AN EX-WORKER with autistic adults who looked after a £1,150 cocaine stash for a dealer after getting into debt has been jailed for two-and-a-half years.

Nathan Slater, 24, wasn't a drug addict but had run up bills on household items after being made redundant.

He had borrowed money, couldn't pay it back and agreed to hold the high purity drugs to pay off the £800, Burnley Crown Court was told.

The defendant, of Marlowe Crescent, Great Harwood, admitted possessing cocaine with intent to supply.

Stephen Parker, prosecuting, said on August 9, just after 9am, police raided a house on Dill Hall Lane, Accrington.

In a bedroom the defendant had been using, officers found a tub containing 21.2 grams of cocaine, of 61 per cent purity. Another man had been staying there and he was later arrested as well.

Mr Parker said the defendant turned up at the police station just after midday and said: “I have come to hand myself in.”