Banbridge Magistrates Court heard today that the PSNI broke up an alleged criminal gang dealing drugs in a nightclub amid fears that a poisonous batch of Ecstasy was about to enter the market.
A Detective Constable told the court, sitting in Newry, that David Lloyd Berkley, 51, from Antrim Road in Ballymena, and his 26-year-old son Nathan, of the same address, were the ringleaders of an alleged gang operating in the Coach Inn in Banbridge.
Six other men and a juvenile also appeared in court following a covert police surveillance operation between August and October in the club and in Ballymena, focusing on the sale of cocaine, Ecstasy and amphetamines.
The faced various charges including the sale and supply of several types of drugs.
The court was told that undercover police observed it was possible on a Friday and Saturday night to get drugs in the Coach Inn from 7pm to 1am.
Other members of the gang would act as runners for the father and son team in the nightclub, ferrying money to them from transactions and being given more drugs to sell.
All nine accused were remanded to appear before magistrates in Banbridge on December 20.
Mr Lloyd Berkley, his son, and a third man, Marc LeBlanc, from Chichester Park East in Ballymena, were refused bail.
