A judge has likened drug dealing in an alley behind a quiet Gillingham road to "ordering a Chinese takeaway".

Making the comparison as he locked up a teenager and three men, Judge Michael Carroll also described the blatant dealing of crack cocaine and heroin over a back wall as "outrageous".

Robert King, Beau Lohschelder, Conor Cokeley, Darren Fox and Darren Jarvis were arrested when police busted the organised drugs operation centred around Ferndale Road.

King, of Pier Road, Gillingham, was jailed for five years and Lohschelder, of Redfern Avenue, Gillingham, was jailed for two-and-a-half years.

Cokeley, of Gladstone Road, Maidstone, and Fox, of St Ronans Close, Maidstone, were each sentenced to two years' youth custody.

King, 21, denied conspiracy to supply drugs but was convicted. Lohschelder, 25, Cokeley, 19, and 20-year-old Fox admitted the offence. Jarvis, 22, of Manor Street, Brompton, denied the charge and was acquitted.

Judge Carroll said he found covert film from a camera installed in an alleyway "quite chilling".

He added: "It was rather like ordering a takeaway meal. Instead of a
restaurant it was ordering drugs over a back wall. It happened time and time again.

"It was part of a consumer society where callers picked up the phone and, by arrangement, come to the address and are served literally over the garden wall."

Maidstone Crown Court heard officers went to Jarvis's home on January 10 and found him there with the other four. Four wraps of cocaine were retrieved from inside him. Admitting he was a drug user, he claimed the others were at his house because he owed them money.

Simon Connolly, prosecuting, said the total value of drugs seized was about £7,000.

Judge Carroll said: "I have to sentence the four of you for what I regard as an outrageous conspiracy to supply drugs in the Medway area.

"The courts know first hand the damage such a trade does to the general area and in particular the population, a number of whom are addicted.

"It not only has a devastating effect on them but, just as important, it is distressing to honest and hard-working citizens."