Drunk dealer found hiding in loft with £110,000 of drugs

Leslie Cropper, 37, rolled his car down an embankment after a drunken argument with his partner.

But after fleeing the scene, he was traced by police who found him hiding in his loft with a stash of drugs, worth close to £120,000 in total.

Leeds Crown Court heard Cropper first drew attention to himself following the argument with his partner in the early hours of November 30.

Neighbours heard screaming and shouting and then saw him walk away before returning at speed in a Ford Focus from his nearby home in Dewsbury.

Prosecutor Dave Mackay said Cropper continued the row through the window of the car before he drove off - only to return once more at speed.

But the drunk-driver failed to negotiate a junction and crashed down an embankment. He got out of the car and went home where he was found hiding in the loft by police.

He told officers: “I just had a barney with my missus and drove straight off there.”

Mr Mackay said officers had also found heroin and crack cocaine with him in the loft and more heroin in a bag in the bedroom.

The heroin weighed 2.389kgs with a potential street value of £112,000, while the crack cocaine was worth £6,000. Around £600 in cannabis was also found which Cropper said was for his own use.

Initially Cropper claimed to have found the drugs but he later admitted he had been approached a few months earlier by a taxi driver who offered him some work.

That turned out to be bagging up the Class A drugs for which he was paid £1,200 each time. He said he did it because if was “easy money.”

Kathryn Stuckey, mitigating, said Cropper worked as a window cleaner but was only earning around £150 a week and found it difficult to make ends meet.

He also wanted to have more for his family over Christmas and naively did not consider what he was getting involved in.

“His end thought was getting the money he was promised,” she said.

Cropper admitted possessing crack cocaine and heroin with intent to supply, possession of cannabis and driving over the prescribed limit.

A reading taken by police at the time of the offence showed he had 53mgs in 100mls of breath, the limit being 35.

He was jailed for five years and four months and banned from driving for 12 months.

Judge Sally Cahill QC told him: “It seems to me to have this amount of heroin in your possession it must have been completely clear to you the scale of the operation you had become involved in.

“This was a very large amount indeed.

“You had it to cut up and deliver it back to those who gave it to you and you were paid £1200 each time so you did it for financial gain.”