TWO men have been jailed for their involvement in what the sentencing judge described as “a despicable trade”.

Mark Wainfur, 29, and Robert Harvey, 33, were caught with cannabis and heroin respectively during simultaneous police raids on their respective homes in Sycamore Avenue and Laburnum Drive, Newport, on March 21 this year. Both were convicted for drugs production and money laundering offences.

Prosecuting, Owen Williams told Newport Crown Court that at Wainfur’s home they discovered ‘skunk’ cannabis and resins, equipment for weighing and preparing the drug, medicinal cannabis stickers, paper strip “business cards” containing mobile phone numbers, and several mobile phones.

Cash totalling £14,134 was found in coat pockets. High value clothing, jewellery and watches were found too.

Among hundreds of photos and videos on the phones, said Mr Williams, were several featuring Wainfur “posing with large amounts of cash” and “in a cannabis factory”.

Harvey was found asleep on a sofa at Laburnum Drive, and when roused he pointed to a coat on the floor, saying “all the stuff in it is mine”.

Police also found almost 300 grams of heroin in separate wraps, £595 in cash, digital scales, and mobile phones.

Wainfur’s defence counsel Steve Thomas said his client’s only mitigation was his guilty plea, describing him as a “professional drug supplier”.

Harvey’s defence counsel Gareth Williams told the court his client was addicted to heroin, with his earnings being spent on it. Both men have previous convictions for serious drugs offences.

Judge Neil Bidder QC told Wainfur: “There is convincing and substantial evidence of you being concerned in the production of cannabis.”

He added in the photos he was “boasting and showing off quantities of cash”.

To Harvey, Judge Bidder said the amount of the drug found “show you were acting as a small wholesaler.”

Sentencing Wainfur to three years and five months, and Harvey to five years and three months, he called the drugs trade “despicable”, and the cause of “untold misery and death”.