Addict with £100 a day habit is jailed (From Oxford Mail)

Addict with £100 a day habit is jailed

1:00pm Saturday 18th February 2012 in Didcot By Thom Airs

A DRUG addict who turned to dealing to fund a £100 a day crack cocaine habit has been jailed.

Paul Strong was arrested after police raided the bedroom he was staying in at a house in Didcot on January 23.

Officers found the 35-year-old with £165 in cash and 13 wraps of drugs.

Ten contained crack cocaine weighing in at 3.78 grams with a 24 per cent purity.

The remaining three wraps contained 446 milligrams of 15 per cent pure heroin.

Strong, of Green Road, Didcot, was sentenced at Oxford Crown Court on Thursday having earlier admitted two counts of possessing Class A drugs with intent to supply and breaching a suspended sentence.

Prosecutor Tim Boswell said one of “a number of mobile phones” found during the raid rang about 30 times in the space of two hours.

When officers analysed the device, and one other phone, they found “text messages from people indicating they were looking for drugs”.

In a police interview Strong said he spent about £100 a day on crack and, according to Mr Boswell, “admitted that up until January 21 he was manning that phone and effectively supplying drugs”.

He added that he had been doing about 30 to 40 deals a day for a month.

The court heard Strong has 13 previous convictions for 30 offences starting in 1994. His only previous similar offence was for dealing cannabis in 1998.

Ian Brownhill, defending, said: “It’s quite clear Mr Strong has relapsed into a previous habit of drug use and has been for the past year.

“He was somebody who was dealing to fund his own habit and those individuals he was dealing to were known to him.”

Mr Brownhill pointed out there had been a 10-year gap in his client’s offending between 2001 and 2011.

Judge Anthony King jailed him for a total of 32 months and said: “I don’t think your role was insignificant.

“You were in possession of a significant quantity, though relatively small separate packages, of crack cocaine.”