Three people including two men have been jailed over what police said was their involvement in running drugs from London into Surrey.

Police described the men as "prolific drug dealers" who, along with their teenage runner, "ran the ‘Bobby’ county line from London into Surrey".

They were jailed for a combined total of 14 years and seven months on Friday (November 26) at Kingston Crown Court.

Adrece Hussain, 24, from Hounslow, was sentenced to seven years and six months’ imprisonment and was ordered to forfeit £12,000 in cash after pleading guilty to conspiracy to supply crack cocaine and heroin, possession of criminal property and possession of cannabis.

Connor Woodburn-Hall, 24, also of Hounslow, was sentenced to seven years and one month imprisonment after pleading guilty to conspiracy to supply crack cocaine and heroin.

A 17-year-old boy from Richmond was meanwhile handed a two year rehabilitation order and will be subject to a six month curfew and exclusion from the borough of Hounslow. "He will also be subject to 90 days of intensive supervision", police said.

The trio’s crimes came to light after raids were conducted on their homes in June this year. Police said they found "burner style" phones with the two men, which when examined, contained hundreds of messages linked to drug supply on the so-called Bobby line.

The 17-year-old boy was found to be in possession of an estimated £5000 worth of cannabis, "along with handwritten rap lyrics glorifying his lifestyle of dealing drugs and carrying knives".

Police Constable Ben Deacon, who investigated the case, said: "Hussain and Woodburn-Hall pursued a lifestyle that exploited the vulnerable purely for their own selfish gain. For the most part, they hid in their London homes counting their profits whilst they directed others to deal crack cocaine and heroin on their behalf. Hussain even boasted to one of his ‘runners’ that he had multiple youths from his Hounslow estate queuing up to sell drugs for him. There is nothing glamorous or worthy about the life they led, nor the one they enticed and trapped their underlings into. I hope they spend their years in jail considering the negative impact they’ve had on the community and those who looked up to them.

"From the young people trapped at the bottom of the criminal food chain, the vulnerable addicts and their families, to the wider violent and theft-based criminality they cause, county lines tear apart and poison every person and community they touch."

The links between narcotics and violent crime are frequently highlighted by authorities tasked with policing controlled substances like illegal drugs.

However, a number of academic studies including a paper published last year by the Social Science Research Network argue the policy of prohibition, the 'War on Drugs', has correlated with increased violence in societies where it is practised because it forces the drug trade into the underground black market.