A STROUD man who plotted in a £50,000 cocaine deal has been jailed for seven years.

Oliver Pritchard was one of two drug dealers handed sentences totalling 13 years at Gloucester Crown Court today, Wednesday, April 20.

His co-conspirator Alistair Foley, aged 27 of Windrush Road, Cheltenham, was ordered to serve six years for his part in the deal, which was intercepted by Gloucestershire police.

Both Foley and Pritchard, aged 28, of Dudbridge Meadow, Stroud, arranged the trade-off by phone and used two other men as couriers to exchange the cocaine at Butterow Hill in Stroud on March 11 last year.

A 1.24kg package of white substance was handed over by James Dawkins to Ryan McCormick, who had travelled down from Cheltenham to collect the drugs.

The cocaine had been bulked out –or ‘cut’ - with other substances so its purity was low but the court was told it had a street value of some £50,000.

Pritchard was the seller and Foley the buyer but both men, who claimed to be professional motor traders during the trial, had distanced themselves from the street-level hand-over by using Dawkins and McCormick.

However, their movements were being tracked by police and the pattern of telephone calls between the parties established their respective roles in the deal.

Dawkins, aged 30, of Butterow Hill, Stroud, and McCormick, aged 25, of Swindon Road, Cheltenham, both pleaded guilty last year to their parts and received sentences of three years and four months and four years and three months respectively.

A third man, Alex Dennett, aged 25, also of Swindon road, Cheltenham, earlier pleaded guilty to assisting an offender after Foley later handed over his mobile phone to him.

He is on bail and will be sentenced at a later date.

Detective Inspector Neil Carpenter, who headed up the investigation, said: "We are determined to bring to justice not only the couriers who risk arrest on the streets but those who make the deals behind the scenes.

"I hope this conviction shows that orchestrators like Foley and Pritchard cannot escape prosecution, just because they give their instructions from the sidelines using mobile phones."