A judge has warned drug dealers they should not regard Skipton as a "safe haven" for their operations.

Sentencing a local teenager for drugs offences, Judge Roger Scott said the market town was not normally associated with the obtaining of "crack" cocaine and other drugs.

"In West Yorkshire there is a very substantial problem," he added. "However, this is North Yorkshire and Skipton is the gateway to the Dales."

Those who acted as "warehousemen and bankers" in the drugs trade and moved into Skipton, no doubt thinking of it as a safe haven from the police, must "look out - because it is not," said the judge. Andrew Wrigley, 18, of Clitheroe Street, Skipton, pleaded guilty at Bradford Crown Court to supplying cocaine and heroin, possessing the drugs with intent to supply and possessing cannabis.

He was sent to a young offenders institution for four and a half years.

The court heard how he had acted as a warehouseman and banker for drug dealers operating in the area.

He was arrested after being found in possession of drugs when police stopped him in Skipton.

A search of the address where he was living at the time revealed more drugs.

Judge Scott told Wrigley: "You are easily led. I am passing sentence to punish you but also to deter others."

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