A SCHOOLBOY told a jury he visited a Kidderminster flat to buy drugs with money he made by selling stolen goods.

He picked out 46-year-old David Round on a police identification parade and said he had also recognised him in the street on other occasions.

The youngster, now 16, said he remembered Round's flat in Bradley Thursfield Court, part of the former Kidderminster General Hospital, because there were two cages full of rats inside it.

Round denies two charges of supplying cannabis resin between October 31, 2000, and January 31, 2001.

The boy told Worcester Crown Court that he started to smoke cannabis in the summer of 2000. He first obtained it from friends and then from another man in the flats complex.

He alleged the man fetched the drugs from Round. In the end, he started dealing direct with Round because it was cheaper.

His drug habit was exposed after an investigation at his school when money went missing from someone's blazer. He was a suspect and a fellow pupil told of the drugs.

He told the jury he smoked cannabis in bushes in Mill Street near the flats' complex.

James Dunstan, prosecuting, said police found cannabis in Round's flat but he claimed he used it for medicinal purposes as he suffered from a brain condition.

He denied knowledge of the boy and maintained it was a case of mistaken identity.

Samantha Forsyth, defending, suggested the other man had told the schoolboy to name someone else as the dealer if he got into trouble over drugs. The boy denied it.

The trial continues.