A RAPPER who turned to drugs when his bid for fame failed was jailed for six years yesterday.

Duane Humphreys made it through to the last nine in this year's Unsung Music of Black Origin (Mobo) national competition.

He was the star performer in heats at Jumpin Jacks, in Middlesbrough, but his disappointment at not winning and his girlfriend leaving him drove him to crack cocaine, Teesside Crown Court was told.

Humphreys, 24, told police he was on cocaine when he committed ten house burglaries in Darlington and Stockton.

The court heard that when he was under arrest at Stockton police station, he overpowered a female custody officer assistant and falsely claimed that he was holding a hypodermic needle which he would ram into her neck.

Humphreys, of Campbell Court, Stockton, wrote down two of his raps which Judge Les Spittle read before sentencing him.

Michael Bosomworth, mitigating, said: "The raps are clearly an insight into the woes of the world, coupled with a depressing sense of despair and thoughts of suicide, but he does not have the guts to do it.

"What is portrayed is a desperate young man who feels he does not have a chance in life.

"He expresses genuine remorse for what he has done, and I ask you not to impose a sentence which would crush him."

Humphreys was jailed for six years, including 18 months recall from a previous sentence, after he pleaded guilty to four burglaries with six taken into consideration, and attempted escape in July and August.