Monday, January 17, 2011

Black drug dealers in England say that anti-social behavior orders discriminate against them

Drug dealers who were caught during an undercover police operation to clean up St Paul's are trying to overturn anti-social behavior orders banning them from the area. Kirk Barclay, Noah Ntuve, Francis Cowan and Trevor Campbell claim the anti-social behavior orders handed to them as they were jailed at Bristol Crown Court in 2010 will "deprive them of their culture" as black men. They also claim the orders, which will ban them from parts of St Paul's for three years after their release from jail, will prevent them from visiting relatives and are "excessive" and "unenforceable". Lawyers acting for the men brought the challenge at London's Criminal Appeal Court, where they told judges the majority of the city's black community lived in the area. The four men were among 21 people arrested as part of an Avon and Somerset Police drug dealing crackdown called Operation Polar. They were caught selling class A drugs to undercover officers. Barclay, 20, of Campbell Street, St Paul's, was imprisoned for four years and Cowan, also 20, of All Hallows Road, Easton, for 42 months, after both men admitted selling heroin and crack cocaine on a number of occasions. Ntuve, 24, was jailed for five years. Campbell, 20, of Sussex Place, St Paul's, was handed a three-and-a-half year jail term after admitting four drug dealing counts.

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