I was threatened with gun, claims Shrewsbury drugs charge woman
A Shrewsbury woman accused of taking part in a drugs conspiracy by hiring a car used by dealers, told police she did it because she was threatened with a gun.
Interview transcripts given by Clare Ring were read aloud to a jury at Shrewsbury Crown Court on Friday. The case relates to a 'county lines' operation masterminded by traffickers based in Liverpool to push illegal drugs in Shropshire in 2015.
Mr Graham Russell, prosecuting, said Ring told detectives she had been “scared” after a man called Dean Pritchard, from Liverpool, held “a gun” to her head.
She told the officers that Pritchard took the vehicle from her and she reported it stolen after he failed to return it on time. Automatic number plate checks picked up the car in Merseyside. Pritchard was at the wheel when he was arrested following a collision in August 2015.
The case so far:
The court heard she had initially denied driving people to Liverpool on other occasions, but cell siting data placed her phone there on and at various locations including Widnes and Chester. She also denied being involved with a drugs conspiracy.
Ring, 48, from Featherbed Lane, Sundorne, and Erin Vesayaporn, 38, of Wayford View, Dorrington, both Shrewsbury; and Shaun King, 21, from Merseyside, deny conspiracy to supply Class A drugs and offences of being concerned in the supply of Class A drugs in 2015. The trial continues.
