A 27-YEAR-OLD drug dealer who 'cuckooed' the flat of a vulnerable man in the Stroud area has been jailed for three years.

At Gloucester Crown Court yesterday (March 10) prosecutor Michael Hall said that in September and October last year James Newton, 27, was living with his partner in Lansdown Crescent in Cheltenham but was dealing in class A drugs from a ''cuckooed' flat in Church Street, King’s Stanley.

Mr Hall said: “Police in Stroud became aware that the 'Leon' drug phone line was being operated in the area. They monitored the line for a four week period, during which 605 bulk text messages were sent out to drug users in the Stroud area.

“It was similar in operation to that of a county lines drug line. The messages came from a phone located at various times in Cheltenham and Kings Stanley.

“The police moved in when they saw bulk texts going out at midnight and at 7am the next morning from the King’s Stanley address. On October 5, the officers gained entry into the property and saw two men, one of them being Newton, who was standing in the corner of the room with his hand out of the window.

“During a search of the property the police found the remains of a phone, believed to have been used for drug dealing, and a wrap of cocaine found down the side of a sofa. Nothing was found below the window.

“Newton was searched and was found with £140 in cash on him. A subsequent search of his partner’s flat in Cheltenham revealed that he had a further £300 in cash and a large amount of designer clothing and two mobile phones.

“During the police investigation it was assessed that Newton had used four different phone handsets to operate the drugs line.

“Newton gave a no comment interview at the police station but changed his mind and pleaded guilty at the magistrates court the following day."

Robyn Rowland, defending, said: “Newton accepts he had a significant role in this operation. It was a one man operation and he admits he gained financially from it.

“His offending came about because of pressures applied to him by others combined with poor thinking on his part.

“Newton said he needed the money in a hurry to help out his brother and he felt this was the easiest way in achieving it.

“He has already spent six months in custody waiting for this came to come to court and is keen for a suspended prison sentence community order to be imposed because of the time he has already served. He is anxious to get back to his life before he started dealing in drugs.

“Newton is not a natural drug dealer as he is opposed to people dealing in heroin as a number of his close family members have died through heroin overdoses."

Recorder Richard Mawhinney told Newton: “You were dealing from a vulnerable man’s flat to whom you had effectively cuckooed the occupant.

“You had a significant role in this drugs operation in which you gained financially.”

The judge jailed Newton for 36 months and ordered him to pay a victim surcharge of £190.

The judge also ordered the forfeiture and destruction of the drugs, the forfeiture of the designer clothing, which will be sold and added to the £440 seized cash and donated to Gloucestershire Police’s crime and drug prevention programme.