An 'Aladdin's Cave' of drugs and guns
A DRUG dealer was starting a 10-year jail sentence today after police raided his house and found an "Aladdin's Cave" of weapons, drugs and cash.
The hoard had been skilfully hidden in the home of 28-year-old Otis Hibbert – known by the street name "Bugs" – in Hamilton Terrace, Chapeltown, Leeds, a court was told.
Hibbert, a father of three, was found guilty at Leeds Crown Court of three offences of unlawful possession of firearms and other charges of possession of ammunition without a firearms certificate and having crack cocaine with intent to supply. He admitted possession of cannabis.
Judge Shaun Spencer, QC, recommended Hibbert be deported to his homeland in Jamaica at the end of his sentence.
He told Hibbert: "I do not know whether these weapons were for you to use or you were warehousing them for others.
Detriment
"But if you were keeping them as an armourer that is serious enough in itself because of the quantity of the weapons."
The judge added: "It seems to me anyone convicted of gun crime is a continuing detriment to this country and, not withstanding your family circumstances, I make a recommendation for your deportation."
Richard Wright, prosecuting, said police officers carried out a dawn raid in October last year on Hibbert's home, where he had lived since moving to Britain in early 2000.
They found a false breeze block wall in the cellar, behind which was a loaded .38 calibre pistol.
Mr Wright said: "That was just the beginning as further examination, which included knocking down part of the false wall, revealed an Aladdin's Cave of weapons, ammunition and crack cocaine – a Class A drug – along with £8,000 in cash carefully sorted into £100 bundles then compiled into larger £1,000 bundles."
Mr Wright added: "Also found was a sawn-off shotgun, eight cartridges contained in a rubber glove, six shotgun cartridges and a further 37 cartridges and nearly eight grams of crack cocaine – that would break down into about 50 street deals and, the prosecution say, dealing in crack is what he was about.
"Some of those items were on shelves behind the partition wall but others, the shotgun cartridges, the crack and the cash, were in various plastic bags or containers which were tied to red string and hung behind the wall from a rafter.
"They were not obvious to someone peering through the gap into the darkness.
"The prosecution say Hibbert could reach through the gap, pull up his drugs and ammunition on the string and return them there to safe storage when he had finished with them.
"Indeed, the crack cocaine was in a Seven Seas Cod Liver Oil cannister tied to the string. Also in the cannister was a razor blade, no doubt for cutting the drugs."
A false passport was recovered and laminated cards used for drug dealing.
03 May 2003
All rights reserved © 2002 Johnston Press New Media.
Not me, I assure you. And these are our "allies"? They are tyrants. 
