Jail for London drug dealer who sold heroin and crack in Bicester

Noel Parchment, 34, denied having a hand in the Donovan drugs line, a London-based operation that peddled heroin and cocaine in Bicester during 2020.

Instead, he suggested that the man responsible was Patrick Anzy – known by his nickname ‘Ro’ – who until October 2020 was staying at his home in the capital and with whom he spent almost all his time last summer.

Prosecutors claimed Parchment had deliberately chosen to blame Mr Anzy, who in May 2021 was shot dead in Dalston, North London.

Noel Parchment's custody shot Picture: THAMES VALLEY POLICE

Jailing him for eight-and-a-half years at Oxford Crown Court this morning, Judge Michael Gledhill QC said: “You knew perfectly well the fact that cocaine and heroin are class A controlled drugs and that it is illegal to possess them let alone supply them.”

He knew the consequences of supplying class A drugs to users, Judge Gledhill added. “It causes utter misery both for them personally and for their loved ones and you didn’t care less. What you wanted was to make money. That is why you were in this – for commercial gain.”

Parchment, of Kesteven Close, Ilford, had denied being concerned in the supply of class A drugs. The jury took three hours and 15 minutes to deliver unanimous guilty verdicts.

During the trial, jurors were given a series of maps appearing to show that Parchment’s GPS tag – fitted to his leg following a driving conviction – was in the same places as the ‘Donovan’ drugs line phone. His own phone was in Bicester when bulk messages advertising drugs were sent out in June and July.

Contacts from Parchment’s personal phone were shown to have been in touch with a phone linked to the drugs operation.

The jury was also told that one of the defendant’s nicknames was 1Don. Parchment said most knew him as Pelé – or P – due to his prowess on the football field, although he had been christened 1Don by a female friend due to his resemblance to a Jamaican music star called Aidonia.

During the trial, the defendant denied being involved in dealing drugs. He suggested that Anzy, who he invited to live with him after learning he was sleeping rough in his car, may have been responsible.

He claimed that Anzy had brought a set of scales to the home, on which police later found traces of class A drugs. Parchment said he’d used the scales to weigh his cannabis, while his partner said she’d used them for measuring out baking ingredients.

Police released this image of Patrick Anzy after his murder in May 2021 Picture: MET POLICE

Anzy, known to Parchment only as Ro, was asked to leave on October 18 after he learned the lodger had tried to offer cannabis to his partner’s son, jurors were told.

A former friend of Anzy’s, called as a witness, said he was sure he’d visited him there ‘about two or three times’ after October 18.

Parchment said he’d visited Bicester with his sister to drop off headphones to silent disco organisers who’d travelled down from the West Midlands. He had gone to the shopping outlet to buy a present and had also visited a cousin living in the Oxfordshire town, although he would not name them and other family members did not corroborate the claim. His sister suggested it was another sister who lived in Bicester, while his partner was not aware Parchment had family in the town.

Nicholas Maggs, mitigating, said his client had been born in Jamaica and came to the UK when he was 13 to live with his mother.

He and his sister were abandoned by their mother and he had spent some time homeless before being taken in by a step-mother, the court heard.

Parchment had two children by a previous partner and a third child with his current partner, who worked long hours as a bus driver.

Mr Maggs asked the judge to bear in mind the difficult conditions in prison, where his client had spent the past eight months on remand.

Passing sentence, Judge Gledhill accepted that Parchment’s loved ones would suffer most from his incarceration.

But he added: “Who’s fault is that? Perhaps you will reflect every day of your sentence as to the consequences of your deliberate offending over that long period of time on those...who have done nothing wrong at all apart from being associated with you.”

The judge said: “Between May 22 last year and October 13 you were very much involved in a county line which was running class A controlled drugs, heroin and cocaine, from London to the Bicester area.

“You were certainly in a leading role, in my view. Having heard the evidence it is quite clear that you had substantial links to others in the chain and that you were influential over others in the chain of people dealing drugs in this county line.

“One only has to look at the 45 bulk messages sent out over that period to see the commercial scale of this operation. On the first 12 dates when bulk messages were sent from the drug supply to users in Bicester you were in fact in Bicester.

“Having seen and considered carefully the evidence, particularly the directions to users as to where to go to pick up drugs - Kennedy Road, for example – it is quite clear that you were at the Bicester end of the drugs line when these first 12 bulk messages were sent. Supplying, organising the sale on the street to these drug users.

Oxford Crown Court Picture: ED NIX

“Thereafter, telephone evidence is quite clear that you were not in Bicester when the other messages were sent. You were principally in the north and east London area and it is quite clear to me that you were in possession of the Donovan 4829 phone, which was sending out those bulk messages.

“On every occasion bulk messages were sent your personal phone was in close proximity to or with that phone and there is evidence from the electronic tag device that was on your ankle that you were physically very near if not next to the 4829 number.

“How you became involved in this serious and long-running operation I don’t know. Certainly, your evidence hasn’t assisted me in determining how you became involved and what your role was because you are in complete denial [that you were] involved at all despite the overwhelming nature of the evidence.”