A MAN who hid from police in an airing cupboard has been cleared of possessing heroin and crack cocaine with intent to supply.

Devon Nelson, of Rose Hill, Oxford, faced four counts of possessing heroin and crack cocaine with intent to supply on May 21 and November 10 last year.

Richard Moss, prosecuting, told a jury at Oxford Crown Court police officers had linked the defendant to two stashes of drugs in Rose Hill, Oxford, and Ashhurst Way, Oxford.

But yesterday a jury found Nelson not guilty of all four counts against him following four hours and 18 minutes of deliberating.

During the trial he was asked by his barrister Lucy Tapper why he had hidden under a pile of clothes in an airing cupboard, where drugs were also found behind a boiler, when police raided the Ashhurst Way property.

Nelson told her this was because he was afraid of having an “intimate” search by police.

He told the jury: “When they see me they do it to me, all the time.”

Also questioned as to why his DNA was on the child’s sock which the drugs in Rose Hill were hidden in, he said it must have been from playing with the children of friends.

He said: “I don’t know, all I’m saying is friends come there with kids and I love kids.”

Nelson told police and maintained throughout the trial that he had nothing to do with either batch of drugs.