Lancashire Police sniffer dog found Preston teen's drug stash hidden under his own mum's bed

A sniffer dog searching Hartley Taylor’s home in Preston on another matter discovered plastic bags of the Class A substance in a drawer.

Later more heroin was found in a bedroom where his mum slept, the city’s Crown Court heard.

Taylor, 19, was given a two-year sentence in a young offenders’ institution suspended for two years after pleading guilty to possessing the drugs with intent to supply.

Judge Guy Mathieson told him: “I really don’t want to see you again.

“You have now had effectively two strikes. You have had your chances. There isn’t really going to be a third strike.”

It was said in court that Taylor had been arrested last October for another matter and so police visited his home in Driscoll Street to conduct a search.

A dog trained to sniff out narcotics indicated towards a drawer in his bedroom where the officers found 34 plastic packets containing a substance later found to be heroin together with a sum of cash.

They also searched his mother’s bedroom and found more heroin stuffed under the bed. The total street value of the haul was estimated at £340.

When Taylor was interviewed at Preston Police Station he remained silent. The prosecution said his role was a lesser one because there was no evidence of him being part of a bigger drugs chain and he had no previous convictions for drugs offences.

But he was in breach of a community order when he committed the offence.

Defence barrister David Traynor said his client had been “very reluctant” to talk about the offence and did not want to name others involved.

“He was not the street dealer himself,” he said. “I accept these drugs are packaged for street supply. But this is a case where there was no observation of (him) dealing or telephone evidence to show he is a drug dealer.”

And he suggested to Judge Mathieson that he could sentence him on the basis he was keeping the drugs for someone else.

He said Taylor had been in custody on remand for the past eight weeks and his client had told him he didn’t want to spend more time in prison – a place he called a “living hell”.

Judge Mathieson said he had considered giving him a “short, sharp shock” with a brief prison sentence.

But he took into account his age and told him that although men do not become mature until they are in their twenties, it should not be an excuse or a “get out of jail free card”.

“There are so many young men who manage to negotiate those tricky early years without dealing drugs.

“You are someone who is adrift and lost and trying to find your place without much solid support and leadership. You are trying to get through this and I have some sympathy for that.”

The judge ordered Taylor to come back to court in three months time to give him a progress report on how his life was going.

“I want to hear from you how it’s going. I would like to (hear) everything is positive and going well. You say you never want to go back to prison. It’s on you that.”

In addition to the suspended sentence he made Taylor the subject of a new two-year community order.