A cannabis dealer was rugby tackled to the floor by a sergeant after he fled from police.

Hassan Hussain, now 22, who was spared an immediate spell behind bars on Thursday, was searched and found to have around 22g of cannabis and over £5,000 in cash on him when he was caught in March 2018.

Prosecutor Steven Molloy told Oxford Crown Court that police officers were on the hunt for a dark-coloured vehicle in the Cowley Road area in which Hussain and two other men were travelling. Officers believed the men were dealing drugs.

The police caught up with the vehicle on St Clements, where the men fled. A sergeant stationed on Cowley Road spotted Hussain running towards him and rugby tackled the teen.

The former Sainsbury’s cashier was then arrested six months later, in September, after police were called to an unrelated incident.

He was searched together with another man, who had MDMA and Ketamine on him. Hussain had no drugs but a mobile phone found on him contained messages pointing to him being involved in dealing cannabis. He also had £770 suspected to be the proceeds of drug dealing. 

Hussain, of Nye Bevan Close, Oxford, had been due to stand trial this week on allegations of dealing drugs. But appearing before Judge Ian Pringle QC on Thursday afternoon, the Oxford youngster pleaded guilty to possession with intent to supply cannabis on March 6, 2018, and being concerned in the supply of the class B drug on or before September 28, 2018.

Sentencing him to nine months’ imprisonment suspended for a year-and-a-half, Judge Pringle told Hussain he hoped he’d learnt his lesson – adding that dealing drugs on the streets ‘almost inevitably’ leads to jail sentences.

“If in the next 18 months you get into any criminal trouble particularly to do with drugs you are likely to have that nine months on top of anything you receive,” he said.

Mitigating, Karl Volz said his client had been 18 at the time of the first arrest and 19 when he was caught a second time. He had been working at Sainsbury’s cashier at the time and ‘wasn’t earning very much money’.

Hussain had been in and out of work since then, but was soon due to start a college course to train to become an electrician. He had kept out of trouble in the three years since his arrest and had ‘turned his back on the offending that got him into trouble’.

He had no previous convictions or cautions.

The drugs and cash were ruled forfeit by Judge Pringle.

Keep up to date with all the latest news on our website, or follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

For news updates straight to your inbox, sign up to our newsletter here.

Have you got a story for us? Contact our newsdesk on news@nqo.com or 01865 425 445.