A dealer had crack cocaine and heroin safely stowed away in a sunglasses case stuffed down his boxer shorts, a court heard.

Billy Biston volunteered the rogue package during a strip search, having been stopped in a car in Warwick Road, Banbury, on August 18, 2020.

Police officers’ suspicions were raised when Biston, now 27, admitted having cannabis on him.

During the strip search at the police station, Biston was found to have a wrap of heroin worth around £10 and 13 wraps of crack cocaine. The total value of the drugs was about £260, prosecutor Cathy Olliver told Oxford Crown Court on Friday.

Checks of his phone uncovered a number of bulk marketing messages sent a couple of days before, promising would-be customers that he was ‘on ‘til late’.

Mitigating, Gordana Austin said her client was selling drugs to which he was addicted himself. He was given drugs by a dealer and told where to deliver them. He was homeless at the time and sleeping on the streets or sofa surfing.

“He had a difficult childhood. He lived with his father who was an alcoholic who used to beat him up. His mother left them when he was six years old and he was subsequently socialising with peers who offered him drugs,” she said.

While on bail he was working with the probation service to address his long-term drug addiction. He was currently on a prescription to heroin substitute methadone, taking around 50ml of the medication every day.

The court heard that Biston had initially pleaded not guilty and his trial fixed for later this year. An arrest warrant was issued when he failed to turn up to a hearing last September but it wasn’t until a couple of weeks ago that he was picked up by the police and put before the magistrates.

Appearing before Judge Maria Lamb on Friday via video link from HMP Bullingdon, Biston, of no fixed address, pleaded guilty to possession with intent to supply class A drugs and breach of bail.

Judge Lamb told him: “I accept these have been difficult times for you and will be difficult times in custody not least because of your recent bereavement.

“I am glad you’re taking steps in the right direction to get off the heroin.”

She jailed him for 28 months for dealing drugs and added another two months for failing to attend court. His total sentence was two-and-a-half years.