POLICE found heroin with a street value of more than £2,000 after raiding the bedsit home of a Middlesbrough drug addict, a court heard.

Richard Duce was yesterday jailed for three years after he admitted possessing Class A drugs with intent to supply last September.

The jobless forklift truck driver had five months added to his prison term because he breached a suspended sentence by committing the drugs offence.

Teesside Crown Court was told that a friend, who was arrested at the same time as Duce, has since walked free after mistakes were found in the evidence.

Dominic Bailey stood trial last month, but the case was halted when a juror sparked a security alert by saying there was a device in a rucksack.

It has since been discovered the case against Bailey was "wholly erroneous" and has been dropped, prosecutor Anthony Moore told the court yesterday.

Duce was arrested on September 3 when police became suspicious as he left his bedsit in The Avenue and appeared to try to hide something.

Officers found three £10 wraps of heroin in his hand and later discovered 21.9 grams of the drug when they searched his room.

Mr Moore said Bailey was arrested on the landing inside the building because police believed he was involved with 31-year-old Duce.

The court heard that Duce had a criminal record containing 60 offences, mostly for theft and driving matters, and was first jailed 12 years ago.

Paul Cleasby, mitigating, said despite his poor record, his client had shown he could stay out of trouble when he was in employment.

Mr Cleasby said Duce had been funding his heroin addiction through work, but turned to dealing when he lost his job as a forklift truck driver.

He told Recorder Toby Hedworth that Duce went on a downward spiral, and agreed to sell heroin to help pay off a drugs debt.

Mr Recorder Hedworth told Duce: "You have been before the courts a sufficient number of times now to know that the consequences of continuing to involve yourself in criminal behaviour is that you are likely to spend ever longer periods of time serving prison sentences.

"What you have done on this occasion is, while subjected to a suspended sentence, involved yourself in substantially more serious criminal activity than you have ever involved yourself in previously."