Cannabis dealer jailed month after avoiding prison

A Newport cannabis dealer who avoided prison just a month earlier has been jailed for nearly three years after police caught him using his phone while driving.

Lewis Hill, 23, was stopped by police in a Ford Kuga on 11th July after officers suspected he was on his mobile. When they searched the vehicle, they found a Nokia phone with the battery removed in the driver’s footwell and 10 wraps of cannabis in the centre console.

As officers searched the car, Hill fled the scene. He was tracked down four days later on 15th July outside his partner’s home on Aberthaw Road, with £270 hidden in his sock.

A search of his address uncovered £3,000 in cash and 141 grams of cannabis worth up to £1,140. When arrested, Hill told officers: “It’s all mine.”

The court heard Hill had been sentenced just a month earlier in June to a 20-month suspended sentence for two separate cannabis supply offences. Messages on his phones showed he had been dealing cannabis since August last year.

Sophie Keegan, defending, told Newport Crown Court: “Mr Hill started selling cannabis to fund his own addiction. He accepts that escalated. He’s still 23. There’s a lack of maturity.”

Ms Keegan said Hill had recently become a father for the second time and would now be separated from his two young children.

Judge Carl Harrison sentenced Hill, of St Julians Road, Newport, to 14 months for the latest offences and activated his 20-month suspended sentence in full, running consecutively – a total of 34 months imprisonment.

Hill pleaded guilty to being concerned in the supply of cannabis, two offences of possession with intent to supply cannabis, possession of criminal property, and obstructing a police officer.