A UNIVERSITY caretaker who stashed £88,000 worth of heroin and crack cocaine at work - along with a pump action shotgun and a pistol - was jailed for five years yesterday.

Police investigating a drugs problem among Teesside University students also found £20,000 when they searched 45-year-old Mark McCabe's locker and a storeroom.

Staff became suspicious when the loner suddenly began arriving at work in a new Cherokee Jeep and a Mazda sports car.

Debt-ridden McCabe said he was paid to store the drugs, cash and firearms for a gang. And he claimed they loaned him the Jeep after his motorbike was stolen, Rebecca Young, prosecuting, told Teesside Crown Court.

When he tried to stop the arrangement after two months, they turned nasty.

McCabe, who worked at the university for 25 years, was approached by the gang who were involved in dealing large quantities of heroin and cocaine in the Middlesbrough area, said Miss Young.

He was handed quantities of drugs which he hid in a storeroom and his locker at the university and in his rucksack.

A security guard heard voices inside the storeroom during the two-week Christmas holidays.

A startled McCabe, who should have been off work, emerged to explain that he was keeping motorcycle parts there.

Suspicion increased when he began arriving in the Jeep and sports car, and there was increased evidence of drugs within the university.

The drugs squad received information from a senior security guard that he had found cannabis resin in the storeroom. Police arrived and found a large amount of crack cocaine and heroin.

When McCabe, who looked after his aged mother, turned up, officers found drugs and £700 cash in his rucksack. More drugs and a large amount of cash were in his locker, said Miss Young.

They also found cocaine worth £43,683 and heroin worth £44,280. The guns were hidden in the storeroom behind an upturned table.

McCabe accepted that he was acting as a storekeeper for the gang. He was paid between £1,000 and £1,200 over a two-month period and was asked to "mind" £21,000.

McCabe, of Aire Street, Middlesbrough, pleaded guilty to six charges of possession of Class A drugs with intent to supply and possession of a prohibited gun and a prohibited weapon on March 11.

Deborah Sherwin, for McCabe, said: "He has been foolish and stupid.

"He has never taken drugs and he had no idea as to the type of drugs he was being asked to look after."

Miss Sherwin added: "He was suckered by it and taken in by this prospect of easy money and an easy way out of his difficulties.

"When he tried to say he did not want any more, the people who had been so nice suddenly began to get unpleasant and threatening."

Sentencing him, the Recorder of Middlesbrough Peter Fox QC, said: "One of the aggravating features of this was that it was in the heart of the university where all these adults in their different capacities have duty to care towards the young people who come to Teesside for their further education.

"And the Crown has advanced this case, and it has not been refuted by a single word, that your activity and the activity of those with who you were engaged, was associated with the misuse of drugs within the university."