OUT-OF-TOWN drug dealers supplying Class A drugs to Barrow have been branded “toe rags”.

In a hard-hitting message, Cumbria’s police and crime commissioner Peter McCall said a major police operation into County Lines crime had given criminal gangs a huge wake-up call.

Operation Horizon led to more than 40 arrests country-wide with several convictions secured already.

Mr McCall said of the drug dealers: “They were thinking that sleepy old Cumbria would not knock down their door – that’s exactly what they were thinking.

“They see rural areas like ours as a soft touch and we are not a soft touch and we’re not going to be. That’s very much the message that I hope they have got from this.”

Mr McCall said some police chiefs elsewhere had recoiled at social media posts from Cumbrian detectives saying that dealers had been “dragged out of their beds and locked up.”

“Some said they were not sure that it’s the face of modern policing that they want to present,” said Mr McCall. “Well, my message is it’s absolutely the face of modern policing in Cumbria as far as I am concerned as police and crime commissioner. We will come after you if you sell drugs in Cumbria. I think that’s a message that the public expects to hear.”

Mr McCall went onto praise the Egerton Court project which provides a community space for residents to receive support from various agencies.

These include The Well, Mind, Women’s Community Matters, Cumbria Alcohol, Drug and Advisory Service and health and wellbeing coaches.

It followed the 12 drug deaths in Barrow between December 2017 and April 2018  which he called a “dreadful statistic”.

Mr McCall said: “Egerton Court has been an absolute showcase of multi-agency work.  By setting folk up in a flat, in their own space and having a place in the community, we are also sending a message to drug dealers that Egerton Court is not a soft target for you toe-rags to come selling your drugs.”

He added: “When you looked at the drug deaths in Barrow, they were all unrelated to each other so you couldn’t nail it to a particular batch of heroin, or a particular set of drug dealers.

“I believe in tough love and let’s not mince words. If someone is a drug addict, we need to help them out of it. That’s the work that has been going on in Egerton Court.”

“The awful drug deaths are a dreadful statistic but the operation was very successful. We can’t be complacent because if you take one drug dealer off the streets, you create a vacuum and others will fill it – as long the demand to buy and take drugs is still there. That’s the bit where I think we have seen a real change in thought.”