A drug user caught street dealing, in the latest phase of a police operation, has been jailed for two years and eight months.

John Hutchinson sold heroin to an undercover officer on the streets of Blackburn.

It was all done as a way of feeding his own drug habit, a court heard.

Judge Andrew Gilbart QC, handing down the jail term at Preston Crown Court, told him "You were towards the lower end of the scale of heirarchy of drug dealers, providing small amounts of heroin to users on the street.

"While you are a drug user, selling for your own habit, to some extent you are part of the cannon fodder used by those who supply, who rely on the fact that you are yourself addicted".

Hutchinson, 30, of Skye Crescent, Shadsworth, Blackburn pleaded guilty to four offences of supplying heroin and one of being concerned in its supply.

He had earlier pleaded guilty to a charge of burgling another address on Skye Crescent, with intent to steal.

The prosecution said that police carried out another phase of Operation Nimrod - targeting street level drugs dealing - in the Blackburn area between February and August last year.