A WELL-DRESSED drug dealer has been jailed after he was spotted selling cocaine and ketamine in a Darlington nightclub.

Door staff at Inside Out became suspicious of Anthony Race when he and his group of friends were continually being approached by other people.

Teesside Crown Court heard that every time someone approached, Race would move into a darkened corner of the venue while his friends acted as a barrier.

The 25-year-old was spotted taking small packets out of his underwear before handing them over to his nightclub customers on May 6 last year.

Vicki Lamballe said the door staff then pulled over a number of his clients to discover they had been buying drugs from Race, who the court heard stood out from the crowd due to his height and the fact he was wearing his designer clothes.

The court heard how the door man escorted Race and his friends off the premises before carrying out a search of his pockets where they discovered several packets of white powder and more than £600 in cash.

She said: “The defendant started going mad and was trying to grab them (the plastic bags) and run away. The defendant struggled with the door staff and was throwing things in the air which were recovered by other clubgoers.”

Miss Lamballe said Race was arrested at the scene and told officers that if they searched his mobile phone they would find evidence of his drug dealing from February last year and said if they searched his bedroom they would find further drugs.

The plasterer, of Heatherburn Court, Newton Aycliffe, pleaded guilty to possession with intent to supply Class A drug cocaine and similar charge for the Class B drug Ketamine.

In mitigation, Martin Towers, said his client had never been in trouble before and had started to sell the drugs in an attempt to fund his own addiction.

He said: “The defendant feels a great deal of shame about the position he is in and has felt that way in the months since he was arrested in May and awaiting his day of reckoning.

“He became addicted to these two drugs himself and discovered that one way of funding that addiction was selling some on to his friends. He wasn’t selling it to all-comers, he was selling it to people who he knew, and he affectively made no profit.”

Judge Peter Armstrong said it was a ‘familiar’ story as he jailed Race for two years and four months following his guilty pleas.

He said: “You had a number of bags of Class A drugs on you and a large amount of cash. The situation is a familiar one because you got yourself involved in drugs and your addiction had to be funded by passing on drugs to others.”