Former cop jailed for creating cocaine supply chain

A former police officer has been jailed after running a cocaine supply line from his old workplace of Manchester to his home in Devon.

Exeter Crown Court heard on Monday that Gary Parkinson had a leading role in the conspiracy to increase distribution to Devon through his contacts in Manchester, where he had served in the Greater Manchester Police for 14 years.

Judge Stephen Climie jailed Parkinson for six years and four months after being told Parkinson put up the money for the class A drugs and sold them on for "significant financial advantage".

The court heard he left the police before the conspiracy began and moved to a village of Clawton near Holsworthy in Devon.

In seven weeks between November 2019 and January 2022, when police busted the operation, two kilos of cocaine had been supplied with a street value of around £160,000 during nine trips from Hyde in Manchester.

Parkinson, 45, was arrested in a car with £7,000 cash and list of customers who owed him money ranging from £11,700 to £2,500.

His barrister, Harry Laidlaw, told the court he fully accepted his role in a "relatively small drugs operation between Manchester and the Devon area".

He said the national and international links to suppliers was "very much the remit of others".

"This was not conducted when he was a police officer and there is no suggestion, he made use of information as a police officer to pursue this venture," the lawyer said.

The court heard that since his arrest Parkinson had not been involved in any more criminality and there had been a significant delay since he entered his guilty plea in 2022.

Laidlaw said: "It has been blindingly obvious what he was going to get when this day was going to come."

He said Parkinson had had his final meal with family and friends several times, but sentencing had been put off, and this has had an impact on him.

"He has committed the crime, and he has to do the time," he added.

The court heard Parkinson was injured when serving in the police and in 2018 he suffered a serious injury in a quad bike accident meaning it was impossible for him to continue as an officer.

Laidlaw said Parkinson had serious physical issues and tested positive for Huntington's Disease, an incurable and terminal disease which breaks down nerve cells in the brain leading to cognitive decline.

He told the court he made "very poor and wrong decisions" and accepted what he had done, adding financial difficulties seemed to be behind his offending.

He said financial problems led to him setting up the drugs line between Manchester and Devon and he played a leading role in that.

The judge said his guilty plea, significant health issues and the stress and anxiety caused by the delay in the case which "extended to years rather than weeks or months" meant he could reduce the sentence from 10 years.

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