A DRUG supplier was this afternoon found guilty of murdering an addict in a revenge attack after one of his dealers had money stolen - or "taxed" - from him.

Richard Petty was stabbed to death by Mark "Peao" Pearson in his home in Billingham, near Stockton, a day after taking £80 from heroin dealer Mark Fairweather.

Pearson, 28, admitted murder, but his accomplice and fellow drug supplier Joseph Tingle denied the charge and has been on trial at Teesside Crown Court for seven days.

Tingle, 23, claimed he did not know Pearson had a knife when they went to confront Mr Petty, 34, at his seventh-floor town centre flat in Melsonby Court on March 25.

But a jury of eight men and four women found Tingle guilty of murder under the "joint enterprise" law, and he now faces a life sentence along with his friend.

The killers will have their life-sentence tariffs set when they are sentenced by the Recorder of Middlesbrough, Judge Peter Fox, QC, on September 27.