A JUDGE jailed a man for four years yesterday - and warned that street dealers in heroin must expect long prison sentences.

Matthew Harris, 23, from Middlesbrough, told police he was selling heroin to fund his addiction when he was caught with 27 wraps of the Class A drug in March this year.

He said that he was using £10 of heroin a day, which he funded it from his dole money and shoplifting.

He had fled on foot with a plastic bag when police spotted his car in a car park in The Longlands, Middlesbrough, and asked to check for defects, Kate Dodds, prosecuting, told Teesside Crown Court.

They caught him after he stuffed the bag under a parked vehicle. Inside were heroin wraps worth £274.

Harris told officers that he fled because he feared he was in breach of bail.

Three weeks earlier he had been bailed by police after he and Karl McDevitt, 22, were arrested for stealing a television set from Teesside University.

The judge, Recorder Julian Goose, told him: "You were a street supplier and the Court of Appeal have said that the right sentences in these cases are long sentences."

Harris, of Marton Road, Middlesbrough, was jailed for four years and three months, including a consecutive sentence for the university burglary and possession of a Class A drug with intent to supply, both of which he admitted.

McDevitt, of Welton House, Middlesbrough, who was drug-free after five months in custody, was given a two-year drug treatment and testing order after he pleaded guilty to the burglary.