A MAN whose home was used to house schoolboy drug runners in a major county lines operation has been jailed for five years.

Another woman, who sold heroin and crack to an undercover officer during the same operation, has been sentenced to 42 months behind bars.

Street dealers Dean Cummings, 45, and Kelsey Knibbs, 38, were jailed following a complex investigation into the supply of class A drugs in the Barrow, known as Operation Horizon.

During 2018, gang leader Michael Emeofa ran the Barry and Able lines from his base in South London, flooding the Cumbrian town with class A drugs.

The operation saw large quantities of heroin and crack delivered under cover of darkness, with teenage drug runners ‘plucked from the care system’ and installed in the town.

Two 15-year-old boys were taken to stay at Cummings’ home in Bromley Road, where they took orders and delivered drugs to users.

But in November 2018, the boys were rescued from the operation after Cummings was arrested on the corner of Avery Street, where known drug users congregated near a Co-op.

Officers searched his home and found evidence of drug dealing, including digital scales, SIM cards and a number of mobile phones.

The boys, who were in the house at the time, gave false names and ages but were later identified as victims of modern slavery.

In August 2018, Knibbs supplied an undercover officer, known only as ‘Nigel’ with class A drugs in another county lines operation.

She confided in the officer that she was worried her home was being used to accommodate members of an organised crime group.

Knibbs went on to make a further deal to another officer known as James, who had ordered the drugs over the phone from a man with a southern accent.

Police intelligence found extensive mobile phone contact between the two street dealers and gang members higher up the supply chain.

On January 8 2019, Knibbs was arrested at her home in Westgarth, Walney, along with two other members of the operation.

Drugs, mobile phones and paperwork were found at the address, linking her to the gang.

Cummings and Knibbs each pleaded guilty to conspiracy to apply class A drugs and possession with intent to supply.

Preston Crown Court they were both “hopeless drug addicts who were being plainly used and utilised because of their vulnerability.” Knibbs had a traumatic background and had lost two partners to drug abuse.

Cummings, the court heard, was a functioning addict, maintaining a work life until his mother died and his addiction spiralled out of control.

Judge Graham Knowles, sentencing, said: “No adult ever supplied drugs on the streets of Barrow without knowing they were on the bottom rung of a brutal organised crime.” He said Cummings and Knibbs were “doing others bidding to get a bag of heroin.”

But he told Cummings: “Your own dealing was significant and your role in the conspiracy was significant too. You knew that they were in your house and that children were dealing as part of it.”