Jailed: Pair caught with heroin and cocaine in flat raid
Two men were caught with hundreds of pounds worth of heroin and cocaine after police raided a flat that was being used as a base for drug-dealing.
And Ron Canhigh and Kyle Myrie both pleaded guilty to possessing the two class A drugs with intent to supply them.
Canhigh, aged 27, of Eden Grove, West Bromwich, and Myrie, 23, of Longstone Road, Perry Barr, Birmingham, were both jailed for 21 months at Warwick Crown Court.
Prosecutor Ian Speed said that in November last year the police executed a warrant at a council flat in Chesham Street, Leamington, which was virtually empty and had just two pieces on furniture in it.
The defendants were there, and when Myrie was searched the officers found heroin and cocaine worth £280 in the Canhigh had the keys to a car, and when that was searched a further £650 worth of heroin and cocaine was found, together with clingfilm, scales, a list of names and figures, and £130 in cash.
Canhigh accepted he had been 'delivering parcels,' but claimed he had been acting under duress, while Myrie sought to distance himself from his co-defendant, said Mr Speed.
The court heard that Canhigh had entered his plea on the basis that he had been acting under pressure and coercion, as he continued to maintain in his pre-sentence report.
His barrister Justin Jarmola, who also handed in a number of references, said: "It paints a clear picture of a young man who is very different from what one might expect in the dock for such offences.
"He holds no pro-drug views and is a working man, working from six in the morning, sometimes to seven in the evening.
"He is a courier. He was engaged through pressure, intimidation and coercion. It was an isolated act."
Mr Jarmola added that Canhigh is a carer for his elderly parents, with whom he lives, ensuring they take their proper medication and at the right times.
Inderdeep Bhomra, for Myrie, also handed in 'a raft of references' and asked the judge to follow a recommendation in the pre-sentence report on him.
He said Myrie had taken 'a foolish risk' at a time after his grandfather, who had raised him, had died and he began to drink too much.
Mr Bhomra said Myrie had been picked up and taken to Leamington to help wrap the drugs into deals after being offered £100 to do so.
Asking the judge not to pass an immediate sentence, he added that despite having the case hanging over him for almost a year, Myrie has started a three-year university computer course.
But jailing the two men, Judge Alan Parker told them: "Class A drugs destroy lives.
"They haven't destroyed your lives, or those of your families; but class A drugs kill people or otherwise make many of them addicted so that they're compelled to commit crime.
"People as intelligent as each of you should never have been even tempted to become involved in the sort of behaviour for which I have to pass sentence. The court cannot countenance conduct of that kind.
"I have given anxious thought as to whether I not I should suspend these sentences. I make clear, because of society's utter abhorrence of the effects of class A drugs, that I cannot."
