Court of Appeal refuses Oxfordshire drug dealer's appeal against jail

Richard Gray, then 33, received the 21 year prison term last summer after a judge at Oxford Crown Court ruled that the conspiracy of which he was prime-mover was responsible for supplying ‘at least’ 65kgs of cocaine in 2020 and 2021.

On Thursday (February 23), lawyers for the Witney man sought to persuade judges at the Court of Appeal that the sentence was manifestly excessive.

They said that Judge Michael Gledhill KC was wrong to conclude that at least 55kgs of cocaine were supplied during the second part of the conspiracy, by which point Gray had roped in his brother Patrick.

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His lawyers argued that, as their client had told the court from the witness box last year, not all the trips from Oxfordshire to the north of England were made to collect kilos of cocaine at a time – and that some involved handing over cash.

Rather than the 55kgs of cocaine that prosecutors estimated he had supplied, Gray claimed he had been involved in supplying 20kgs.

And Gray’s lawyers questioned why the judge had taken a starting point of 25 years’ imprisonment before discount for his guilty plea was factored in, when defendants involved in dealing significantly higher quantities of cocaine had received lower sentences.

Rejecting the appeal, Mrs Justice Lambert said: “The sentence of 25 years before discount was, we find, fully justified. If it is said to have been tough then we conclude this was rightly so.”

She added: “There is no doubt and indeed no dispute but that his was a leading role. But we are satisfied his was the leading role in the conspiracy.”

The panel of three senior judges noted that Gray had a previous conviction for drugs supply, and that he was involved in a ‘sophisticated and large-scale operation’ that was growing over time.

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During the trial of his brother, Patrick, a jury at Oxford Crown Court heard how the police were originally tipped off to Richard’s operation after French police cracked the heavily-encrypted Encrochat telephone network.

Richard Gray employed a network of couriers, used a specially-converted courier van to transport kilos of cocaine at a time, and once took delivery of a gas cannister into which had been carefully concealed 12kgs of the drug.

Police surveillance tracked the Gray brothers at their base, a network of farm buildings near Farmoor reservoir Picture: TVP (Image: TVP)

Officers from Thames Valley Police’s serious organised crime unit fitted a microphone into Gray’s vehicle.

It picked up what in court was labelled the ‘millionaires conversation’ between the gang leader and his brother. In it, Richard set out his long term plan of funnelling the drugs cash into a property portfolio so they would become ‘untouchable’.