A drugs gang ‘foot soldier’ through whose hands passed cocaine worth at least £1m has been jailed for six years.

Joseph Cleaton, 25, was in the ‘third tier’ of an Oxford-based organised crime group believed to have supplied at least 150kgs of cocaine in the first six months of 2020.

His role was store, check, then arrange for couriers to pick up significant quantities of the class A drug.

The group equipped Cleaton with an encrypted ‘Encrochat’ phone, with the defendant given the username StaySharp, which was used to arrange the delivery of cocaine to his flat and pick up by BMW-driving couriers.

Those higher up the chain wished him a ‘happy birthday’ on May 9, 2020, when he turned 23. On the same day he was told to take delivery of drugs and ‘flap’ them – slang for opening and testing the product.

The next day he was asked to prepare cocaine for a man nicknamed ‘chef’. In a cryptic response confirming he had done the job, he said: “All gravy.”

On May 11, he was asked to prepare quantities of cocaine ranging from 63g to 1kg, confirming he had carried out the instructions by telling his handlers ‘done’ or ‘done did’.

The messages between the gang were passed to UK police by the authorities in France, which managed to crack the Encrochat network’s servers in the summer of 2020.

The Oxford gang were among the organised crime groups worldwide that ditched their encrypted handsets after receiving a message from the communications company warning them that the network had been hacked.

Cleaton was not arrested until more than two years later, on October 5 this year, when police swooped on his home and he was detained. He was put before the magistrates’ court the following day and remanded into custody.

Another member of the gang, Ben Chen, who supplied 15kgs of cocaine and ketamine over a two week period in 2020, was jailed in September for six years, the court heard.

Cleaton, of Dora Carr Close, Headington, pleaded guilty at the first hearing in the crown court to conspiracy to supply class A drugs. He had two previous convictions of a dissimilar nature.

Sentencing him to six years’ imprisonment, Recorder John Bate-Williams said: “Everyday this court and I suspect every court in the country sees good and useful lives ruined – and I mean ruined – by drugs.

“It is not only the addicts whose lives are ruined. It is their families. It is the victims of the crimes the addicts commit in order to fund their habit. And it ruins the lives of the defendant – those who are responsible for dealing in these deadly and dastardly drugs.”

Mitigating, Kerrie Rowan said her client had been invited into the conspiracy after speaking to a friend when his agency construction work dried up during the pandemic and he found himself in financial difficulties.

Cleaton had not made much money from his involvement in the drugs trade, she said, although Recorder Bate-Williams suggested he would not have worked ‘for peanuts’.

Character references from Cleaton’s former employers, friends and partner spoke of his remorse and described him as ‘conscientious’ and ‘loving’.

He came from a Catholic family and, since being remanded in custody, had been attending mass in prison.

The court heard he had two previous convictions for unrelated offences. “He went from zero to 100 overnight,” barrister Ms Rowan said.

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This story was written by Tom Seaward. He joined the team in 2021 as Oxfordshire's court and crime reporter.  

To get in touch with him email: Tom.Seaward@newsquest.co.uk

Follow him on Twitter: @t_seaward