A CANNABIS dealer who sold drugs for two years to supplement his low income and feed his own habit was spared jail.

Burnley Crown Court heard how Thomas Metcalfe, 33, who was arrested at work, owned up to police, saying he had been making about £200 a month.

The defendant, who has been smoking cannabis since he was 14, had a commercial stock of drugs worth £1,100 and a dealer's list.

Metcalfe, now working in a Toyota factory, was found with 18 £20 bags of cannabis on him and told police he sold drugs either at work or the McDonald’s car park in Accrington.

The defendant, of Barnfield Street, Accrington, had admitted possessing cannabis with intent to supply on May 1 and supplying the drug between May 2011 and May 2013.

Metcalfe was given 12 months in prison, suspended for two years, with 240 hours unpaid work and a four-month curfew on Saturdays and Sundays between 9pm and 6am.

He may now face a Proceeds of Crime hearing.

Sarah Statham, prosecuting, said the defendant was arrested on May 1 on Altham Industrial Estate.

At his home, where he lived with his parents, police discovered digital scales, £350 cash, unused snap seal bags and smaller amounts of cannabis. Metcalfe said he had been supplying cannabis to supplement his income and buy clothes and was making a profit of between £100 and £200 a month.

For Metcalfe, Adrian Williams said he had been refreshingly honest with police.

He said: “He is genuinely remorseful, genuinely ashamed and genuinely motivated to completely change his life around.”

The defendant was now working with the community drugs team, the court heard.

He had not taken drugs for six weeks and, although he lost his job as a result of being arrested, he now had a new one.

Mr Williams said: “He is extremely fearful of custody. He is highly unlikely to come before the courts again."

Sentencing, Recorder Nicholas Clarke, QC, said: “It has to be said that your dealing in cannabis was of a significant level.

“It seems to me that the most constructive way of dealing with you would be to punish you long and hard in the community.”