A drug kingpin and his middle-aged cohorts have been jailed for a combined 27 years for a mega-money cannabis production-and-supply racket.
Alan Barker, 56, his brother Gary Barker, 53, James Dalton, 34, and Stevie Annis, 40, were the main players in a huge conspiracy based in Selby and Drax but whose tentacles spread throughout Yorkshire and the Midlands.
Alan Barker, known as “The Boss” and described as the “CEO” of the illicit enterprise, used his business Selby Hydroponics in West Bank, near Carlton, as cover for the “industrial scale” drugs plot.
On Friday, 24 May, Alan Barker, from Long Drax, was jailed for nine years and nine months after he was found guilty of multiple offences including conspiring to produce and supply cannabis.
Gary Barker was jailed for six years and three months and Stevie Annis and Dalton were each jailed for five-and-a-half years for their part in the conspiracy.
Such were the number of people involved in the 18-month conspiracy that two separate trials were held, involving two sets of defendants, in October 2023 and January this year.
Trial prosecutor Joseph Hudson told Leeds Crown Court the cannabis plot was so extensive that police used two separate operations to track, and ultimately crack, the “professional, sophisticated” drug network, concerned predominantly with the potent skunk variety of cannabis.
The conspiracy involved both the supply and production of cannabis between June 2017 and December 2018, but the indictment period only covered the conspirators’ activities and movements around five cannabis factories across Yorkshire and beyond that were discovered by police.
The prosecution said there may have been other cannabis farms that were not discovered and which may have been in operation long before this period.
Worth £75,000
In those five cannabis factories alone, police discovered about 420 marijuana plants with potential yields of about 14 kilos worth up to £75,000. This did not include the 8.2kg found in the runners’ vehicles worth up to £41,000.
The prosecution said that these figures may have been but a “snapshot” of a wider drugs racket involving the same “organised” gang.
The “organised criminality” included the use of “phone-listening”, anti-bugging and vehicle-scanning devices and “threats of coercion”, all watched over by Alan Barker.
The series of arrests began in the summer of 2017 when police stopped a Volkswagen Amorak registered to Alan Barker and driven by another named conspirator. Inside the vehicle, police found items used for cannabis cultivation including three boxes of ducting, an air pump, a bucket of plant-growth chemicals and hooks for hanging lights.
Mr Hudson said the named driver was a “frequent visitor” to an industrial unit in North Duffield where police found about a kilo of cannabis with a street value of up to £10,000. They also found a vacuum-seal machine and bags “likely to have been used to sell…cannabis”.
“It appeared (the industrial unit) was being used as a packing facility for cannabis that had been grown elsewhere,” said Mr Hudson.
Barker was duly arrested at the home he shared with his then partner Kate Barker at an old farm in Long Drax in September 2017. Police searched the property and found a “marijuana-growers’ book” in the kitchen, two bags of cannabis and weighing scales.
In a downstairs bedroom they discovered a small rifle under a pile of clothes in a chest of drawers.
“The firearm was in working order – Alan Barker’s DNA was recovered from the trigger of the rifle,” said Mr Hudson.
Police discovered a second prohibited firearm, a Parker Hale shotgun, in the roof rafters of their barn which doubled as a horse stable.
They also found a cash-counting machine and three invoices from Selby Hydroponics, the company run by Alan Barker which on the surface was simply involved in the tomato-growing business but was in fact used as a “cover” for the supply of equipment and special nutrients for the cannabis grows.
Alan Barker’s garage had been rigged up for cannabis cultivation, complete with an air-conditioning unit and lined with “foil material”. Ducting had been used for ventilation.
In August 2018, police arrested one of the West Yorkshire men after stopping a Volkswagen on the A1041 near Drax, heading for Alan Barker’s home in Long Drax. They found a suitcase inside the boot which contained 3.25kg of skunk cannabis worth up to £16,500.
A month later, Dalton, 34, of Hillside, Byram, was arrested in a VW Golf. Police found five kilos of cannabis inside the boot and a large amount of cannabis stuck to his leg, along with £1,170 in cash and his “business card”.
Despite this, the drug network continued to expand and over at Selby Hydroponics, described as “the hub” of the operation, Alan Barker arranged for the dumping of 1.5 kilos of skunk cannabis and 160 plants, using a mechanical digger to dig a hole big enough to remove all the evidence.
Firearms for protection
Rob Stevenson, prosecuting at the sentence hearing, said that Alan Barker had the firearms for “criminal purposes” to protect his crops.
In 1999, he received a 14-year prison sentence for the “sophisticated importation” of 40 kilos of Class A drugs worth £20 million.
In the Drax cannabis plot, his younger brother Gary, of Spring Banks, Liversedge, West Yorkshire, had an “operational role” and collected debts for his brother.
Gary Barker had previous convictions including fraud and in 2010 he received a 30-month jail sentence for supplying cocaine.
The two brothers, along with Dalton and Stevie Annis – described as Alan Barker’s “trusted lieutenants” – were found guilty of conspiracy to produce and supply cannabis.
Alan Barker admitted possessing a firearm when prohibited from doing so and possession of a firearm without a certificate. He also admitted simple possession of amphetamine and cannabis.
His former wife Kate Barker, 41, now of Main Road, Drax, admitted two counts of possessing a prohibited firearm.
Diane Jayne Mitchell, 64, and John Healey, 44, both of Owler Lane, Batley, and Ben Marshall, 52, of Pole Gate, Scammonden, near Huddersfield, admitted allowing their premises to be used for cannabis production.
Mark Furness, 60, of Leeds Road, Heckmondwike, West Yorkshire, was found guilty of allowing his premises to be used for the same purpose.
‘Good father’
Defence barrister Sean Smith, for Alan Barker, said his client was an otherwise “generous” man and good father.
Kieran Galvin, for Gary Barker, said his client had previously run a “very good”, legitimate business but then “tipped over into criminality”.
Nicholas Cartmell, for Stevie Annis, claimed the married father, formerly of Westfield Terrace, Halifax, was essentially an “errand boy” for Alan Barker.
Hugh McKee, for Dalton, said his client was a “manager” in the operation.
Counsel for Furness, Marshall, Mitchell and Healey said they had limited functions in the operation.
Defence counsel for Kate Barker said she wasn’t involved in the cannabis enterprise and had only admitted firearms possession on the basis that she was aware that her ex-husband had kept the rifles at their former home. The marriage ended during the Covid lockdown.
Judge Robin Mairs said that Alan Barker was the “operating mind” and head of the “large-scale” criminal enterprise.
He added: “This was professional criminality by professional criminals (involved in) the industrial production of cannabis.”
Furness was given a 12-month suspended prison sentence, Marshall received a 15-week suspended jail term, and Healey and Mitchell each received 13-week suspended jail sentences and were each ordered to pay £500 fines.
Kate Barker, who had no previous convictions, was given a six-month community order with 60 hours of unpaid work. Several other conspirators, some of whom were found guilty earlier this year, will be sentenced on 3 July.