A DRUG dealer who ran a county lines operation from a holiday caravan at Dawlish has been jailed.

James O’Reilly named his line Benny after his nickname and sent 98 texts in the space of three days offering users ‘best of both’ meaning heroin and crack cocaine.

He was caught because police stopped a car carrying four associates as it headed South on the M5 and found a key to the caravan in Dawlish on one of them.

O’Reilly is originally from Liverpool and got his nickname because of his striking physical similarity to the rap singer Benny Banks.

He was found with seven wraps of crack cocaine worth £110, £700 cash, and the phone which was used to send out messages offering drugs and take orders from customers.

The criminal slang for it is ‘a graft’ phone and police found outgoing messages which read ‘On with power, best of both, Benny’.

O’Reilly, aged 28, of Old Quarry Drive, Exminster, admitted offering to supply class A drugs and was jailed for four years by Judge Peter Johnson at Exeter Crown Court.

He told him: ‘You were found with the graft phone for the Benny line. It was eponymous, because you were Benny and in a relatively short time you had sent 98 bulk texts.

‘When I look at the evidence in this case, it is perfectly clear to me that, at the very least, you played a significant role in the operation. There were others involved but you had a management function in the chain.’

Miss Mary McCarthy, prosecuting, said a car was stopped on the M5 heading towards Devon on October 8, 2019 and a key was found which led police to a caravan at a holiday park at Dawlish.

A forensic examination of two phones found with O’Reilly showed one was the Benny graft phone and the other was his own.

Their movements had been identical over the previous weeks and there were messages and photos which showed that O’Reilly was Benny.

Miss Emily Cook, defending, said O’Reilly was not a drugs kingpin and was acting under the control of others. He was living in a caravan at the time and is now living in a one bedroomed flat.

She said he did not have the trappings of wealth associated with drug dealing and that he has turned his life around in the two years since these offences.

He is now the carer for his partner, who suffers from mental health issues and is helping her look after their 14-month-old daughter.