A builder who ran up nearly £3,000 in drug debt started dealing cocaine to his colleague on the site.

Paul Hartley, 39, was addicted to cocaine and racked up a large amount of drug debt following his grandfather’s death.

Stephen Parker, prosecuting at Burnley Crown Court, said that officers caught wind of Hartley’s criminal actions and at about 6.30am on August 20, 2021, they approached him outside a building site he was working at in Burnley Road, Crawshawbooth, and said they were executing a drugs search.

Mr Parker said: “Police asked if he has anything on him they should know about.

“He opened his right-hand jacket pocket, nodded toward the officers and said ‘in there’.

“Police recovered a number of wraps of cocaine.”

Officers went on to search his vehicle and found more cocaine.

In total, officers found a total of 23.34g of cocaine.

Using WhatsApp messages sent by Hartley setting his prices – officers worked out that the drugs were worth £1,540.

The bags were in various dealing weights from 0.4g which was priced at £40 to a quarter of an ounce at £400.

There were a total of 12 bags found on Hartley.

Officers used the WhatsApp conversations and discovered that Hartley had been involved in dealing cocaine since December 2020 until his arrest in August 2021.

Isobel Thomas, mitigating, said that in 2019, Hartley’s grandfather died which hit him hard as the pair were close and lived together.

Just a few months after his death, the bricklayer was out of work due to the coronavirus lockdown and became addicted to cocaine – spending between £200 and £300 per week on the drug, leading to him raking up a drug debt of about £3,000.

Ms Thomas said Hartley decided to start dealing the class A dug as a way to fund his own habit and pay off the debt.

Hartley, of Carholme Avenue, Burnley, has now been drug free for 12 months and Ms Thomas tried to argue that his inevitable custodial sentence could be suspended.

District Judge Richard Clews said that the offending was too serious and that justice could only be served by an immediate prison sentence.

Hartley was sent to prison for two years and four months.