A Winchcombe man caught with 22,000 drugs sales messages on the County Lines phone he used for dealing in heroin and cocaine in the Cotswolds was jailed for 28 months yesterday (April 8).

Michael Smith, 22, of Binyon Road, Winchcombe, pleaded guilty at Gloucester Crown Court to being concerned in the supply of both Class A drugs and to possessing cannabis.

Judge Ian Lawrie QC said the scale of Smith's offending, and the fact that sentencing guidelines stipulated a minimum three and a half year immediate jail sentence for dealing in hard drugs, meant he could not avoid immediate imprisonment.

He rejected a defence submission that Smith, who is mourning the death of a brother in prison, should have sentence deferred to see if he can stay out of trouble and prove that he merits a suspended jail term.

Prosecutor Andrew Wilkins said: "He was running a county drugs line. He had three phones which he used in succession and police found that 22,000 bulk messages had been sent out. When he was detained, he had 1.59 grams of crack cocaine on him. Some of the phone numbers he used were stored in various users' phones under variations of his name."

Judge Lawrie said: "The sheer scale of the messages sent out from his phones is breathtaking!"

Mr Wilkins said Smith had a previous criminal conviction for a commercial burglary, for which he had been jailed for 18 months in 2021.

Michael Bignall, defending, referred the court to two probation reports on Smith, one of which he said spoke 'very highly' of him.

Smith played an important role in his family, helping his mother with looking after the other children, he said.

"But he doesn't help his mother by committing these offences!" retorted the judge.

"But he is around for her and he helps her getting the children to school," Mr Bignall responded.

"He is relatively young and he has already served a heavy sentence for a burglary. He is a man with whom, it appears, the probation service can work.

"He has been brought up around criminality. His father, who is in court to support him, is perhaps no stranger to Your Honour. The defendant has had a rotten start by being brought up around criminality as he has."

When Mr Bignall asked the judge to consider a deferment of sentence, Judge Lawrie asked what that would achieve.

"Getting him away from offending, focussing on looking after his family, building up a decent character over the next six months and presenting a wholly different man when he comes before you in six months," replied Mr Bignall.

"Your Honour may then feel that, quite exceptionally, this is a case where you could reduce the prison term to a level that could be suspended. You might see a different Michael Smith in a few months' time.

"He does not have a drug problem himself, although he accepts that he uses cannabis.

"Recently he has had two significant deaths in the family - a brother in prison died by his own hand in January. He has been grieving for his brother, the whole family has. In fact, when his father was contemplating with me today what was going to happen to this, son he was in floods of tears."

But jailing Smith, Judge Lawrie said: "You are defeated by the mathematics of the Sentencing Guidelines, I am afraid.

"The sheer quantity of the bulk text messages on your phone shows you were dealing at a significant level. The range of sentences for your offences is from three and a half years to seven years, with a starting point of four years."

The judge said there was no way he could bring down Smith's sentence to two years or below (the length at which suspended sentence are permitted).