'Best' crack cocaine producer in Liverpool had contacts around the globe and bragged of arming himself with AK47
A drugs and firearms trafficker was caught up in a brawl which saw a man stabbed in a Liverpool city centre shoe shop.
Liverpool Crown Court would later hear in 2015 that terrified customers watched on as then 26-year-old Clarke, his younger brother Carl Clarke and Sean Cleaver, both aged 21, punched their victim before one of the gang pulled out a knife and stabbed him twice to the chest. He was rushed to Royal Liverpool Hospital after suffering a collapsed lung.
A 17-year-old boy was also sentenced to two years and eight months. James Coutts, prosecuting, told the court the defendants were arrested by police at two "high end luxury apartments" in Liverpool in February 2016. However, Ms Daly stated there had been no evidence of a "direct transfer taking place". But Clarke himself had claimed in his messages to other service users that he was the owner of an AK47.
He had a total of 26 other handles stored on his Encro phone, and was shown to have been in communication with 20 of these. These contacts "appeared to have been based around the world, including those involved in the importation of drugs into the UK". "He left school very early. He drifted in and out of middling jobs and then resorted, ultimately, in a return to drugs, drug use and drug sales. It is significant that he was not an armourer. He did not take possession of any weapons, and no weapons were transferred or used in any criminal activity."The sentence he is going to get today is going to be devastating. When he is released, he is going to be in his middle age.
"When giving evidence yourself, you admitted as much - describing how you had been involved in buying and selling drugs for 20 years, that that was how you made your money and that you were the best person in Liverpool at turning cocaine into crack cocaine, something you did for associates for a fee. It seems from the messages and your own evidence that you were operating your own county lines operations in numerous locations across England and Wales, with some activity also in Scotland.
"The weapons being offered were assault rifles and semi-automatic handguns, including a Skorpion machine gun being offered for £12,000 and an Uzi submachine gun for £9,000. Bearing in mind the nature of the commodities being discussed in these messages, be they drugs or guns, and the abject misery and devastation that is caused by this trade in this city and across the country, the tone of these messages is remarkably mundane.
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