A YORK teenage drug dealer rented a room at a bed-and-breakfast and used it to store enough cannabis for more than 5,300 cigarettes, the city's crown court heard.

Heather Humpage, prosecuting, said that Mark Stephen Hanshaw, 19, and two friends started occupying the room in the Laurence Street guest house, York, two days before police raided it.

The officers found 532g of cannabis resin divided up into 38 deals hidden with scales, five wraps of heroin and cash in the room's toilet system and immediately arrested him and three other people in the room. Charges were later dropped against the other three.

After his arrest, Hanshaw skipped bail and three months later, another policeman caught Hanshaw red-handed in a car with 220g of cannabis in Hospital Fields Road, York.

The policeman became suspicious when Hanshaw's companion quickly hid something under a jacket as the officer approached.

Hanshaw initially gave the name of another teenager from Acomb and when the officer found the cannabis confessed it was his.

Hanshaw, formerly of Ordnance Lane, Fulford, and Bellhouse Avenue, Foxwood, pleaded guilty to possessing 532g of cannabis with intent to supply it; possessing heroin on November 26; possessing 220g of cannabis for his own use on February 27; and failure to attend Fulford Road Police Station, York.

His barrister, Richard Mansell, said Hanshaw had spent 14 weeks in custody after his second arrest. He had bought the February cannabis to help him cope with the side effects of kicking his heroin habit.

Judge Jim Spencer QC, sitting with two magistrates, gave him a 12-month rehabilitation order saying that it would help him give up drugs.

Miss Humpage said the 532g of resin was enough to make 5,320 cannabis cigarettes.

Mr Mansell said Hanshaw started dealing commercially in cannabis to pay for his £30 a day heroin habit. He had been dabbling in drugs for years.

Updated: 08:10 Saturday, November 22, 2003