A SECRET police surveillance camera recorded scores of people visiting a house in Golborne, most of whom only stayed for 90 seconds.

The hidden cameras filmed over a three-day period and police saw many well-known heroin addicts visit the house where George Anderton lived with his parents.

When they finally raided the house officers found a total of £964 cash and drug dealing paraphanalia but no drugs though they did find traces of heroin on digital scales.

George Anderton, aged 38, of Rothwell Road, appeared at Bolton Crown Court for sentence after he admitted four offences of supplying heroin. Judge John Roberts jailed him for a total of four years and three months.

Prosecutor Simon Temple said the camera was set up and filmed over a three-day period on June 27, 28 and 29 this year.

The police noticed that many people visited the house but only for very short periods and that if they drove there they parked their cars some distance away and walked or ran to the house.

Many of those visiting Rothwell Road were known to the police and many were convicted heroin users. One man Kirk Sedgewick was stopped and found to have a £10 wrap of heroin on him.

When police searched the house they found the tips of disposable plastic gloves often used by dealers to make up a £10 wrap. They found £964 in cash, disposable gloves, digital scales, a mobile phone and a 'tooting tube' used to smoke heroin.

When interviewed by police Anderton said he had a heroin habit of between two to four £10 bags a day which would cost him around £240 to feed weekly on benefits of just £104.

When asked by police where he got the extra money from to pay for his habit he said people visited him to buy cigarettes and tobacco and that he bought and sold jewellery.

The court heard that Anderton had a long criminal record including offences for dishonesty and possession of drugs.

The court was told that Anderton had a long history of heroin addiction and had only broken the cycle when he was in jail.

On one occasion he had become free of drugs and had got a job but became addicted again when he revisited his old haunts.