A stash of £12,000 in cash and a cache of designer goods were among the finds when police raided a drug dealer’s Oxford home.

Officers went through the doors of the Blackbird Leys property Jahvina Brown shared with his partner and three children last month.

They found no drugs, but scored a significant hit when they seized a mobile phone used to send bulk advertising messages to hundreds of customers between August last year and the 33-year-old’s arrest in January. The texts offered heroin and cocaine for sale.

Prosecutor Richard Mandel told Oxford Crown Court on Monday (February 6) that, despite being unemployed at the time as a result of an injury in 2021, defendant Brown also had £12,000 in cash at his property and designer apparel worth at least £2,000. The luxury goods included top brand items, such as a Louis Vuitton bag.

The mobile telephone used as the ‘drugs line phone’ to process orders from customers was registered in the defendant’s name, although the address for the contract was the home of what Mr Mandel described as a ‘vulnerable person’.

“When he was interviewed, initially he tried to brazen it out when he was asked about his involvement in the supply of drugs, saying he didn’t know what the police were talking about,” the prosecutor said.

“Thereafter he answered no comment to the questions put to him about the drugs.”

Appearing before the crown court from custody, Brown, of Blackbird Leys Road, Oxford, pleaded guilty to two counts of being concerned in the supply of heroin and crack cocaine and one charge of possessing criminal property.

He had six previous convictions, with the first – two attempted robberies – dealt with in 2004 when he was a youth.

The court heard Brown had three children, with his youngest still just a baby. His father was not ‘a presence’ in his own childhood, defence barrister Emma Hornby said. And he realised that his offending meant he would now not be involved in his own youngsters’ lives for some time.

He was remorseful for his actions, with his incarceration expected to have a ‘significant impact’ on his children.

Ms Hornby said her client suffered from anxiety and depression, stemming from being stabbed ‘quite significantly’ when he was aged 17. He still bore the scars on his arm from the attack. 

Jailing Brown for three years and four months, Recorder John Ryder KC branded the sale of illegal drugs a ‘pernicious trade, which as you will well know leads to a spiral of misery’.

The drugs line phone, the cash and the designer booty was forfeit to Thames Valley Police.