A drug dealer has been jailed for six years after police found £2,000 of heroin and crack cocaine hidden behind the pictures on his walls.
Robert Richards claimed he was still trying to repay his supplier for drugs seized by police back in 2006, when he was convicted of drug trafficking.
The repeat offender admitted being concerned in the supply of heroin and cocaine between November 16 and 26 last year at his home on Holburn Street, Aberdeen.
At the High Court in Edinburgh yesterday, judge Lord Uist jailed him for six years, and said: “When the police raided the flat occupied by you, they found a total of nine packages of heroin with a street value of £630 and 16 packages of crack cocaine with a maximum street value of £1,300.
“You were also found to be in possession of £350 in cash.
“It is clear from the discoveries and what you said to the police that you were engaged in commercial dealing in these two dangerous drugs.”
The judge pointed to Richards’s three previous convictions for being concerned in the supply of Class A drugs.
Advocate depute Stephen McCloy said that police raided unemployed Richards’s flat last year after receiving a tip-off.
During a search, he nodded towards a picture hanging in the room and officers recovered a bag from behind it. Another was recovered from behind a picture in the hall.
In an interview, the unemployed forklift driver admitted he had sourced the drugs from Birmingham.
Defence counsel David Moggach told the court yesterday that a result of his first conviction in 2006, he was still trying to repay his supplier for the drugs that were seized.
Mr Moggach said: “He tells me he is still being chased for that money. As a consequence that led him to commit the further dealing offence.”