Teenage dealer from South Tyneside who boasted his drugs were "unbelievable" allowed to walk from court

Joseph Nesbitt's home was raided after police saw him carrying out a deal in the street and officers found £1,000 in cash, 12 wraps of cannabis and weighing scales.

Newcastle Crown Court heard the now 18-year-old's phone was seized and officers found "messages indicative of drug dealing".

Prosecutor Emma Dowling told the court Nesbitt discussed in texts the prices and types of cannabis he had for sale.

In one message he wrote "new stuff in" and described it as "unbelievable".

Nesbitt, of Douglas Parade, Hebburn, admitted supplying cannabis between October 2017 and June 2019, when he was aged just 16 and 17.

He told police had "made hundreds selling drugs on behalf of another dealer" and had been put under some threat to continue.Mr Recorder Angus Withington sentenced Nesbitt to nine months imprisonment, suspended for two years, with rehabilitation requirements and a two month nighttime curfew.

The judge told him: "The courts consider that drugs offences create absolute misery in this country and in this city and it penalises people heavily who get involved in it.

"What can be said on your part, and enables me to draw back from that, is your age because you were 16 and 17, you made full and frank admissions in interview and you pleaded guilty.

"This is the first time you have come before the courts and there is credit for the fact you seem to have involved yourself in properly paid employment and are no longer seeking to generate money in ways which create misery in society."

The judge ordered that the £1,021 in cash seized when Nesbitt's home was raided should be seized under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

Gavin Doig, defending, said Nesbitt has stayed out of trouble since the offences and is now "thoroughly committed" to his scaffolding apprenticeship.