A DRUG dealer who "sang like a canary" when he was caught by police was jailed for three-and-a-half years yesterday.

Thomas Welch, 22, had seven wraps of cocaine hidden near his Renault Clio's handbrake when was stopped by police.

When his home in Darlington was searched, officers found £2,060 in a safe in his father's bedroom, and in his room he had a new TV projector system and a gold chain worth £1,300, which he had bought from drugs profits.

Yvonne Taylor, prosecuting, told Teesside Crown Court that Welch said he had been unemployed for 18 months and his benefits had been stopped five months earlier.

He said that for two years up to his arrest, he had been supplying cocaine to three or four people who paid in advance, and it funded his own habit.

David Lamb, mitigating, said: "Had he not said to the police that he had been carrying on this activity, it is very doubtful that he would have been charged with supplying over a two-year period."

Welch of Geneva Road, pleaded guilty to supplying cocaine between May 2003 and May last year, possession with intent to supply and possession.

Jailing him, the judge ordered the confiscation of £2,485 by the Durham force to contribute towards the fight against drugs.