A JUDGE has ordered that more than £3,000 can be confiscated from a drug dealer who allowed his home to be used for storing and bagging cannabis and cocaine.

Shaun Foster had criminally benefited to the tune of £11,497 from his offending, according to a proceeds of crime hearing held at Teesside Crown Court.

The judge in the case, George Moorhouse, said £3,005 in cash which was seized from Foster by police could be confiscated by the Crown.

Meanwhile, Foster's co-accused Ricky Tierney, who was working for him selling drugs, benefited by £2,432 it was agreed.

However his barrister Richard Herrmann said he was effectively homeless and had “absolutely no assets whatever”.

Tierney, 22, previously of Keith Road, Middlesbrough, failed to turn up for the hearing and was said to have failed to respond to correspondence sent to him on behalf of his legal team.

Judge Moorhouse agreed that a nominal sum of £1 should be sought from Tierney and paid within 28 days.

Foster, 25, of Suffolk Street, Stockton, received a 12 month suspended jail sentence in October last year after admitting conspiracy to supply class A and B drugs and possessing class B with intent to supply.

Tierney got a six month suspended sentence for possessing class A drugs and conspiring to supply them.

Foster turned to drugs following a serious car crash in 2006 in which he was badly injured, but got into so much debt with dealers that he allowed his former home in Ellerbeck Way, Ormesby, to be used for storing and bagging illegal substances.

Police raided the property twice in February and May last year, discovering £2,194 worth of cannabis and cocaine worth £824, along with £7,000 of naphydrone, a cutting agent.