Four men have been sent to prison for a total of 33 years for drugs offences in Essex.

Kim Webber, Raymond Marten, David Ferguson and Francis Sims were all sentenced at Chelmsford Crown Court yesterday.

Webber, of London Road, Leigh-on-Sea, and Sims, of Nelson Grove, Chelmsford, were imprisoned for conspiracy to produce amphetamine.

Webber was also sentenced for a charge of conspiracy to supply cannabis, along with Ferguson, from Reading, and Marten, from the Isle of Sheppey.

The court heard that Webber, who was jailed for seven years on both charges to run consecutively, was the subject of an undercover surveillance operation run by Essex Police.

Webber had pleaded guilty to the amphetamine charge, but was convicted at trial on the cannabis charge after pleading not guilty.

Sentencing Sims to ten years in prison, he said: "This is not the first occasion that you have appeared before the courts for such an offence you were convicted in 1992 of a similar offence.

"You clearly along with Webber were right in the heart of the conspiracy."

Marten and Ferguson both got sentences of four-and-a-half years in prison.

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Published Tuesday, December 14, 2004

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