Tom Beardsworth Prosecutes Drugs Conspiracy and Perverting the Course of Justice

Noble Welch and Shanice Ribeiro have been sentenced at Luton Crown Court (sitting at Huntingdon) to 14 years’ and 7 years’ custody respectively, following their conviction for conspiracy to supply cocaine and heroin through 2024 and 2025. Mr Welch was further convicted of perverting the course of justice after a three-week trial.

The defendants, who had met in Trinidad and Tobago and formed a relationship, ran a drug line in Hertfordshire and surrounding counties with more than 2,500 customers. The defendants’ operation was described by the judge in sentencing as having a “reach and output significantly larger” than a typical drug line, generating significant profits. Mr Welch was negotiating for the purchase of over £100,000 of jewellery on the day of his arrest.

Shortly before trial, the indictment was amended to add a count of perverting the course of justice. The prosecution’s case was that, as a remand prisoner at HMP Bedford, Mr Welch had pressured an innocent person on the outside to present himself at a police station with a detailed ‘confession note’ taking responsibility for the drug line, which he did. That person did not become a prosecution witness and nor was there direct evidence of what Mr Welch had said to him. The prosecution instead presented an inferential case to the jury based on (i) the confluence of timing between phone calls attributed to Mr Welch and notes saved on the person’s iPhone; and (ii) the submissions made on behalf of Mr Welch in a pre-trial bail application which referred to the confession note.

Tom Beardsworth prosecuted the case, instructed by Mark Geraerts at the Crown Prosecution Service.