FOUR Westcliff drugs dealers have been jailed for a combined 12 years for selling crack cocaine and heroin from a “stash house” just yards from Southend Hospital.

The dealers – who worked for the “Dollar” county lines drug gang – were arrested in October following a six-month police operation which saw undercover officers pose as addicts and purchase drugs from the gang.

A search of a “stash house” in Carlingford Drive, Westcliff, found 2.5 kilograms of crack cocaine and heroin with an estimated street value of £250,000, set to be sold on the streets of Southend and Basildon, the court heard.

Barrie Long and Kirstie Saunders, who are partners and lived together and Arron Reynolds and Nina King, also partners who lived together, all pleaded guilty to dealing last year and were jailed.

Judge Shane Collery said: “County lines are a national scourge and we in Essex here suffers as much if not more than many areas. Here we are dealing with what is known as the ‘Dollar’ lines, a phone line used to take orders for drugs over several years and typically used drug users to perform the hands-on task of delivering drugs and collecting money.

“There have been many arrests over the year, but the line has always passed over to a new phone number.

“There is an indication some members may have been duped into recurring debts to work off with the background threat of violence if they did not, however each person who took part knew what they were doing, feeding the degradation of others.”

The court was told they had been “low down” in the chain of command and had handled delivering drugs and taking money back to bosses.

They claimed they had been manipulated into working as runners to clear debts for their own drug habits.

King and Saunders were charged with conspiring to supply a Class A controlled drug. Long and Reynolds faced three counts of the same charge.

Long, 43, Wenham Drive, Westcliff, was jailed for five years and nine months. Saunders, 37, of the same address, was sentenced to two years and five months’ imprisonment.

Reynolds, 52, Hamlet Court Road, Westcliff, was jailed for three years. King, 49, of the same address, was jailed for two years and five months.

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