A JAILED cocaine-dealing former teacher is estimated to have benefited by £32, 271 from his illegal activities.

But as Michael Andrew Younghusband is considered to have no realisable assets, he has been ordered to pay only a nominal £5 under Proceeds of Crime Act regulations.

Durham Police is seeking a forfeiture order, however, to retain £7,000 recovered from Younghusband shortly after his arrest following a drug hand-over, last August.

Police stopped him as he drove a BMW car away from the rendezvous in a car park near Penshaw Monument, near Sunderland, where he had just bought the package containing three-quarters of a kilogram of cocaine.

The £7,000, in £1,000 bundles, was found in a later search of his home in Kingswood, Penshaw.

Thirty-year-old Younghusband was jailed for three years and four months last September after admitting possessing cocaine with intent to supply.

It cost him his job of nine years as a geography and maths teacher at Dene Community School, Peterlee, County Durham.

He was brought back to court from Kirk Levington Prison, near Yarm, for today’s Proceeds of Crime confiscation hearing.

John Gillette, for the prosecution, and Younghusband’s counsel, Jane Foley, agreed the benefit figure of £32,271, but as no assets have been identified, Recorder Ray Singh made the nominal £5 confiscation order.

As criminal proceedings have now concluded in the case, the forfeiture order for the seized £7,000 will be pursued by police at a forthcoming magistrates' court hearing.

Should it prove successful, the £7,000 will be split between police and the Home Office to assist in the fight against crime.