A DRUG dealer who was caught with £3,600 of heroin and crack and £675 cash has been jailed.

Kifle Nugent was sent to Devon by a Midlands-based organised crime group and arrested at a house on a former council estate in Newton Abbot.

He was only 18 at the time and had joined the drugs gang as a way of paying off a cannabis debt.

He was jailed for two years but will serve the sentence at the same time as terms totaling 13 years and four months for assault and drug offences in the Midlands.

He was arrested when police raided a house in Howards Way, Buckland, Newton Abbot, in February 2018 but his case has had to wait for the more serious other matters to be concluded.

Another man, Andrew Edwards, aged 54, of Holsworthy, North Devon, who was arrested at the same time and Nugent has had charges dropped against him.

Nugent, also known as Nurse, aged 22, of Badgers Croft, Derrington, Stafford, admitted possession of heroin and crack cocaine with intent to supply and possession of criminal property.

He was jailed for two years at Exeter Crown Court by Recorder Mr Kevin de Haan, QC, who ordered the sentence should run concurrently with his existing terms.

He told him: ’It seems this was street dealing but was a serious matter. These offences are now very old and in addition, you were only 18 at the time.

’In my view, if the judge who sentenced you for the other offences for far more serious matter had known about this case, it would not have added to the sentence.’

Mr Lee Bremridge, prosecuting, said Nugent was found with wraps of heroin and crack with a street value of £3,600 and £675 cash at a house in South Devon on February 2, 2018.

He said that he received sentences of 13 years and four months for causing grievous bodily harm with intent and conspiracy to supply class A drugs in August and November 2021.

Mr Bremridge said a decision had been taken last week that it was not in the public interest to continue the case against the co-defendant and he had been found not guilty after no evidence was offered.

Miss Felicity Payne, defending, said Nugent had been subject to some pressure to get involved as a result of a debt for cannabis which he ran up when he was very young.

She asked the Judge to take into account the principle of totality and not add to the very long sentence Nugent is already serving.