A HEROIN addict who caused 11 years of hell for his neighbours will be evicted from his house - but he insists it's not all his fault.

Graham Chiswell, 50, allowed his council home to become a haven for drug dealers and a place for users to smoke crack cocaine and inject heroin, Oxford Magistrates' Court heard yesterday.

Since he moved to Bernwood Road in Barton, Oxford, in 1996, neighbours have endured noise, abuse, fights and drugs on their doorsteps.

Yesterday, magistrates agreed a drug house closure order forcing Mr Chiswell and his partner Vicky Collins, 26, out of their home and the house to be boarded up.

Mr Chiswell, who has been a heroin addict for 21 years, said: "I don't deserve it. I've been asking to be moved off the estate for years. I'm glad to be leaving, but not like this. But now I'm getting off, things can get better.

"I'm pretty depressed about it. I feel I've been used by other people for their own means and gain."

Mr Chiswell said drug dealers first started visiting his house five years ago.

Soon they were coming and going 24 hours a day and he could not stop them, he added.

The couple must be out of the house by Monday. They plan to stay at a friend's house, then seek advice about getting a new home.

Relieved neighbours said the past 11 years had been a living nightmare.

A mother-of-four said: "We've had it for years and years - druggies going in and out, swearing, fighting, drugs, police raids. We've just put up with it for too long. It's been a nightmare."

Neighbour Paul Brown, 61, said: "Graham is not bad, it's the people that go to the house who are the problem. But I am relieved."

The drugs house closure hearing followed a closure notice issued by police last week which banned anyone visiting the property.

Rajeev Shetty, prosecuting, said: "The consequences on the local neighbourhood has been severe. It's resulted in a number of users accumulating in that premises, outside the premises, starting and causing fights, begging neighbours for money and stealing property."

Mark Jones, defending, said: "The order is not contested. It is for his benefit, and the local community, that he leaves this address."

PC Rob Fisher, of the Barton neighbourhood team, said: "This house has been a long-standing problem and been at the hub of the drug problem in the area.

"This will send shockwaves to the drug users in the community. If we find any more houses that carry on this way then we will fight them too."