Crime Correspondent: Wales

Matthew Roberts, arranged drug deliveries of more than £1m to his home town of Maesteg, was handed down a 17-year sentence.

<strong></strong>Matthew Roberts, arranged drug deliveries of more than £1m to his home town of Maesteg, was  handed down a 17-year sentence.As he jailed the group to a total of 82 years, Judge Christopher Llewellyn-Jones QC told Roberts, 36, and his nine co-conspirators that they were helping to spread a “cancer in society”.He said: “Almost daily in this court I listen to cases involving people whose lives have been destroyed by the use of Class A drugs and it is the same story in other courts.“Between June 2006 and February 2007 you conspired to bring substantial quantities of cocaine with a value of up to £1.2m from Liverpool.“In addition there was £48,000-worth of cannabis and an amount of amphetamine which the Crown has been unable to calculate.“In my view drugs are cancer in our society.”He said Roberts had been at the centre of the conspiracy and his wife Diann Lee, 42, who lived with him in a luxury self-build home had been willing to share the lifestyle drug dealing brought, although she believed only cannabis was involved.Her husband had tried to avoid detection by using different people and different vehicles to carry out his deliveries of drugs and large amounts of cash and by constantly changing the mobile phone numbers used.He also set up a tree surgery business “as a front”.“But in an extremely thorough investigation the police were able to stay ahead of you”, the judge said.The regional task force set up Operation Sofitel in 2006 and kept surveillance for months on Roberts and his contacts before moving in as 7kg of cocaine, worth £840,000, changed hands in the car park of B&Q Bridgend. The drugs were enough to supply at least 7,000 people with a wrap of cocaine.When his gang was eventually rounded up and arrested they found he had been dealing with so much cash he had had to buy a money-counting machine.He had also travelled to London to buy a scanner to check his car for bugs but had failed to find the listening device police had planted.Judge Llewellyn-Jones commended the five officers – DC Sarah Murphy, DC Chris Mayo, DC Kevin Gardner, DC Chris Macdonald, and Acting Detective Sergeant Neil Roper – involved in the case for their painstaking work.He added: “They carried out an excellent investigation which has brought to justice people involved in a considerable conspiracy. I commend each of them for their hard work and the prosecuting team for the way the case was presented.”Detective Chief Inspector Debbie Cooper, head of the Regional Task Force, Tarian, said: “These sentences send a message to drug dealers that Operation Tarian will deal with organised crime groups and it’s our full intention to protect communities from the harm and misery that these people intend to cause for their own profit.“The amount of cocaine seized on January 24, 2007 – which these defendants were intending to sell across South Wales – was enough to supply at least 7,000 people with a wrap of cocaine.“But thanks to the dedicated and painstaking investigative work of Tarian staff, which included up to seven months surveillance, these drugs never made it onto the streets