Jailed: Drug dealer caught with cocaine and heroin in Kinder Eggs and a knife for protection in Shropshire

James Spotswood, 28, also had a knife said to be for protection or to threaten people to make payments.

He had also escaped from the dock at Shrewsbury Crown Court following his trial and was later found in a nearby pub.

Spotswood was the driver of a car stopped in Gobowen Road, Oswestry, almost a year ago when he and his accomplice, Alan O'Neill, were arrested.

At court on Friday Spotswood was jailed for 64 months - a total of 54 months for possession of cocaine and heroin with intent to supply and possession of the knife, a further eight months for escaping and two months for being in breach of a previous suspended sentence.

Recorder Martin Jackson said that both men had been involved in the organised supply of drugs in Shropshire.

He said it was clear from phone messages they had been into Oswestry and other areas dealing drugs on previous occasions and the defendant's claim during his trial that he had been under duress was rightly rejected by the jury.

Spotswood, 28, of River Grove, New Ferry, Wirral, had pleaded guilty to the charge of escaping from custody and Recorder Jackson accepted it was an "impulsive action" and he was only at large for a few hours.

The court heard a Vauxhall Corsa driven by Spotswood was stopped in Gobowen Road just after midnight on January 30 last year.

O'Neill was the passenger and officers searched the car and found 79 wraps of cocaine, nine wraps of heroin and one wrap of mixed white and brown powder.

The drugs - said to be worth £900 - were concealed inside Kinder Eggs concealed under the housing around the gear-stick.

Mobile phones were also seized on which police found messages relating to the supply of drugs.

A knife was also recovered from the car and Spotswood was in possession of £235 in cash.

At court, a confiscation order under the Proceeds of Crime Act was made against Spotswood in which his benefit was said to be £1,125 and his only available asset was the cash already seized by police.

The court heard that Spotswood jumped from the dock and ran out of the court in October following his conviction when he was told he would be remanded in custody.

He hid in bushes while police searched the area and was found in the nearby White Horse pub three hours later.

At an earlier hearing 28-year-old O'Neill, of Dundonald Street, Birkenhead, was given 40 months having admitted the two drugs offences.

The sentence will run consecutively to the four years and four months imposed at Mold Crown Court in March last year for robbery and theft at the Greatorex Store at Llanrhaeadr ym Mochant, near Oswestry, during which he had threatened the assistant with an imitation gun.