Four Cumbrian men have been jailed for almost 31 years for their role in a drugs gang.

Three men from Carlisle and one from Barrow were among seven people sentenced by a judge today for their roles in the conspiracy to bring class A and B drugs into the county.

The gang trafficked drugs into Cumbria for more than eight months last year, bringing in cocaine, heroin and cannabis from Merseyside and East Lancashire.

Police snared the men after gathering a wealth of intelligence, and seizing illegal drugs worth tens of thousands of pounds from two couriers.

Johnathan O'Neil, 28, of Creighton Avenue, and Darren Snowden, 45, of Brookside, Raffles, both Carlisle, were sentenced for conspiring to supply cocaine.

O'Neil was jailed for seven-and-a-half years, and Snowden for two years and eight months.

Andrew John Berry, 25, of Bower Street, Carlisle, and Levi Howard, 30, of High Cliff, Barrow-in-Furness, pleaded guilty to a cannabis conspiracy supply charge, and were each locked up for two years.

Lee Jamieson, 30, of Churchfield Road, Liverpool, had been responsible for the "wholesale" supply of high purity cocaine. He was jailed for seven-and-a-half years.

John Patefield, 49, of Rivacre Road, Ellesmere Port, admitted conspiring to supply cocaine, while fellow courier Sam Stone, of Lynwood Avenue, Darwen, pleaded guilty to cocaine, heroin and cannabis charges.

Patefield was jailed for four years and eight months, and Stone had 18 months added to an existing three-year term.

An eighth person, 25-year-old Kathleen Berry, of Brampton Old Road, Carlisle, admitted a lesser crime of being concerned in the supply of cannabis, and was given a community order.