Three heroin dealers were jailed for a total of 14 years after police spied on their customers calling them to order drugs from a telephone box outside an Oxford school to order the drug.

Aaron Clarke and Leon Graham, both 21, who come from Luton, stored the heroin in 25-year-old Peter Gaertner's house in Thomson Terrace, Littlemore, before selling it to addicts in Blackbird Leys Recreation Ground.

Paul Reid, prosecuting, told Oxford Crown Court yesterday that undercover police watched them from the end of August to the beginning of October last year, when Graham was recruited two days before they were all arrested.

Judge Anthony King called the plan sophisticated, adding: "People who involve themselves in the supply of class A drugs must know that they will be dealt with severely."

Det Insp John Fox, of Oxford police, whose Proactive Unit set up the operation, said: "These sentences send a clear message to people from outside Oxford who think they can come to this city to deal drugs."

"Thames Valley Police has been successful over the last 18 months in targeting such individuals. The court is also showing it will not tolerate such activity by such strong sentencing." Det Con Tim Hurley, who was on the team at the time, told the Oxford Mail they estimated the dealers were making between £2,000 and £2,500 a day.

Police took photographs with a long-lens camera of deals taking place in Blackbird Leys and of to a stream of customers turning up in cars - including a pizza van - to buy heroin. They also snapped people using the phone box outside a school in Sandford Road, Littlemore, from where they would call Clarke's mobile phone to order heroin. Clark would then ring Gaertner, a heroin addict, to get the drugs.

Mr Reid said that in a 42-day period a total of 149 calls were made to the mobile phone.

Clark would drive to Oxford each day to make money and Graham was eventually brought into the gang to take over Clark's role.

Graham threw away more than £2,000 of heroin wraps when police swooped on him and Clark as they made their way to the recreation ground on October 7.

Clarke and Gaertner pleaded guilty to consipiracy to supply heroin and were were both jailed for five-and-a-half years.

Graham, who denied the charge, was convicted after a trial in June and jailed for three years.

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