Promising basketball player jailed after being caught street dealing in Great Yarmouth

The campaign in March this year was co-ordinated by the Eastern Region Special Operations Unit (ERSOU) and saw officers from Norfolk carry out action in Norwich and Great Yarmouth aimed at disrupting the drug supply chain.

Norwich Crown Court heard that Bradley Mugova, 21, from Essex, was observed by officers making what appeared to be an exchange with another person in Great Yarmouth.

When stopped in St Georges Road, officers found drugs ready for sale in street deals, made up of eight wraps of cocaine and two wraps of heroin.

Martin Ivory, prosecuting, said that he also had £755 in cash, which would suggest he had already sold most of the drugs in street deals and he also had a small amount of cannabis for his personal use.

Mr Ivory said it was a typical county lines case, which is when gangs or drug networks from urban areas such as London send out couriers with dedicated mobile phone lines or 'deal lines'.

Mugova pleaded guilty to possessing Class A with intent to supply and also being in breach of a suspended sentence for affray.

He was jailed for two years.

Jailing him, Judge Maureen Bacon accepted Mugova had been put under some pressure to pay off a drugs debt by those higher up the chain.

'You were acting as a courier delivering drugs from outside the area to Great Yarmouth,' she said.

She said that it was a shame he did not pursue his promise as a basketball player but instead got involved with drugs and told him: 'You had a choice.'

Satya Chotalia, for Mugova, said that he had been a promising basketball player when he lived in Ireland before he moved to Colchester.

He said that he had then got involved in smoking cannabis and was coerced into selling the drugs to pay back a drugs debt.

'He recognises that drugs if the root cause of his offending,' Mr Chotalia said.

He said that he was putting his time in custody to good use and said that his arrest had been a wake-up call.