3PB Barrister Jane Rowley successfully prosecutes 4 men who were part of an Organised Crime Group
18th April 2019
3PB Barrister Jane Rowley successfully prosecutes 4 men who were part of an Organised Crime Group involved in a drugs conspiracy, offensive weapons and firearms offences (Operation Socket) in Southampton Crown Court.
On 12th April four men were jailed for their part in supplying and selling cannabis to students in Southampton as part of an organised crime group investigated by the Hampshire Police.
Police seized drugs worth £10,000 being transported to the city on 11th September 2018.
The group's leader, Sylwester Idziak, 30, was later arrested by armed police.
Three other men were jailed for between 13 months and eight years and 6 months.
Southampton Crown Court heard police had the men under surveillance from April 2018.
Prosecutor Jane Rowley described Polish-national Idziak, of Winchester Road, Southampton, as the "lynchpin who masterminded the operation".
A firing pistol which had been modified to become a working firearm, as well as ammunition, was recovered from the car. Idziak was arrested after armed police stopped a car in Archers Road in Southampton on 11 September, in an operation witnessed and filmed by passers-by.
The firing pistol recovered had been modified to become a working firearm.
Live ammunition, was also recovered from the car.
Idziak was convicted of conspiring to supply cannabis and possessing a firearm following trial.
He was sentenced to a total term of eight and a half years imprisonment.
Polish National Michal Lasak, of King George's Avenue, was arrested by police on the M3 on 6th September 2018, with a baseball bat and a kilo of cannabis with an estimated street value of £10,000 thought to have been supplied to him by Shey Roberts.
Lasak was described as a "general runner and transporter" and was given 13 months in jail after admitting conspiracy to supply cannabis and possession of an offensive weapon at an earlier hearing.
Shey Roberts, of Juniper Close, was also convicted of conspiracy to supply cannabis and sentenced to 18 months in prison following trial.
Ethiopian-born Simon Tekle, of Newcombe Road, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply cannabis and possession of a firearm. He was arrested at his home shortly after Idziak was detained and 25 bags of cannabis ready to be sold were discovered in his flat.
The court heard he was supplying the drug to fellow university students and other users. He was jailed for six months and four months.
Passing sentence, Judge Christopher Parker said the four were "a determined and organised criminal network with aspirations to grow".
Related Articles
-
3PB are delighted to announce that employment barrister Matthew Curtis and criminal law barrister, Berenice Mulvanny (pictured here) have been appointed part-time Deputy District Judges - to officiate on the Western Circuit (to hear civil cases), and in the Magistrates Courts respectively. Berenice was called to the Bar in 2009. She is a specialist practitioner instructed on the most serious offences on the Western Circuit, including murder, rape and other serious sexual offences, fraud and...
Continue reading -
3PB's crime and regulatory barrister Jonathan Underhill’s client CW was charged with a serious allegation of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm (GBH) following a violent incident inside his own home in 2021. CW raised, and maintained, self-defence at trial. Over the course of careful and decisive cross examination, the complainant admitted not having told the complete truth to the police; accepting that he had failed to mention his own consumption of Class...
Continue reading -
3PB's criminal and regulatory barrister Graham Gilbert, pictured here, successfully resisted an application by the Solicitor General, Alex Chalk KC MP, to the Court of Appeal to increase his client, convicted burglar and drug dealer Otis Tomney's two-year suspended sentence as “unduly lenient”. Otis Tomney, who was represented throughout the original burglary case and this sentence appeal by barrister Graham Gilbert, had over 120 previous offences for drug-dealing, burglary, and weapons offences. Graham was instructed...
Continue reading -
3PB crime barrister Thomas Acworth represented DB, a vulnerable man with serious health issues, who was charged with conspiracy to transfer prohibited weapons and conspiracy to transfer ammunition. Together with others, DB was said to have converted legal, blank-firing pistols into operational, lethal handguns. The handguns were then supplied to other organised criminal groups around the country. Some were used in gangland shootings. At sentence, HHJ Real accepted Thomas’ ‘focused and realistic’ submissions about DB’s role...
Continue reading
