A YOUNG drug dealer caught selling heroin and crack cocaine in a pub has been told to thank his mum and probation for avoiding prison.

Although Kyle Brace from Malmesbury was told “custody is inevitable” when he pleaded guilty at Swindon Crown Court last month, Judge Tim Mousley QC said he changed his mind and suspended the sentence.

At the same court on Tuesday, the Judge told 20-year-old Brace that he should thank the probation service for a report which suggested rehabilitation, and his mum for agreeing to have him back home.

He said: "I adjourned matters for sentence so I could find out more about you and I told you on that occasion, and directed the probation service, that a custodial sentence was inevitable and the only thing I was interested in was the length.

"If you had been a little bit older you could be looking at three or four years for what you have done.

"That type of sentence is virtually inevitable in every case and that was very clearly what I had in mind at the time.

"I reconsidered it at the last hearing predominantly because of what the probation officer had said in a report.

"I am not going to send you immediately to custody today – I am going to pass a suspended sentence.

"You have two people to thank for that: firstly the probation service, secondly your mother and the third thing that has saved you from custody today is your young age."

He imposed a 21 month jail term, suspended for two years, with supervision, a drug rehabilitation requirement and 100 hours of unpaid work.

Brace was caught by police twice within a few weeks early last year as he peddled drugs in Chippenham.

He was first arrested in the Wetherspoon pub on January 14 after someone spotted drug dealing taking place.

When officers arrived they searched Brace, who was with another man, and found he had eight wraps of heroin and crack on him, with another six in a bag he had dropped.

His phone was found to have received 1,181 incoming calls of less than a minute and 300 texts, which were indicative of a drug dealer receiving orders from users.

Brace was then arrested on a bus in Chippenham on Thursday February 6 for other matters and again found with 10 wraps of drugs.

Brace, of Athelstan Place in Malmesbury, initially pleaded not guilty to four counts of possession of class A drugs with intent to supply, but admitted the offences before a jury could be sworn in on the first day of the trial.