A DRUG dealer who fled to Peru to escape justice is today starting more than five years in a British jail.

Sam Andrew Barnes ran a major amphetamine gang, supplying the drug into York for months throughout the first Covid lockdown, York Crown Court heard.

It was the second time he has been jailed for large scale drug crime.

Andrea Parnham, prosecuting, said undercover detectives watched the 35-year-old coming and going from his hedgerow drug stashes and passing the drug on to Christopher Martin Holmes and Amy Elizabeth Laverack who then sold it to drug users.

Officers seized amphetamine worth up to £2,635 and £11,075 in cash from the three of them, she said.

They also seized 3kg of caffeine, a powder sometimes used to dilute amphetamine to increase the number of street deals out of an amount of the illegal drug.

Barnes should have appeared before York Crown Court last September, but fled to Peru and didn't return to the UK until February when he was arrested.

"The facts of this case demonstrate that over a significant period of time you occupied a leading role in the organised supply of amphetamine into the York area," Deputy Circuit Judge Tim Clayson told him.

"The scale of the operation was considerable."

He jailed Barnes, formerly of Seaton Ross, near Market Weighton and of Tostig Avenue, Acomb, for five years and three months.

The 35-year-old pleaded guilty to being concerned in the supply of amphetamine between February 2020 and September 2020, two offences of having criminal cash, and skipping bail in September 2021.

In 2014, York Crown Court heard how Barnes had 23 kg of amphetamine in his car, his home and an industrial unit. It could have sold for £900,000 in street deals.

On that occasion, the prosecution accepted Barnes plea to possessing the drug with intent on the basis he had been acting as a courier for others. He was jailed then for 42 months.

For Barnes, Chris Dunn said the amphetamine seized in 2020 was worth less than £1,500 because of the purity and that he should be sentenced as someone selling directly to drug users.

Barnes had fled from the UK "out of fear" but had returned to the country to "face the music", he said.

Barnes was an amphetamine user who had started dealing to others and the situation escalated.

Holmes and Laverack were sentenced in March when Barnes was ill and could not attend.

Holmes, 39, of Byland Avenue, off Huntington Road, York, pleaded guilty to being concerned in the supply of amphetamine and possession of amphetamine with intent to supply.

He was given a 15-month prison sentence suspended for 18 months on condition he does 30 days' rehabilitative activities.

Laverack, 38, who lives at a different address in Byland Avenue, pleaded guilty to identical charges, plus possession of a small amount of Ecstasy found at her home.

She was given a 10-month prison sentence suspended for 18 months on condition she does 20 days' rehabilitative activities.