A HEROIN addict from Newent, who supplied the drug to about twenty other users in the town was jailed for 28 months this week.

At Gloucester Crown Court, on Monday June 6, Shane Bowkett, aged 29, of Ashtree Close, Foley Road Newent, was sentenced for possessing heroin with intent to supply. Janine Wood, prosecuting, said that on December 16 last year, police were tipped off about a white Mercedes van being used for drug dealing in the area.

Later they stopped it on the A40 at Over, and Bowkett was driving

A wrap of heroin weighing 3.39grams was found: enough to make thirty-five £10 street deals.

Found on Bowkett's phone were communications about buying drugs from 21 people in the Newent area.

Sarah Jenkins, defending, told the court that Bowkett, the father of a young son, was a heavy drug user himself and had been selling to other addicts in the town to fund his own heavy habit, which was costing him £50 to £70 a day.

"There is a fairly close knit community of Class A drug users in Newent and they tend to know each other," she said.

"If one cannot get hold of what he or she wants they are in the habit of contacting each other for help and to some extent this is now his offence started.

"His dealing was over a short period of time, about six weeks. It involved a relatively small number of people."