A DRUG dealer caught with cannabis, amphetamine and ecstasy in his family home sobbed in the dock as he was sentenced at court.

Burnley Crown Court heard how two phones found inside Tyee Bond’s house showed he had been dealing cocaine at The Beat-Herder Festival, as well as ketamine to a ‘small group of friends’.

Sobbing from the dock, 27-year-old Bond told Judge Nicholas Barker how drugs had ‘ruined his life’ and he was now seeking help to overcome his issues.

Prosecuting, Hanifa Patel said police executed a warrant on Bond’s property at 9.15am on July 26. Once they had got inside, Bond told officers that he had cannabis in the property but that was for his own personal use.

During a search police found amphetamine in the kitchen, three ecstasy tablets and £700 of cannabis in various locations, including inside a bag on top of a fish tank. Officers also found the mobile phones which linked him to dealing cannabis, ketamine and cocaine.

In a basis of plea, Bond, of Seldon Street, Colne, admitted to being a cannabis dealer but said he only sold to a small group of friends. He said on rare occasions he had sold ketamine and on three separate occasions around Beat-Herder - on June 16, July 7 and July 13 - he had sold cocaine to them.

Bond pleaded guilty to a number of drug possession and supply offences.

Defending, Gerard Doran, said his client had shown genuine remorse, had sought help from the drug and alcohol misuse recovery charity Inspire and had an ambition to set up his own tree surgeon business.

Mr Doran said: “He maintains he was financing his own habit. He is somebody who unfortunately did have a relaxed attitude towards illegal drugs and the use of those himself.”

Judge Barker said Bond’s offending had passed the custody threshold but the fact he had shown a willingness to change had convinced him to suspend the two year prison sentence for 24 months.

Judge Barker said: “It is clear for many years you have immersed yourself in a drug taking culture, coming to a view that there is nothing wrong with yourself and whoever you have engaged with in that culture taking those drugs. It was simply your choice and that is something you believed could be done with impunity as far as the law is concerned. As you have discovered, that is not the case.”

Bond was made subject of a nine month drug rehabilitation requirement, with 20 rehabilitation activity requirement days and 180 hours unpaid work.