A CLUMSY drug dealer who stole £18,000 worth of cars led police straight to him after leaving his blood on the engine start button.

Omar Amer has been jailed for four and a half years for stealing two cars and being found with a stash of drugs in Southend.

The 27-year-old also had a list of names of the people who owed him money for drugs.

Amer’s crimes date back to September 2018 when he broke into a house in Leigh, stealing keys for an Audi A4 and driving it away.

The Audi, worth about £7,500, was later found in Benfleet with its windows smashed.

After forensic examination, Amer’s DNA was found on the steering wheel.

He stole a second car, a Toyota Yaris, on January 3 last year in Southend. His pregnant victim had awoken to find her keys, which she had left locked in her home, taken along with the car, which was worth £11,000.

The car was found on February 25 parked and locked in a street in Southend. Upon examination, Amer had left blood on the engine start/stop button.

Amer was eventually caught in a guest house in Hartington Road, Southend on October 16, 2018, when police raided his room and found 352g of heroin and 4.88g of crack cocaine, worth £1,000.

Amer, now of Wenlock Street, London, appeared at Chelmsford Crown Court on Tuesday to be sentenced.

Diana Pigot, prosecuting, told the court: “There was also bicarbonate of soda found in the room, a mixing agent to make crack cocaine from cocaine.

“[There was also] a phone with messages which indicated drug supply, and a list of people who owed him money for drugs.

“There was £703 seized in the guest house. He has benefitted from the offending by £1,400.”

Mike Warren, mitigating, said Amer had been funding his own addictions. He said: “He was arrested at a B&B, but he was essentially homeless. He was moving from place to place.

“He was earning money himself but the main factor was that it was supporting his own addiction. He doesn’t seek to minimise the severity of what was going on. He apologises.”

Judge Andrew Hurst told Amer: “You have a long record of drug convictions, but you have managed to keep yourself drug free for a while, which is to your credit.” Amer received three years in prison for possessing Class A drugs and 18 months for both burglaries.