A Kettering drug dealer returned to a life of crime months after leaving prison after his mum was stabbed with a needle.

Shannon O’Boyle was released on licence in July 2023 but by September he was dealing heroin and cocaine to users in the town again.

Yesterday (Tuesday) Northampton Crown Court heard he got back involved in drug trafficking because of a risk to himself and his family, having been ‘effectively forced’ into supplying drugs.

But because he was a ‘third strike’ offender he faced a mandatory minimum sentence and was locked up for five years and eight months.

His Honour Judge Rupert Mayo told him: “I cannot ignore the fact that you dealing in drugs would have caused distress, pain and illness to a number of people.”

Prosecutor Andrew Howarth told the court that police arrested a number of drug users in the Kettering area and found that they were being supplied by a number from a county lines operation known as the ‘Flash Line’.

On December 18 last year police carried out a search at 30-year-old O’Boyle’s home in Dalkeith Place and found five handsets, including a Nokia which had the Flash Line number, as well as a folding knife and £1,175 in cash.

Mr Howarth said: “They found a tick list with 32 numbers on it. Twenty-one of these were attributed to drug users.”

Cell site data ‘co-located’ the Flash Line number as being in the same area as O’Boyle’s personal phone on a number of occasions, including on a trip to Wellingborough and trips to London.

An examination of the Flash Line phone revealed it had been used to send out messages indicating the availability of heroin and cocaine.

One said: “On all night, available for drops. Both available.”

A statistical tool – applying a formula to the messages found – estimated that the phone had been used in street deals of drugs weighing about 2.6kg in total. But Chiara Maddocks, mitigating for O’Boyle, said this covered a longer period than he had been charged for and that it wasn’t just him using the phone, so it couldn’t all be attributed to him.

O’Boyle, who appeared over videolink from HMP Peterborough, pleaded guilty to two charges of being concerned in an offer to supply class A drugs and one of possessing criminal property.

He was jailed for three years in 2016 for possessing class A drugs with intent to supply, and then jailed for 54 months in 2021 for being concerned in the supply of class A drugs. This meant he faced a minimum sentence of seven years in prison, before credit for a guilty plea was taken into account, but Ms Maddocks urged Judge Mayo not to impose the mandatory minimum sentence.

She told the court that O’Boyle moved to a new area when he was released from prison but that ‘ongoing issues’ between himself and others meant he supplied drugs because of actions which fell ‘just short of duress’.

Ms Maddocks said that people had shot at his mum’s address and entered her property and stabbed her with a needle.

She said: “These are people that mean business and this has to be taken into consideration.”

Ms Maddocks added that O’Boyle is an enhanced prisoner, was commended for de-escalating a violent incident and understands that he should have gone to the police instead.

She said: “He no longer wishes to be involved in a life of crime.”

O’Boyle will serve up to half of his sentence in custody before being released on licence. He will face Proceeds of Crime Act proceedings at a later date.