A DRUG dealer who hid heroin and crack cocaine in his underpants has been jailed by a Worcester judge.

Convicted robber and blackmailer Huzaifah Mudassar, who was on post sentence supervision for carrying a combat knife at the time he was plying his trade, was jailed for three years by Judge Nicolas Cartwright at Worcester Crown Court on Tuesday.

Judge Cartwright, one of the city's regular judges, overruled pleas to suspend any prison sentence, telling Mudassar that drug dealing lay behind the deaths of addicts, fuelled crime and left taxpayers footing the bill for healthcare.

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The 20-year-old County Lines dealer admitted possession with intent to supply heroin and crack cocaine in a Redditch underpass on February 12 this year.

Mudassar claimed he would not make any money out of the enterprise himself and was dealing to pay off a £1,700 cannabis debt after the drug was supplied to him on credit.

Cathlyn Orchard, prosecuting, said when stopped by police the defendant had removed the SIM card from the Nokia burner phone and told officers 'it didn't have one in there'. He said he was from Birmingham and was 'just coming down here (to Redditch) to chill with my mates'.

"Officers continued to search him and he said 'I've got some drugs in my underwear - it's class A'. Numerous wraps were found inside" said the prosecutor.

In total officers found in grip-sealed bags 48 wraps of crack cocaine (6.36g) divided into £10 deals and 33 wraps of heroin (3.07g) also divided into £10 street deals.

The dealer also had £40 in cash which the judge said was the proceeds of four transactions he had already made.

His iPhone also contained messages about dealing and the importation of cannabis. The defendant has eight convictions for 13 offences, including possession of cannabis.

Judge Cartwright said: "You have convictions including blackmail and robbery that resulted in a two-year custodial sentence back in 2016, aggravating vehicle taking, going equipped for theft which resulted in a community order.

"You failed to comply with that community order in the past by failing to turn up to do unpaid work as required.

"More recently, on October 12, 2020, you were sentenced to four months for possession of a combat knife and were on post-sentence supervision at the time of these two offences (dealing heroin and crack cocaine)."

He said of the iPhone seized that the messages on it did not concern class A drugs but 'made it clear that you were a busy class B dealer and importer'.

The judge said the 'County Lines' phone - the Nokia burner - 'had on it a message sent to 22 potential customers saying you were going to be doing business'.

Judge Cartwright told Mudassar: "Plainly you are not so naive as to think they were going to write-off a £1,700 debt."

In his sentencing remarks he told the dealer: "You must know - as everybody knows - how much damage class A drug use does not just to the individuals who suffer the inevitable health conditions and results - at worst some users die - but also the damage to society as a whole.

"People who buy drugs from such as you need to find the money and, quite often, the money is obtained through crimes such as shoplifting and some offences such as dwelling house burglary and there's a wider societal cost because it's taxpayers who ultimately bear the cost of providing healthcare to people who have an entrenched drug addiction and attendant health issues."

Mudassar of Owens Croft, Birmingham can expect to spend half the three-year sentence in prison and half on licence in the community.

The forfeiture and destruction of the drugs was also ordered.