Dealer involved in Corby drug plot patted down empty pockets as he was ordered to pay just ONE POUND from his criminal earnings

Marcus Brown, 66, was jailed for five years in 2024 for his part in a conspiracy to bring drugs into Corby and sell them on.

At the head of the enterprise was Alexander McConnell, 59, who was helped to sell wholesale quantities of the Class A drug by accomplices Edward Shephard, 40, also known as Ted, and Darren Lafferty, 50, to customers including James Davis, aged 35, and Brown, both from Wisbech.

Police found cocaine worth £25,000 in a Jaguar belonging to Davis after they stopped him in Cottingham.

McConnell and Lafferty have both served jail sentences and have been released. But Brown is still in prison, and he appeared before a judge at Northampton Crown Court on Friday (June 27) for a Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA) hearing.

POCA allows the crown to attempt to claw back the profits of crime and put them to use to help fund the criminal justice system.

Prosecuting Brown, who appeared in the dock in a grey vest top, Liz Power said that the parties had agreed that Brown benefited from the crime to the tune of £367,922.

However, he has no assets that are deemed ‘available’ so was ordered to pay back the court just £1.

He then patted down his pockets and shrugged, before asking the court: “Can you tell me how you get to the this sort of figure on nine ounces of coke?

“It’s unbelievable.”

His co-defendant Darren Lafferty was also in court on Friday but his barrister Derek Johashen told the judge that Lafferty’s benefit figure was ‘hotly contested’ by him, and that he could call between 50 and 70 witnesses should the need arise.

His hearing was adjourned.

Financial investigators look at a range of bank accounts and other cash conduits when deciding on how someone has profited from a criminal lifestyle.

The figure often relates to cash that has gone in and out of accounts during the period of offending for which they have been sentenced. Brown’s offending took place during October and November 2020, although investigators are not always necessarily bound to that period.