A NEWPORT drug dealer who was found with cocaine just months after police had first arrested him with the substance was jailed yesterday.

Thomas Allison, 21, of Constable Drive, Newport, pleaded guilty to two counts of possessing cocaine with intent to supply at Cardiff Crown Court via videolink from HMP Cardiff.

Police first seized the drug from him on March 6 when he was found with 118 wraps of cocaine in an Ovaltine tub kept in his car in Newport.

The haul, which weighed 57.4 grams, was worth £2,360.

He was arrested and bailed – but on June 31 police found him with the drug at his home on Constable Drive.

They found a further 69 bags weighing a total of 31 grams and worth £1,387, the court heard.

It also heard Allison’s current partner gave birth to a child in April and that they would be putting their lives on hold waiting for him to be released from prison.

His partner’s mother had written a statement in support of him for the court.

Sentencing him, Judge Neil Bidder QC said it was “quite obvious that only a custodial sentence” would suffice given the nature of the offences and how he still committed crime while on bail.

It was not his first brush with the law for having drugs. He was first sent to prison in October 2012 for possessing cannabis and was given a 15 month sentence.

The judge said cocaine is “an extremely addictive drugs and abuse of it is widespread”.

He added that “drug abuse is at the root of much of the crime in the country” and said that Allison’s history was a “severely aggravating factor” in his sentence.

But the judge said he had taken Allison’s relatively young age into consideration and told him he will serve half of his four years and eight months in prison.