A LONDON drug dealer has been sentenced to 34 months behind bars after carrying drugs across county lines.

Terrance Dufeal was charged after being caught dealing crack cocaine and heroin in Basildon last month.

Judge Samantha Leigh gave a damning verdict after Dufeal, 21, brought drugs into Essex with the intention to supply.

She said: “On April 4, you were spotted by police in a known area where drugs were supplied.

“You tried to swallow them but were found with crack cocaine and heroin on you.

“It is the drug offences that are the most serious – this is part of a county drug lines operation.”

The offences come after a countrywide crackdown, intended to target those trafficking drugs into our county and selling them on the streets, got under way in March.

Class A drugs with an estimated street value of £26,000 and more than £40,000 in cash were seized in March, while 82 arrests were also made and 13 weapons found across the eastern region.

The court also heard that Dufeal, who has been in care since the age of four, was targeted as a vulnerable teenager by drug gangs.

Judge Leigh added: “You were pushed out on your own at 21 and forced to another area. It was seen that you were struggling and people took advantage of you.”

Dufeal, who appeared in the dock wearing a grey prison-issued tracksuit, had no previous record for serious drug offences.

However, Dufeal’s offences came after also committing fraud in Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex, less than a month earlier.

The offender failed to disclose his motoring and criminal convictions to Hastings Direct when trying to claim motor insurance.

He was given two months for the fraud, to run concurrently.