A BUNGLING Powys border man who left a ‘hefty amount of ketamine’ in a bag at a railway station has been jailed for supplying Class A drugs.

Jordan McCourt-Knight, 30 and from Leintwardine near Knighton,  pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy to supply a class A drug (cocaine and MDMA) and five counts of conspiracy to supply a class B drugs (ketamine and cannabis) and was jailed for six years and three months.

Co-defendants Harley Hall, of Shropshire and Bath-based Cassius Davies-Thompson, 28, were given 70 months and 12 months, suspended for 18 months, respectively.

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British Transport Police caught them as part of a prolific drugs ring that operated across the South West and Shropshire and imported drugs from Portugal.

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All three were sentenced at Cardiff Crown Court on Friday 8 November.

The court heard how the investigation began back in November 2019 when bungling McCourt-Knight left a bag containing a hefty amount of ketamine on a train at Newport.

Despite running back to try to claim it the train had already left the station and the bag was found by staff who uncovered the illicit contents and reported it to police.

This sparked a police hunt for the owner, whose apprehension was aided by the fact that McCourt-Knight himself had actually reported the bag missing to staff at Newport station.

He was arrested and found to be carrying a small quantity of class A and class C drugs, £1,910 in cash, drug paraphernalia and a number of mobile phones.

The total amount of ketamine had a street value of somewhere between £19,940 and £39,880.

McCourt-Knight’s costly mistake led to the unravelling of the entire drugs line with Hall being identified through messages on the phone as another big player in the drugs enterprise.

Texts revealed Hall and McCourt-Knight had secured what he promised to be a higher grade of cocaine which he was selling onto other members of the group to pass onto street dealers.

But the deal went wrong and the pair fell out when ‘customers’ complained that the cocaine was not up to standard due to the amount of cutting agent used to bulk it out.

Following the retrieval of the text messages Hall was arrested and a search of his home resulted in thousands of pounds in cash and over 1kg of cannabis being seized.

County Times:

Investigating officer DS Dan Murdoch said: “McCourt-Knight boasted about his use of his Encro-Device which was used along with his mobile phone to source and distribute the drugs.

“But his boastfulness was short lived, as, through one careless mistake, McCourt–Knight single handedly helped bring down the drugs ring, unwittingly aiding detectives in unravelling the entire enterprise.

“These individuals cause significant harm to our communities through the supply of and profit from illicit drugs, often exploiting vulnerable persons in the process, and it is testament to the work of the team that they are now behind bars.”