A RETIRED college boss was caught in a car with a drug dealer and more than £1,500 worth of heroin they had clubbed together to buy, a court has heard.

Glenn Preedy and Neil Housam were arrested when police stopped a Citroen Xsara after they had picked up a bulk-buy package in Redcar.

The unlikely pair – a jobless addict, 34, and a 63-year-old academic and author with a long-term habit – appeared together at Teesside Crown Court.

Housam was jailed for four years, and Preedy, a former assistant principal of Redcar and Cleveland College, received an eight-month suspended prison sentence.

His barrister described Preedy as someone who had held “high positions” and said he has strong views on drugs, their supply and how users should be treated.

Paul Abrahams, mitigating, said he was now trying to kick his addiction and is on a course which involves him taking the prescribed heroin substitute methadone.

“Despite the fact that he argues for different ways of dealing with drugs, the use of drugs and the supply of drugs, he recognises that the use of drugs is something that a person ought not to do, and, therefore, he has made steps to withdraw from the use of heroin.

“He recognises that it is not something that a law-abiding citizen can do, and it is not good for society or good for himself.”

The judge, Recorder Jonathan Sandiford, told Preedy: “Your views on the rights and wrongs about taking controlled substances tell me this was a very deliberate and calculated act of defiance of the law.”

Preedy, of Whitby Crescent, Redcar, admitted possessing Class A drugs in November 2010, while Housam pleaded guilty to possession with intent to supply.

Housam and his girlfriend, mother-of-two Kayna Hunt, both of Falmouth Close, Redcar, admitted possessing heroin with intent to supply in June last year.

The court heard Housam’s car was again stopped by police and he threw two packages of the drugs to Hunt and she hid them in her bra.

Julian Gaskin, for Hunt, who received a community order with supervision, said she had acted out of misplaced loyalty.

Martin Towers, for Housam, accepted he would have sold some of the drugs, and bought them with Preedy when there was a heroin “drought” in Redcar.

After the case, Redcar and Cleveland College would not answer questions about whether it knew of Preedy’s liberal views on drugs or his habit.

A statement said: “It is not the college’s policy to comment on specific issues relating to current or former employees.

“The college has, and will continue to have, a zero tolerance approach to drug and substance misuse.”