Police are celebrating after an undercover drugs operation cleared an Oxfordshire town of heroin and put 11 people behind bars for a total of 40 years and 10 months.

Eleven people charged with drugs related offences were sentenced yesterday at Oxford Crown Court following three-month covert Operation Meerkat.

Other offenders, involved in regularly handling goods stolen by drug addicts to fund their habit, were also targeted. They have already been sentenced.

During the operation, three undercover police officers known as 'Gaz', 'Matt' and 'Kelly' posed as drug addicts in need of heroin.

Police also fitted a covert listening device into the home of Darren Presley, 32, and Lindsey Fowles, 21, in Druids Walk, Didcot.

The court heard Presley was one of the heroin wholesalers who would pass the drug from the couple's flat on to street dealers, who supplied it to addicts.

Det Insp Andy Boyd said: "We did this in Didcot because we were aware of a gradual increase in the level of heroin in the Didcot area which was becoming evident in a prominent rise in drug-related crime.

"This kind of operation has been done in Oxfordshire before and we will continue to seek new and different ways to target drug dealers."

In 2003, drug dealer Nicholas Lambrianou, 60, of The Fairway, Banbury, was snared by undercover police officers who infiltrated a gang of heroin users.

Supt Jill Simpson, South Oxfordshire area commander, said: "I'm extremely pleased with the outcome of the operation because it has put the people who were driving the drug scene in Didcot behind bars.

"Crimes associated with drug dealing, such as burglary, car crime and robbery, have fallen in the town as a result of the operation, making Didcot a safer place to live, work and visit. It is not just the people dealing the drugs who have been punished, but also those who were purchasing property from people who they knew to be drug addicts, underpinning and financing the drug trade in the area."

Judge David Morton Jack, speaking before sentencing at Oxford Crown Court, said: "The police mounted an undercover operation called Operation Meerkat which was so successful that the evidence shows that when these 11 defendants were temporarily out of heroin, the drug was not to be had in the district.

"I must make it clear that in these circumstances the first duty of the court is to pass sentences which will be a general deterrent to others and a specific deterrent to the convicted."

Judge Morton Jack pointed out addiction to class A drugs was the largest single factor leading to the crimes that are dealt with at Oxford Crown Court.

He said: "The effect of such addiction on the lives of those involved in this foul trade is horrific."