A drug dealing dad-of-eight on the run from justice has been jailed.

Fabian Grant, 34, was told to deal drugs after he struggled to pay back a black market loan – taken out in order to keep up mortgage repayments on his home.

Prosecutor Lucie Stoker told Swindon Crown Court that police were called to reports of someone being threatened with a knife on Ely Close.

When they got to the street, Grant was at the front door to the flats. He ran upstairs, with officers spotting him discarding a knife and fiddling with an Adidas man bag.

The officers stopped the man, who gave his name as “Ricky”. When they searched him the officers found heroin and crack cocaine with a street value of £1,640 broken up into single deal wraps. He also had more than £250 in cash.

Grant had been jailed in 2011 for 18 months for dealing heroin and crack cocaine. He was fined for heroin possession in 2016.

He twice failed to answer bail to turn up at court hearings last year.

Emma Handslip, defending, said her client, who had difficulties reading and writing, had worked as a labourer. He lost his employment and as a result fell behind with mortgage repayments. He borrowed cash from a loan shark, who demanded he pay back the cash. When he couldn’t meet the repayments they asked him to deal drugs.

Asked why Grant had failed to turn up to his crown court hearing late last year, the lawyer said her client had been assaulted and had fled Swindon and gone to ground. He was a father-of-eight and had a supportive partner, with whom he had been living since December last year.

She said: “This is somebody who was working, had his own home and has lost everything he had – and now he’s lost his children, which is the only positive factor he had in his life.”

Appearing before Swindon Crown Court via video link from HMP Bullingdon, Grant, of Bosham Close, Toothill, pleaded guilty to two counts of possession with intent to supply heroin and crack cocaine and admitted an offence under the Bail Act.

Jailing Grant for two-and-a-half years, Judge Peter Crabtree said: “It is plain that you were involved in the supply of class A drugs.

“Anyone engaged in that activity is engaged in criminality that wrecks lives and undermines the fabric of society. That is why it is so serious.”

The drugs were ruled forfeit and the judge ordered that they were destroyed.