THE sixth member of a drugs gang - which included two North-East men and a former suspect in the murder of Stephen Lawrence – has been spared jail.

The £4m cannabis operation involved funnelling huge amounts of the drug from London to the North-East.

Lee Birks, 56, was handed a two-year prison sentence, suspended for two years, at Kingston Crown Court after earlier pleading guilty to conspiracy to supply a Class B drug.

The judge, Recorder Paul Clements, said Birks, of Orpington, Kent, was on the "bottom rung" of the scheme.

He told Birks: "You were not just foolish, you were beyond that, and you assisted others in the committal of an appalling drug conspiracy."

Neil Acourt, 42, was earlier described in court as the "man at the top" of the two-year conspiracy, which involved dozens of 600-mile (965km) round trips from London to the South Shields area, driving drugs up and bringing cash back.

Acourt, of Eltham, south-east London, was arrested in relation to the racist attack on 18-year-old Mr Lawrence, who was stabbed to death by a gang of white men at a bus stop in Eltham in 1993.

But the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) formally discontinued the case against him after a meeting with the senior investigating officer.

Acourt, a father-of-one who is also known as Neil Stuart, was jailed for six years and three months at Kingston Crown Court earlier this year.

His childhood friend, James Botton, 46, of Greenwich, south-east London, and father-in-law Jack Vose, 64, of Bexley, Kent, were each jailed for four years and nine months.

Paul Beavers, 50, of Backworth, Tyne and Wear, was jailed for three years and four months and Daniel Thompson, 28, of South Shields, Tyne and Wear, for four years and two months.

All previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply a Class B drug between January 2014 and February 2016 and prosecutors now hope to recoup some of the criminal cash at a confiscation hearing scheduled for April 12 next year.

In 2012, Gary Dobson and David Norris were convicted at the Old Bailey of murdering Mr Lawrence and jailed for life.

Norris and Acourt were jailed for 18 months in 2002 for a racist attack on off-duty black policeman Gareth Reid.