Three women who were involved in supplying crack cocaine in a North-East town have been jailed.

Drug addict Dawn Nelson, 49, was the main player in the operation, Teesside Crown Court heard today.

When police raided her home in Hereford Street, Hartlepool, in June last year, they found her in bed holding a knife and with a quantity of crack cocaine with a street value of £1360.

Three months later her address was raided again and officers found Nelson with Sharlene Owens and Diane Gales in bed together. Drugs were discovered along with drug paraphernalia and £1760 cash.

When Gales was searched, police discovered she had hidden a large quantity of drugs inside her body, after she was instructed to hide it by Nelson.

Michael Bosomworth, prosecuting, said: "All three were in the same bed together with the drugs.

"Nelson's house was the place where the drugs were being cut up. She was heavily involved in it."

He said a week before the raid Owen's home, in Borrowdale Street, was visited by police where they found drugs and drug paraphernalia. She was arrested and while at the police station officers caught her trying to swallow a package of cocaine with a street value of £1680.

Owens told officers she owed £3,000 to a drug dealer and had been holding the drugs for an unnamed person to try and pay off the debt. Graeme Gaston, defending Nelson, said drugs had plighted her life and health and caused the break down of relationships with two of her children.

He said: "It is a sorry state of affairs for someone who will be celebrating her 50th birthday in nine days time. "Her involvement in drugs has brought her very little."

Aisha Wadoodi, for Owens, said her client was a former heroin addict and mother of one, who had seen her child taken into care because of her drug use.

She had also been held hostage for several hours in Holme House prison by a fellow prisoner while on remand.

Martina Connolly, representing Gales, said the defendant was a drug user and friend of Nelson who had gone to visit her on the night of the raid.

She said Gales had been called a grass because she co-operated with police and gave an honest account. Gales, of Borrowdale Street, who pleaded guilty to possession with intent to supply, was given a 12 months sentence, suspended for two years.

Owens, now of Uppingham Street, Hartlepool, who admitted two counts of possession with intent to supply and burglary, was jailed for six years and Nelson, who pleaded guilty to the same drugs offences, received five years imprisonment. *A man who shouted 'grass' at Gales as she was being sentenced at today's hearing was arrested on the orders of Judge Peter Fox, Recorder of Middlesbrough, for Contempt of Court.