A SELBY couple serving lengthy jail terms for drug dealing cannot appeal against their convictions - even though their co-accused now says they are innocent.

Errol Thackray and Ruth Golton, of Millgate, were found guilty at York Crown Court last summer of dealing heroin.

In July, Thackray, 37, was handed a nine-year jail term while 32-year-old Golton got six-and-a-half years.

Judges sitting at London's Court of Appeal heard yesterday that Andrew McIntee, convicted of the same offence, has now confessed he was solely to blame.

He has made a statement to solicitors claiming he was dealing cannabis alone from Golton and Thackray's house, and they should not have been convicted.

In his statement, McIntee also expresses how awful he feels at the thought of two innocent people being sent to prison.

But Mr Justice Gray, sitting with Lord Justice Laws and Judge Geoffrey Rivlin, said McIntee's story smacked of "incredibility" and, even if trial jurors had heard it, they would have been "profoundly sceptical".

The judge added much of what McIntee now says ran contrary to statements he made to police at the time and other evidence against Thackray and Golton.

Observing that it wasn't "arguable" their convictions were unsafe, Mr Justice Gray said Thackray and Golton had given no "credible explanation" for the prosecution case against them. But the judge did give them some reason for hope, granting them permission to appeal against their sentences, which they claim are "manifestly excessive".

Mr Justice Gray told the court the drug dealers were caught after a covert police operation, during which officers watched a house Thackray and Golton rented on Millgate.

Over the course of a four-day period, 183 visits were made to the property, and it was the Crown's case that Golton and Thackray were using McIntee as a runner.

When police raided the property they found drug-dealing paraphernalia, including lists of alleged clients, as well as traces of heroin on a picture frame on which the drugs were said to have been cut.

They also found a bank account into which £7,000 had been deposited, as well as various ISA savings accounts in the names of Golton and Thackray.

At his trial Thackray, a painter and decorator, admitted to being a heroin addict, but said the money had come from his dealings in precious metals, cigarettes and alcohol. Golton claimed she had no idea what was going on.

No date was set for the hearing of the pair's appeal against the length of their sentences.

Updated: 12:35 Tuesday, June 24, 2003