Businessman jailed six years for rape last week linked to posh cocaine peddlers

Boat builder Peter Spence (61) has ties to a mob operating a posh people’s drugs supply service for nearly 20 years.

But this week as he was jailed for six years for rape, a judge him that he showed “an entire lack of remorse” during his trial and also in interviews with the police and probation service.

A jury had heard that on the November 21, 2019, the former DJ Spence raped a woman after waking her from her sleep.

This week Judge Mr Justice O’Hara told Spence: “Drugs and drink have cost you employment and a relationship with your children.”

He ordered Spence – who has a lengthy list of previous convictions – to spend half of his six-year sentence behind bars and the remainder on licence. His name will be added to the sex offenders register for life.

But the Sunday World can reveal that the man known as ‘Spencer’ was linked to a drugs gang based in the leafy suburbs of south Belfast.

The gang built a lucrative narcotics supply chain dealing cocaine and cannabis to middle-class punters.

And we can reveal that the drugs operation is still continuing, with two of Spence’s associates now in charge.

During a special Sunday World investigation into the drugs outfit, we snapped his pals splitting a bag of cocaine. Using a hidden camera, we got up close and personal with the dealers as they prepared for a night of dealing drugs.

“Your picture proves that even with Spencer behind bars, cocaine and cannabis are still on sale in south Belfast,” an angry parent told us.

A former drugs squad officer told us: “The drugs patch is a few minutes’ drive from Malone and Stranmillis... and caters almost exclusively for the middle-class coke market.

“Drugs are purchased on the Ormeau and customers disappear back into the shadows without anyone knowing,” our source said.

But last night, the uncle of a university student who became addicted to cocaine supplied by Spencer’s men called on the police to clamp down on the south Belfast street dealers.

“Everyone on the Ormeau Road knows this is going on. But it was the comparative ease my niece had in buying cocaine which shocked me,” he said.

“My niece quickly became hooked. It was so easy for her to buy it. She told me sourcing cocaine on the Ormeau was like buying a bar of chocolate.

“Perhaps now that it’s exposed, surely the police will move to close them down once and for all.”

The Sunday World has been told the PSNI has been inundated with intelligence reports linking Spence’s pals to the Ormeau Road drugs scene.

The key dealers have criminal convictions for drugs possession. And Spence has a lengthy criminal record including one for stealing alcohol while under the influence of drugs.

hjordan.media@btinternet.com