A ‘SELFISH and hedonistic’ drug supplier with a history of violence has been jailed for 18 months for selling cannabis to street dealers.

Christopher Taylor was caught with £4,000 worth of the class B drug and £4,000 worth of Ketamine for his own personal use, when police raided his home in April.

Officers also discovered £1,000 in cash alongside his Rolex and Cartier watches inside his home on Beacons Lane, Ingleby Barwick, where the average house price is £153,500.

Teesside Crown Court heard how the 23-year-old, pictured below, was forced to re-mortgage the home his parents bought for him in a desperate attempt to clear his own drugs debts.

The Northern Echo:

The personal trainer had the cannabis packaged up ready for sale to street dealers and on mobile phones recovered from his home there were 'special offers' listed for potential customers.

Robin Turton, prosecuting, said there was bags containing herbal cannabis and six packages containing 262 grammes of cannabis worth £2,620 ready for sale to a street dealer.

Taylor admitted possession with intent to supply cannabis and possession of the tranquiliser Ketamine.

In mitigation, Michele Turner said his 'professional' parents had always stood by their son to the point where they bought him his first home outright even after he was jailed for 56 months for a violent attack on his former girlfriend in 2016.

"In a pre-sentence report it said he is both 'selfish and hedonistic'," she said. "He has the most supportive parents anyone could wish for, they are both professional people and he is an only child.

"They went a step further, they bought him the house, where he was arrested, outright but that still didn't seem to be enough to keep him on the straight and narrow."

Judge Stephen Ashurst said after Taylor's release from prison his promise to give up the drugs didn't materialise and 'you had to remortgage your house for £50,000 as you drug debt built up'.

He added: "You are not a street dealer or drugs, you are one rank up from that, you supplied street dealers who then go on to supply users. You had £4,5000 of cannabis packaged up ready for distribution.

"You were advertising what you had on special offers of drugs that you had just got hold of. You were telling your buyers to buy whilst stocks last."