JUBILANT police were celebrating last night after a judge jailed a gang at the centre of what detectives called the biggest heroin network in the North-East.

The "family firm" of Tees-side drug dealers ran an operation earning £1,000 an hour, "pedalling death and despair from Tyneside to Yorkshire". Six men and one woman were jailed.

Teesside Crown Court heard the mainly family-run "business" was led by Paul Terry, 29, of Hesleden Avenue, Acklam, Middlesbrough, who was jailed for ten years.

Graham Reeds, prosecuting, said Terry had gained almost £500,000 through his drug dealing and had paid £60,000 in cash for his house and bought a Porsche Boxter for £31,000 in cash too.

His brothers Neil and Mark, the court heard, were also involved in the sale of drugs along with cousin Simon Bashford. Other gang members were Paul Parker, Phillip Tennant and Alison Wilson.

An eighth accused, Martin Frost, committed suicide before the case went to court.

Mr Reeds said the ring had been smashed after a six-month operation by Cleveland Police's organised crime unit, which included covert surveillance of the gang.

Paul Terry's home was bugged with a listening device, Mr Reeds said, which was so sensitive police officers could hear money being counted.

Test purchases were also made by an undercover officer after the operation to net the dealers began last summer. It finished in January.

The gang was selling drugs in one-eighth of an ounce bags, worth about £125, which had a high purity level of between 49 and 62 per cent. They were selling to street dealers, who would sell on to addicts.

In total, the court heard, police recovered heroin with a street value of more than £130,000.

Through the bug planted in Paul Terry's home, Mr Reeds said, he was heard bragging he had been running the business for three years.

In the "modest suburban home" of his girlfriend's sister, Alison Wilson, police found £104,154 of drug money.

Pregnant Wilson, 30, of Bailey Grove, North Ormesby, was jailed for 18 months after admitting assisting Paul Terry to retain the proceeds of his drug trafficking. The six men all pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to supply heroin.

Bashford, 29, of Peckham, London, was jailed for two years, Parker, 20, of Edward Street, North Ormesby, for seven years, Tennant, 33, of Millbrook Avenue, Brambles Farm, for three-and-a-half years, Neil Terry, 26, of Hesleden Avenue, Acklam, for six years, and Mark Terry, 31, of Cambridge Terrace, High Clarence, for five years.

Judge Anthony Briggs said the role each had played in the operation was reflected in the sentences each had received but said each had been a "vital cog" in the conspiracy. He said: "All of you have taken part in preparing, selling or stashing drugs or money."

Detective Inspector Neil Fox of Cleveland Police said: "This was a major drugs dealing network which peddled death and despair from Tyneside down into Yorkshire.

"Their future is a prison cell and we will take every legal step possible to strip them of their ill-gotten gains."

A drug trafficking inquiry hearing, which can claim assets linked to drug dealing, will be held into Paul Terry on February 1.