POLICE welcomed the heavy sentences passed on a gang of heroin dealers this week - but criticised the judicial system for the delay in jailing them.

Ten drug dealers, who were arrested last year during Chester-le-Street CID's 150-officer Operation Cassidy, were jailed for a total of 47 years at Durham Crown Court.

Despite several gang members pleading guilty to supplying the class-A controlled drug in October, it has taken ten months to sentence them.

With that time spent on remand, police are angry the delay has taken a chunk out of the time they will serve in jail.

The most severe sentences saw three defendants given seven years each and two given six years in jail.

Speaking after Tuesday's sentencing, Det Insp Andy Reddick of Durham and Chester-le-Street Police said he was 'over the moon' about the length of the jail terms.

He said: "We are not complacent enough to believe this will stop the supply of heroin altogether in the town.

"However, GPs have told us that heroin is so hard to come by that they're telling people it is the right time to give up."

Judge Denis Orde told the defendants: "You have bought more degredation and misery and no doubt illness to the young people of Chester-le-Street than any others in recent years."

The Advertiser and its sister paper The Northern Echo has launched a Rat on a Rat campaign with County Durham Police and the Durham Agency Against Crime to urge people to inform on dealers in their midst.

But Det Insp Reddick added: "It is disappointing and a reflection on the far-too-complex judicial system that it has taken until now to get these people sentenced. There have been a number of adjournments we felt were unnecessary."

A spokesman for the Lord Chancellor's Office, which runs the crown court system, said the delay was primarily down to the difficulty in agreeing adjournment dates between 11 separate barristers.

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