Pair jailed after drug dealer recruited them to lie at his trial (From The Northern Echo)

Pair from Seaham and Sunderland jailed after being recruited to lie at Haswell drug dealer's trial

6:22pm Thursday 14th March 2013 in News By Neil Hunter

A DRUG dealer who recruited two friends to lie during his trial has had two years added to his sentence - while his pals have also been locked up.

Leslie Graham was facing a lengthy spell behind bars if he was convicted of being part of a Hartlepool-based gang caught with five kilos of cocaine.

A crucial part of the case against the 49-year-old was a mobile telephone number linked to the plot - which he claimed belonged to someone else.

Graham got greyhound track owner Joseph Atkinson, 53, and 37-year-old dog breeder Andrew Samme to say they knew the other man, who had since died.

The pair - both without previous convictions - said their mobile phones had the number recorded under the other person.

When the lie later emerged - after Graham was convicted of the drugs charge - all three were arrested for perjury and perverting public justice.

Atkinson said he had not been threatened by Graham - who has convictions for drug dealing and violence - but feared his dog track might be burned down.

AT COURT: Andrew Samme

Samme's barrister, Christopher Rose, said he had been "extraordinarily foolish" but said the "amateurish and unsophisticated" bid was unsuccessful.

Judge Simon Bourne-Arton, QC, rejected defence barristers' claims that Samme, a joiner, and Atkinson had been "naive", saying they were both intelligent men.

However, he branded Graham "a professional drug dealer" and said it was a "determined" effort to avoid being implicated in what was known as Operation Mustard.

Graham claimed it was a solicitor's idea to find witnesses to say the phone did not belong to him, but the judge said he "ran with it with enthusiasm".

Samme, of Brockenhurst Drive, Sunderland; Atkinson, of Eastdene Road, Seaham, and Graham, of Greenacres Farm, in nearby Haswell, admitted both charges.

Graham had two years added to his seven-and-a-half-year drugs sentence, while the other two were jailed for ten months.

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