A DRUGS courier caught with heroin stashes worth £28,300 is hoping his heart problems will save him for a second time from a lengthy spell in jail.

Jonathan Matthew Hibbs, 40, of Northfields, Strensall, faces a minimum of seven years in jail as it is the third time he has admitted being involved in trading Class A drugs, York Crown Court heard.

He should have been jailed for five years in June 2011 when he was caught taking heroin worth up to £50,000 up the A19 to Middlesbrough just 12 days after he was released from five years in jail for a similar offence, Judge Peter Fox told Teesside Crown Court.

But the judge decided instead to give him a suspended sentence of 12 months after hearing he is kept alive by a heart pump and that without it he “doesn’t have a heart beat”.

Thirteen months later, in July 2012, during the suspension period, police followed him to a field near Dunnington where he had hidden heroin worth £8,370 and on October 10, 2013, while awaiting trial for that stash, police raided his home and found 384g of heroin worth £24,000 and two laptops stolen in recent burglaries.

When he appeared for sentence on his latest offences, his barrister Nicholas Johnson pleaded for him to keep his freedom, saying that he is kept alive by a heart pump and prison staff would not be able to respond to his medical needs.

Hibbs, pleaded guilty to three offences of possessing heroin with intent to supply it to others and two of handling stolen goods.

The Recorder of York, Judge Stephen Ashurst, adjourned sentence while he writes to the prison service to find out how they would cope if Hibbs was jailed. Hibbs was released on bail.

His doctor, consultant cardiologist Guy McGowan, of Freeman Hospital, Newcastle, told the court through a video link that Hibbs had to have a carer who had received specialist training in caring for patients with a heart pump and he should speak directly with him or his staff at least twice a week.

He needed to have quick access to a hospital emergency department and in emergency circumstances be able to go directly to Freeman Hospital. The doctor said training a nurse to be Hibbs’ carer could be done in a couple of half-day sessions, depending on their medical expertise, and the court heard prisons have hospital wings.

Hibbs claims the heroin in the field was left over from his previous offending as a drug courier and the heroin found in his house had been in the field when the police searched it, but they didn’t find it. Afterwards he moved it to his house.