A COURT has heard details of the “large-scale” distribution of cocaine and regular trips between Darlington and Liverpool involving drugs worth more than £500,000.

Prosecutors told a jury yesterday that extensive police surveillance and vehicle tracking put a number of people from the North-East and Merseyside in the frame.

David Pierce, from Darlington, went on trial at Teesside Crown Court where he denies conspiracy to supply Class A drugs between October 2009 and March this year.

The 41-year-old was said to have been in regular contact with the main players in the gang immediately before and after collections of kilo packages were made.

Tim Gittins, prosecuting, told the jury that Mr Pierce was watched by police as he held clandestine meetings with other men described as managers of the network.

He said mobile phone analysis and the covert surveillance linked the former shop-fitter with drugs couriers, a packager in Liverpool and the bosses in Darlington.

The jury heard that police intercepted three couriers during their 18-month operation and recovered a total of ten kilos of cocaine with a street value of £400,000.

The men said to have been the managers were watched as they met in a back alley in Darlington after the third seizure in June last year, said Mr Gittins.

“They had obviously got together to discuss the ramifications of yet another interruption in their supply of cocaine from Liverpool,” Mr Gittins told the jury.

The prosecutor said the Merseyside-based packager was later arrested and his home was filled with evidence of his involvement in the organisation.

Officers found tubs, a blender and a dust mask and discovered three blocks of cocaine under floorboards in a tiny bedroom of the house in Liverpool’s Norris Green area.

There was also a 20-tonne hydraulic press with a kilo of cocaine on it in the lounge, as well as a further six kilos worth more than £200,000, Mr Gittins told the jury.

“It was a lucrative business, it was an illegal business and, therefore, obviously, the Crown says, only trusted helpers would be involved given the high stakes the group were playing for,” he added.

“Using a connection with a criminal who lived in Liverpool, money and drugs were transacted effectively across the Pennines on a number of occasions between late 2009 and March this year.”

The trial continues.