A CONVICTED drug dealer who fled the North-East as detectives closed in on his operations, was jailed yesterday for nine years.

Stephen Jackson, 41, pleaded guilty to robbing a shop in Stoke-on-Trent and kidnapping a 15-year-old boy, as well as drug offences committed in Bishop Auckland, County Durham.

He was tracked down by police from Bishop Auckland, after an appeal on the BBC's Crimewatch TV programme, at the end of last year.

The night before two detectives arrived in Stoke to arrest Jackson for supplying heroin, he held a knife to a Spar store manager's throat before grabbing £100 from the till.

He brandished the knife at a pursuing group of shop staff and customers, then jumped in a car, and ordered a teenager to drive him away, the court was told.

Detective Sergeant Graham Buckle, from Bishop Auckland CID, said: "It was an amazing coincidence. We arrived to pick him up and the police told us about the robbery the night before.

"We had tried to arrest him as part of an anti-drugs operation, in 1999, but he disappeared.

"We had a number of calls from the Stoke area after we appealed on Crimewatch. It seems he had relatives in that area. The man who had committed the robbery fitted Jackson's description perfectly, so we were able to tell Stoke police where he was.

"We had been looking for him for more than a year, following a lengthy police undercover operation in the Bishop Auckland area."

The court heard that Jackson had handed himself in at a police station, and later admitted to all of the offences.

Judge Robin Onions sentenced Jackson to five years imprisonment for robbery, and five years for kidnap, to run concurrently.

He was jailed for a further four years for the drugs offences committed in Bishop Auckland in August 1999