A JUDGE has ordered a 15-year-old Huddersfield drugs runner back to court next month.

He will watch as other drug dealers are sentenced in the hope it will help him mend his ways.

The boy was one of 14 defendants who appeared before Judge Rose yesterday as part of Operation Greystoke.

Rawthorpe man Lee Joyce (pictured), 22, was the first adult to be sentenced and Judge Rose sent him to jail for a total of four-and-a-half years.

Between early August and late October Joyce, of Foxlow Avenue, was involved in dealing to undercover officers on eight separate occasions.

Joyce, who was on bail for other offences at the time, supplied wraps of heroin and cocaine at locations in Dalton, including close to the Tesco Express store in Long Lane, and in Grosvenor Road, yards from Dalton Primary School and St Joseph’s Primary School.

Judge Rose said the dealing in Class A drugs in the vicinity of a school was an aggravating feature and he also took account of the fact that the father-of-one had two previous convictions for dealing in cocaine and cannabis.

Prosecutor John Topham said in December 2008 Joyce was involved in a fight which ended with an associate Shaun Alexander firing a gun which injured a man and a woman in a Huddersfield takeaway.

Judge Rose jailed Joyce for four years after he admitted a series of drug supply offences and imposed an additional six months after he pleaded guilty to common assault and affray relating to the December incident.

Judge Rose told Joyce that Operation Greystoke was intended to make a real impact on those who dealt in Class A drugs.

Judge Rose noted that Joyce, who was himself a drug addict, had not been deterred by his previous convictions and he said his record was a seriously aggravating feature of the case.

A second defendant 18-year-old Stuart Parr, of Tolson Crescent, Dalton, was made the subject of 12 months detention, suspended for 18 months, after he admitted supplying Class A drugs.

The teenage runner was also ordered to do 150 hours unpaid work for the community and put on supervision for 18 months.

In August the then 17-year-old was involved in supplying heroin and cocaine outside the Tesco Express store and he was with Joyce a few weeks later when further wraps of drugs were handed over to a female undercover officer.

His barrister Adam Birkby described Parr as the kid who had been sent to do the “dirty work” and the court heard that he committed the offences out of a misguided desire to help out with financial problems at home.

Judge Rose said he was prepared to give Parr a chance, but warned he would be locked up if he breached the order.

Ten other men and one woman also admitted drug supply offences and Judge Rose adjourned all their cases to May 17 for sentence.

After the case, Det Sgt Damian Roebuck, of the Kirklees Police Specialist Drugs Team, said: “Joyce was one of over 180 people who were arrested under Operation Greystoke in Kirklees.

“It followed months of evidence gathering and undercover work which the courts have now justified with this substantial sentence.

“A large number of suppliers have been taken out of the Kirklees loop and we will continue to disrupt the drugs market with this kind of enforcement action.

“This latest sentence should send a clear message to others, that involvement in Class A drugs will not tolerated at any level.”