More on KentOnline
More on KentOnline
Home Folkestone News Article
A vicious drug dealer was caught after subjecting a victim to a sustained beating in front of CCTV.
Jordan Parks and an accomplice punched and kicked the man after ambushing him outside Folkestone Central Station at night.
Officers traced Parks two hours after the attack in June last year following a 999 call, when he was found with cash and drugs.
A search revealed he had almost £6,000, 40g of cannabis, 1.48g of MDMA and scales covered in cocaine residue.
His phone also held strings of conversations concerning drug dealing.
Last week, the 21-year-old was jailed at Canterbury Crown Court for more than three years after admitting two counts of drug dealing and assault. May 27
The court heard how Parks and his pal went to the railway station in Cheriton Road at about 10.30pm, waiting for their victim.
The pair then pulled him into a dimly lit secluded area, repeatedly beat him, then made a getaway in a vehicle.
However, their actions were caught on council CCTV and witnessed by a member of the public, prosecutor Ben Irwin explained.
When officers arrived the victim refused to cooperate but, with the aid of body worn cameras, they caught evidence of bruising and swelling.
Parks, who has six previous convictions for 13 offences, was found by police at about 12.30am in Folkestone inside the same vehicle linked to the assault.
He pleaded guilty to dealing class A and B drugs and causing actual bodily harm.
“This is the first time you will hear, as the saying goes, the clang of the prison gates.”
Judge Mark Weekes told Parks he had an “unattractive” criminal record and jailed him for three years and four months.
He told Parks he suspected his “motive (for the attack) was to do with your drug dealing enterprise".
“This is the first time you will hear, as the saying goes, the clang of the prison gates,” he added.
Paul Hogben, mitigating, argued the text messages were “almost exclusively concerned with the selling of cannabis” rather than Class A drugs.
He added Parks, of Dymchurch Road in Hythe, picked up a cannabis addiction after being furloughed from his job working in events when the pandemic hit.
