Dealer charged outside church taken in by cops (8)
I believe the answer is:
merchant
'dealer' is the definition.
(I know that dealer can be written as merchant)
'charged outside church taken in by cops' is the wordplay.
'charged' becomes 'ran'.
'outside' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'church' becomes 'ch' (common abbreviation).
'taken in by' is an insertion indicator.
'cops' becomes 'met' (the Metropolitan Police).
'ran' placed around 'ch' is 'rchan'.
'rchan' inserted into 'met' is 'MERCHANT'.
(Other definitions for merchant that I've seen before include "Shakespeare: ''The ... of Venice''" , "Antonio, say" , "One who buys and sells" , "that's often associated with speed" , "Wholesale trader" .)