THREE young drug dealers have been locked up for a total of five years after they were caught red-handed with nearly £1,000 of cannabis.

One of the trio, Wayne Marcus Blenkin, was a 15-year-old schoolboy when police surprised them near a drugs cache on a Malton footpath.

Sentencing him at Sheffield Crown Court yesterday to 12 months detention, with a training order, Judge Patrick Robertshaw lifted an order banning his identification.

Blenkin, now 17, of Welham Road, Norton, and his fellow dealers were convicted by a jury at York Crown Court in June of possession of cannabis with intent to supply.

Mark Richard Dale, now 19, also of Welham Road, Norton, and Richard Steven Downes, now 21, of Weaverthorpe, were each jailed for two years.

The jury heard undercover officers followed the three and a fourth man to the footpath by Highfield Road, Malton.

As two of the group bent down to a bag of cannabis hidden in a hedge, police pounced.

All four fled along the footpath, but Dale and Blenkin were tackled by police and arrested.

Dale and Downes dropped cannabis resin as they ran. Police with sniffer dogs recovered £969 worth of the drug and other items.

In Dale's car, parked nearby, police found a baseball bat and a cutting board with traces of cannabis.

Downes was caught a month later in a flat at Thornton-le-Dale.

In evidence, all three claimed they were just drug users who were meeting their dealer, the fourth man, who was never caught and whom they refused to name.

They denied concocting a joint cover story that put all the blame on the absent person.

But the jury convicted them unanimously after two-and-a- quarter hours.