EIGHT men were jailed for a total of more than 40 years last night after police raided a crack cocaine house in a North-East town centre.

Five of those arrested were Jamaican nationals who travelled from London saying they were visiting girls or buying cheap cars.

Police raided the house in Walpole Street, Middlesbrough, after filming drug-dealing activity.

They logged more than 100 visitors in two nights, and the house was so popular that only three people seen on the street did not go there, said Graham Reeds, prosecuting.

Sergeant Bernard Hanson told Teesside Crown Court how most callers put a small package of crack in their mouths, which they would have swallowed if arrested.

The ground floor of the terraced house was boarded up, but there were two holes to check out customers, who included prostitutes.

Police raided the house twice last year, and seized crack cocaine and cash both times.

They arrested the owner, his son and five men from London.

Silmouth Brown, 56, the house owner, and Joseph Flemings, 19, of Craven Park, London, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply crack cocaine between March 13 and April 30 last year.

Brown's son Dean Nixon, 22, of Laycock Street, Middlesbrough, Michael Ridguard, 61, also of Walpole Street, and Londoners Kirk Wilson, 26, Julian Ford, 24, of New Cross, London, Paul Barrett, 24, and Herbert Thompson, 31, of Margrove, London, were also found guilty.

Thompson, who made two trips north with cocaine was jailed for eight years.

Barrett, Ford and Wilson, who is on the run, were each sentenced to five-and-a-half years, Brown to four-and-a-half years, Dixon and Ridguard to four years, and Flemings to three-and-a-half years in a young offender's institution.