A FORMER drug user was forced into keeping heroin and crack cocaine in his Cirencester flat after threats from dealers, a court heard.

Wayne Marchant, formerly of the Waterloo, appeared at Cheltenham Magistrates Court last Thursday after police raided his flat on September 3 and found a total of 46 wraps of Class A drugs.

The 37-year-old, now of no fixed abode, pleaded not guilty to charges of intent to supply and his defending lawyer, Stephen Ritter, explained that he had been holding the drugs for someone else.

He said powerful drug dealers had asked Marchant to keep the drugs so they would not fall foul of the law, and had shown him photos of his family and told him their addresses to force him into their bidding.

During the raid at the end of summer, police saw someone drop three packages out of a window which were later found to be 26 wraps of heroin, weighing 3.87g and 20 wraps of crack cocaine, weighing 2.11g.

“This was Mr Marchant’s home address, he lived there alone and his was the only name on the tenancy agreement”, said Mai Li, prosecuting. “When officers were in the flat he was the only person in there.”

She added that Marchant had previous convictions for possessing drugs.

Mr Ritter told the court: “He was intimidated into holding these drugs. It is a very small amount of drugs by modern standards. He’s desperately trying to get off drugs.”

The prosecution agreed the charges of supplying could be dropped and Marchant pleaded guilty to possessing crack cocaine and heroin.

“You can see a pattern of being involved with drugs. But he has a friend and an aunt helping him,” said Mr Ritter.

“Frankly he would not benefit from a custodial sentence, he would quite clearly succumb to drugs inside. If he stayed outside he could control his drug use and he knows it would be his last chance.”

“He now knows there are some bad boys out there and there are consequences to playing with them.”

Marchant was told to pay a £10 fine, £40 in costs and a £60 victim surcharge by Judge Roger Ulley who also handed him a community order with a requirement to undergo drug rehabilitation.