Son of The Farm’s Peter Hooton jailed for £1.3m Encrochat operation

The son of the lead singer of the band The Farm has been jailed for running a drug operation which spanned the UK.

Police discovered the identity of Thomas Hooton, 30, from encrypted messages he exchanged with organised criminals about his musician father, Peter.

He used the messaging service EncroChat to deal drugs with a wholesale value of around £1.3m, the National Crime Agency said.

Hooton, of Victoria Road West, Crosby, Liverpool, pleaded guilty at Liverpool Crown Court to conspiring to supply heroin, cocaine, cannabis and ketamine and was sentenced to 10 years and eight months in jail.

Hooton was involved in the supply of 42.5kg of cannabis, 3.25kg of heroin, 10 kg of cocaine and 1kg of ketamine and brokered “high level deals”, Merseyside Police said.

He had messaged 41 different contacts under the name Ownraptor on EncroChat, the force said.

Detectives found he had a county lines drug supply operation which ran to Scotland, the north east and the south of England.

Police said one of the key details to discovering Thomas’ identity was a picture of his father with the Champions League trophy sent via EncroChat.

He also spoke in the messages about driving a black Audi A3 and that his “arl fella’” arranged his insurance for him.

Official checks showed Peter Hooton insured a black Audi A3 for his son Thomas.

The encrypted chats also revealed he was in possession of about £400,000 and owed others £258,000.

Det Chief Insp Lynsay Armbruster said: “It’s clear Hooton was involved in organised crime for a long time before he was charged.

“His criminal and geographical reach will have taken considerable time to establish.

“His drug supply operations were on an almost daily basis, they were sustained and spanned the UK working with high-level criminals.”

EncroChat was infiltrated and taken down in 2020 by a European taskforce.