An experienced drug dealer fell back into the illegal trade after getting in trouble with Albanian loan sharks, a Swindon court heard.

Darren Walcott, 40, has been given more than 14 years-worth of jail time in the past two decades for selling crack and heroin.

And at Swindon Crown Court on Thursday morning, Judge Jason Taylor QC gave him another six years and seven months for being the hand of God pulling the strings in the “Diego” drugs line.

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Darren Walcott Picture: WILTSHIRE POLICE

Prosecutor Gregory Gordon told the court police had cottoned on to Walcott’s County Line operation, which had sold to users in Wiltshire under the brand name Diego, after arresting a street dealer in Salisbury in January this year.

Analysis of the dealer’s phone showed he’d been sending updates back to his master Walcott, then living in London, detailing his stock of drugs and his profits.

The Diego drugs line phone, a cheap pre-paid Nokia mobile, was replaced after the Salisbury arrest with another telephone number. Checks of phone records showed the drugs line phone had been in contact with other known dealers in Wiltshire. Walcott was caught on CCTV topping up the line phone with credit at a London corner shop in August.

A month later, on September 14, police officers arrested the kingpin as he drove from the capital to Wiltshire. They seized the drugs line phone, other mobiles and quarter of a kilo of cocaine.

The officers raided Walcott’s family home and a flat registered in his name in London. They uncovered his personal Samsung mobile and three other cheap Nokia burner phones. Cash totalling £4,053.60 was found.

Mr Gordon said: “The Crown’s case is simple: he was running the Diego line, controlling that dealer in Salisbury and likely others in the Wiltshire area as well.”

Walcott had 16 convictions for 34 offences, including three for drugs trafficking. That put him at risk of rules requiring the judge to impose a mandatory seven year minimum sentence unless it would be unjust to do so.

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Swindon Crown Court 

Rob Ross, defending, did not argue that it would be unjust to impose the mandatory minimum on his client – for a second time.

He said Walcott had borrowed cash from Albanian loan sharks. “He couldn’t pay the loan and he’s been in the drugs world long enough – his record proves that – to know that if the Albanians give you a way out you take it and that’s exactly what he did.”

The debt was now being looked after and serviced by a relative while he was in prison.

Walcott, of North Circular Road, London, but appearing before the crown court via video link from Bristol prison, pleaded guilty to being concerned in the supply of class A drugs, possession with intent to supply cocaine and possession of criminal property.

Judge Taylor imposed the mandatory minimum of seven years’ imprisonment for the drugs matters, but gave Walcott the maximum amount of credit – 20 per cent – for his guilty pleas at the magistrates’ court, resulting in a sentence of five years and 219 days. The judge added a further 12 months’ imprisonment for the possession of the £4,000 criminally-acquired cash. The total sentence was a little over six years and seven months.

The judge told Walcott: “You need to understand this, Mr Walcott: if you continue to offend, especially within dealing of drugs, the sentences are just going to go up and your previous list of convictions paints a very poor picture.”

The drugs and cash were forfeit.