"The drugs issue in this city is one that concerns me most deeply at the moment"

The Recorder of Derry, Judge Neil Rafferty KC has formally asked the PSNI in the city to give him a comprehensive update on the seriousness of the drugs epidemic locally.

Judge Rafferty made the request to Constable Lisa Daly, one of the frontline officers in the detection of drugs in Derry.

After he'd sentenced two men for drugs offences, one of them for three years and the other for eighteen months, suspended for two years, Judge Rafferty spoke to Constable Daly.

He asked her "would it be possible for the PSNI in this city to provide me with details and statistics in relation to the drugs problem here. This is a formal request.

"One of the classic tropes of the stereotype portrayal of the judiciary is that they are out of touch. But in a sense a Crown Court judge is the person most in touch because we see the trends within our division. We read the relevant documents and reports. We know what's happening.

"The drugs issue in this city is one that concerns me most deeply at the moment and I would like the facts and figures put before me. I have read on many of the papers put before me of people being taken to Altnagelvin Hospital such is their state of unconsciousness because of drugs. Just how bad is the problem?

In reply Constable Daly said: "I have only been a police officer in this one city and I can say we have a serious problem and it is getting worse".

Last August three people died as a result of them taking from what the police then described as "a bad batch of pregabalin" and the same bad batch was also linked to five users suffering heart attacks.

During one of the drugs sentencing matters before him today, Judge Rafferty said he'd received and read a moving letter from the drug supplier's mother.

Addressing her directly Judge Rafferty said: "Regrettably the reality is there are other mothers in this city of other children who have been impacted by what your son has been selling for years.

"The clear message is that those who deal at a high level in the supply of drugs in this city will receive custodial sentences unless there are exceptional circumstances and I mean exceptional", he added.

The supplier, who has anonymity, was then jailed for three years.