Northern Ireland

Jailed dealer Liam Dowds was main heroin supplier in Belfast

Drug dealer Liam Dowds was secretly filmed by BBC's Spotlight last year
Drug dealer Liam Dowds was secretly filmed by BBC's Spotlight last year Drug dealer Liam Dowds was secretly filmed by BBC's Spotlight last year

A MAN jailed for supplying heroin following the death of a young woman in the toilets of a fast food restaurant was named as one of the biggest suppliers of the drug in Belfast last year.

Liam Dowds (35) was secretly filmed by the BBC supplying heroin to addicts both at a location close to the Lagan and from the window of his flat at River Terrace in the lower Ormeau area of the city.

Dowds was told on Thursday that he would serve half of a 32-month sentence in prison and the rest on supervised licence following the death of a woman from an overdose in a KFC outlet at Donegall Place in March last year.

Phone records showed that he had put the 25-year-old in touch with a man who sold her a wrap of heroin for £50.

The victim's mother said she had been taking part in a drug outreach programme and it was an accidental overdose.

Calling for a specialist facility for addicts, she said she believed the heroin had a fatal effect because her daughter had been off it for so long.

Dowds was arrested in January of this year and admitted a charge of being concerned in the supply of heroin.

A BBC Spotlight investigation carried out last year put him at the centre of the heroin trade in Belfast, not only supplying drugs to addicts but having 'runners' working for him at street level in the distribution of the deadly drug.

Spotlight also secretly filmed Dowds passing heroin from a first floor window of his flat to a street dealer to be sold on.

In 2011 he was jailed for pulling a knife on a former acquaintance and threatening to kill him.

Dowds, who was already on probation at the time, confronted his victim with two large butcher-type knives in the hallway of his home, threatening him and his children.

When the case was due for hearing he again confronted the man, holding him by the arm and pleading with him to drop the charges in return for his promise "to pay anything... thousands of pounds".

The court was told that he was left "absolutely petrified" when Dowds said he knew where his children lived.