A York drug dealer caught with £2,000-worth of heroin claimed he was using it to wean himself off methadone, a court heard.

But Kevin Peter Mulgrew was jailed for three and a half years after a jury at York Crown Court convicted him of possessing the heroin with intent to supply.

Mulgrew, 34, of Walton Place, Chapelfields, had pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of possessing the class A drug.

Recorder Geoffrey Marson QC told him: "Those who descend to peddling these sorts of appalling drugs must serve substantial sentences.

"You were exposing other people to the dangers which have brought about your fall."

Prosecutor Nicholas Frith earlier told how police raided Mulgrew's council house, where he lived with his wife and young son, and stopped him trying to swallow some of the drug.

He said the high value of the drugs meant Mulgrew, a drug user for ten years, planned to sell them rather than use them himself.

In court Mulgrew disputed police claims that the 19 grammes he had was worth £1,900 - based on the average street deal of a 0.1g wrap costing £10.

He insisted he paid £475 for it in Bradford where the drug was cheaper than York. He said he saved the cash from five weeks of benefits totalling £922.

When arrested he had £275 on him. At yesterday's hearing the judge ordered the confiscated cash be paid towards prosecution costs.

Mulgrew claimed he had been thrown off a methadone programme at a York drug clinic because septicaemia in his legs caused him to miss an appointment.

Without the addictive heroin substitute, he turned back to heroin but he had hoped to wean himself off methadone with the 19g of heroin - enough for four days, he said.

But Mr Frith argued that Mulgrew, who had taken to smoking heroin after running out of veins to inject it into, had the intention and the need to sell the drugs he was caught with.

After the guilty verdict, Mulgrew's barrister, Andrew Keogh, told the court: "This is a man who has made a mess of himself."

The court was told Mulgrew had previous convictions for possessing and supplying controlled drugs.

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