A COUPLE saw their son sent to prison – just months after his younger brother was jailed for involvement in the same cocaine supply enterprise.
The city’s crown court heard how a local dealer recruited siblings Warren Graham, 25, and Ellis Graham, now 23, to collect two 1kg blocks of the class A drug on his behalf to further his illegal trade.
On January 30, Ellis Graham was caught by police near Carlisle as he transported high-purity cocaine said to be potentially worth tens of thousands of pounds if sold on the street.
A man without any previous convictions, he was jailed for 40 months in April having admitted possessing the drug with intent to supply.
But following his sentencing, detectives unlocked a mobile phone seized from Ellis Graham which he had refused – out of fear – to provide the PIN for.
This revealed a cache of damning WhatsApp messages revealing he and brother Warren were both drawn into the criminal enterprise over a drug debt.
Their messages, the court heard, described “what they were doing, who they were doing it for and how much they hoped to earn”.
“We invite the inference,” prosecutor Louise Cowen told the city’s crown court, “that the brothers owed (the dealer) money and saw the opportunity to work for him, couriering drugs for cash, as an easy way out of their financial circumstances.”
Also a man of previous good character, Warren Graham was arrested at his place of work – Carlisle’s Pirelli factory – and later admitted conspiracy to supply cocaine between January 9 and 21.
The Graham brothers’ parents watched from the court public gallery as Warren, of Hopes Hill Drive, Carlisle, was jailed for 54 months.
Russell Davies, defending, had said: “There was no trouble from them as teenagers.
“This activity came completely out of the blue.
“They were very shocked and are shocked now still.”
Before he passed sentence, Judge Nicholas Barker told Warren Graham: “I am sympathetic to them because they sit there knowing that their second son is about to be sent to prison for a lengthy period of time.
“Two children they have brought up to act responsibly, with integrity and decency.
“That upbringing, so well achieved, was undone by you and your brother in January of this year.”
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