Drug dealer caught in flat with crack cocaine jailed

"The shop’s shut!" – what a drug user said when she saw two officers standing in her drug dealer’s flat.

Officers from the Cardiff and Vale Organised Crime Team described how they found six men in a state of panic when they paid them a surprise visit at a one-bedroom flat in Grangetown in September (2024).

Layton Preece, 51, and Dylan Young, 21, were among them and were surrounded by drugs and drug paraphernalia at the time. 

Officers’ suspicions about the flat being used as a crack den were confirmed while they were inside - a drug user knocked the door and when a uniformed officer opened it to invite her in, she hurriedly left the property shouting: "The shop’s shut!"

Just over £4,000 worth of class A drugs including cocaine and crack cocaine were seized by police.

Layton Preece, of no fixed abode, was charged and pleaded guilty to possessing crack cocaine with intent to supply and being caught in possession of crack cocaine.

Dylan Young, 21, was charged and pleaded guilty to possessing crack cocaine with intent to supply.

On February 20, Preece was jailed for 42 months and Young was given a 18-month sentence suspended for 21 months at Cardiff Crown Court.