A CASH courier recruited by a drugs kingpin to collect debts is starting a prison sentence along with the others jailed for their parts in a huge conspiracy.

Twenty other gang members were locked up in May after Operation Cobweb cracked a major cocaine, heroin and crack cocaine network linking the north west with Teesside.

Today, (Wednesday, October 14) Mark Readman - identified later as the user of two throw-away mobile phones - got 18 months after he admitted being concerned in the supply of Class A drugs.

Teesside Crown Court heard that the 26-year-old plasterer had been bullied into collecting money for Scott Pickering - jailed for 15 years for his high-level role.

Readman owed Pickering £100 for cannabis and had been "required" to discharge the debt by working for him, said prosecutor Nick Dry, and he was afraid of his violence.

Mr Dry said he later got a job, told Pickering he would no longer work for him and refused to store drugs at the Stockton home he shared with his mother and son.

Duncan McReddie, mitigating, said Readman had made admissions way beyond what the police could prove when he was first interviewed, and had never before been in trouble.

Judge Simon Bourne-Arton, QC, told Readman: "Those who become involved in the supply of Class A drugs in any respect whatsoever will face a custodial sentence.

"Whoever they are and whatever role they play, they are involved in a very serious offence, and of course your job was to collect money. You were trusted."

The court heard that the "ruthless and determined" gang was involved in the "industrial scale" movement of drugs across the Pennines, and the £700,000 of substances seized was the tip of the iceberg.