Two sons of a government minister ran a drugs operation targeting university students in an English city, a court was told yesterday.

Marcus Weeks, 28, and his younger brother, Dalji Waldron, 23, sons of Michael Weeks, the Minister of Social Development and Sport, ran “a mobile shop”, selling cocaine, ecstasy and cannabis.

Yesterday, they were both jailed for four years and four months after they admitted conspiracy to supply cocaine, ecstasy and cannabis, and cannabis cultivation charges.

The court heard that Mr Weeks was “absolutely devastated” by his sons’ crimes.

A shocked Mr Weeks said last night: “As a minister and a father, I want to sound a warning to our young children — the temptation is there, but it’s not just you who pays. Think what it does to your family.”

He added: “My sons are intelligent, articulate, well-read young men who made foolish choices and are now reaping the consequences of those choices.

“They made a conscious decision to break the law, Therefore, they have to pay for the decisions made.

“There is no way around it or ability to skim over it.”

Mr Weeks’s eldest son, Malik, was killed in a motorbike accident on Christmas Day in 2012, when he was 24, and the minister said the death had hit his brothers hard.

He added: “When Malik died, they did go off the rails somewhat. Being the big brother, it was really a shock.

“They were both over there in school in England. That Christmas morning they spoke to him and less than 24 hours later, they got a call that he had died.”

Mr Weeks was speaking after Lisa Hardy, for the prosecution, told Lincoln Crown Court that the brothers ran the operation to make money after they moved to live in the cathedral city in the East Midlands of England.

She said: “They were operating at mid-market level. They were buying in bulk amounts collecting the drugs from London then selling them in gram deals. They had a range of products.

“They clearly had a management function within this. They were not drug users. They were motivated by financial gain.

“There were videos on their phones of them paying for items in cash — £2,000 on one item.

“There is a video of them on Christmas Day giving their mother various gifts, including a car.”

Ms Hardy added: “Neither was ever registered as employed in the UK and neither was registered as a student.”

The brothers were first arrested in January last year after a Rover car driven by Marcus Weeks was stopped by police on the A1 motorway for having no insurance.

Officers smelled cannabis and a quantity of the drug was found inside the car.

Police later raided Weeks and Waldron’s home in Lincoln and found £16,000 (about $21,000) worth of cannabis, ecstasy and cocaine in the brothers’ locked bedrooms.

Checks on their mobile phones revealed messages showing they had been dealing for months.

Ms Hardy said: “Messages on Waldron’s phone showed he was a mid-market dealer. He had people working for him. He used taxis for the delivery of drugs to customers and people paid him on credit.

“Weeks’s phone showed he was buying in bulk from someone importing drugs and had someone working for him as a dealer.

“The messages showed they were meeting students. The arrangement was to meet at the front of the Lincoln University reception.”

The brothers were bailed but arrested again nine months later after police searched a terraced house in Dixon Street, Lincoln, which was being used to grow cannabis.

Weeks was at the property when police arrived and his and his brother’s fingerprints were found on equipment for growing.

The cannabis plants found inside were estimated to have a potential street value of nearly £11,000.

Weeks and Waldron, who were both living at Clarina Street, Lincoln, admitted charges of conspiracy to supply cocaine, ecstasy and cannabis between August 17, 2016 and September 22, 2017.

They also admitted production of cannabis on September 22 last year.

Recorder Graham Huston told the two: “The messages show you had a large number of customers from the student population in Lincoln. It would appear that is a group you targeted.

“Clearly this was a profitable business.

“Your father is a minister in the Bermudian Government. Both of you have something of a privileged background.

“I am told that this is a matter of real distress to your father.

“The cause of that distress is entirely of your own making.”

Jerome Lynch QC, a Bermudian-based lawyer who appeared for the defence, said: “Their father is a minister in the Bermudian Government. He is absolutely heartbroken by what his two sons have done, not least because his third son died in a [motorbike] accident.

“He now loses these sons as well for a time.”

Mr Lynch added: “He has funded their representation as a last-ditch effort to make them understand that there is a limit to how far he is able and willing to go.”

He told the court: “They were operating what can best be described as a mobile shop. They were not pressing these drugs on the vulnerable. They were in receipt of information from customers seeking to purchase.

“I don’t offer any excuses because they have had a relatively comfortable background.

“Bermuda is a strict place. It is almost as if being allowed off the leash in a new country has provided the backdrop to this criminal behaviour.”

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