A MAN who kept a stash of cocaine on the roof of his house in Kirkby Lonsdale been sent to prison for two and a half years.

Dale Rowlands, 36, was arrested after police searched his house in New Road in March.

He immediately handed over packets of the illegal class A drug – worth a total of £2,763 - that he kept in his bedroom.

At Carlisle Crown Court (FRI) Rowlands, who has recently been living in Main Street, Low Bentham, pleaded guilty to supplying cocaine and to possessing it with intent to supply.

Prosecutor Gerard Rogerson told the court he told police he had become involved with drugs after moving to Cumbria from Chester two years before.

He started selling it in February after he lost his job, he said, “to make a bit of money because times were hard”.

He had agreed to sell the drug on behalf of his own suppliers, to whom he was £2,000 in debt, Mr Rogerson said.

The court heard Rowlands told the police he had normally kept the cocaine in a plastic bag wrapped in a sock hidden behind the satellite dish on his roof.

In mitigation defence advocate Chris Evans said Rowlands had been selling cocaine to about ten people he knew, all of whom were already drug users.

“Cocaine was part of his recreational lifestyle,” he said.