officers: “I don’t take it,” adding that he was dealing “to make money to get out of debt” and describing his own actions as “stupid.”
What officers found
A search of Parker’s home turned up more cocaine along with weighing scales bearing traces of cocaine and benzocaine – a cutting agent commonly added to deals.
Dean Pulling, prosecuting, said Parker voluntarily disclosed the pin to his iPhone, which contained messages revealing his involvement in the cocaine trade. Among them were messages in which he spoke of “working the pubs in Neath” and exchanges with his upstream supplier.
The supplier
Officers identified that supplier as Sophie Rees, 34, of Southgate Street, Melin, Neath, and tracked her to her parents’ address the following day. When they arrived, Rees was in the dining room setting up a new sim card and phone – having apparently disposed of her old device after learning of Parker’s arrest. She was found with £1,690 in cash which she claimed came from the sale of horses.
Both defendants answered “no comment” throughout their police interviews.
Previous offending
Parker has 12 previous convictions including burglary and two assaults occasioning actual bodily harm from 2021. Rees has five previous convictions including public disorder and possession of an offensive weapon.
What was said in mitigation
Hannah George, representing Parker, said her client was “thoroughly ashamed” of his behaviour. She told the court he had previously worked as a carer in Briton Ferry and begun a health and social care course with the Open University, but debts had led him to make the “foolish decision” to become involved in dealing. She said Parker had been working as a prison cleaner and in the laundry while on remand and “intends to try to move on from this.”
Stephen Thomas, for Rees, said references described his client as a “devoted mother” and a kind and caring person. He said there had been a 14-year gap in her offending and that 2025 had been a “particularly difficult year” following the death of a grandfather, which saw her cocaine use increase and led to considerable debts. He said Rees’s arrest and time on remand had been a “massive learning curve” and that she was now drug-free in custody with a trusted job in prison.
Sentencing
Judge Geraint Walters said Neath, like many towns, has a “profound problem” with drugs. He said the supply of Class A drugs not only blights the health of those who are addicted but “blights communities were decent people live and work.”
The judge said dealers’ motivations were either addiction or greed, with some seeing it as a “quick way of making lots of money.” He described dealing Class A drugs as a “gamble” and a “mug’s game.”
Parker was sentenced to three years in prison with a one-quarter discount for his guilty plea to being concerned in the supply of cocaine. Rees received the same sentence with a one-third discount for her earlier guilty pleas to the same charge and to possession of criminal property, namely cash.
Both will serve up to half their sentences in custody before being released on licence.
