A DRUG dealer from Okehampton has been jailed after texts on his mobile phone showed he had been supplying cocaine for months.

Wayne Atherton was caught dealing drugs by police twice within the space of two months and he had a stock of cocaine stored in shot glasses at his home.

He was first arrested after a car was stopped in the town and was already on bail when officers raided his home and found more drugs.

An analysis of his mobile phone showed contacts with customers going back months.

The plasterer turned to drugs after being laid off during the recession and began dealing to pay off debts he ran up to his own suppliers.

Atherton, aged 22, admitted supplying cocaine and possession with intent to supply cocaine, cannabis and the rave drug NRG 2.

He was jailed for two years by Recorder Mr William Andreae-Jones, QC, who told him: 'These are very serious drugs offences for which immediate custody is inevitable.

'Drugs, particularly class A drugs, exercise a malign and pervasive influence on so many young people like yourself. You now accept that and are determined to address your problems and put them right.

'You have a loyal and supportive mother and it is comforting to know that when you leave custody you will be returning home. You also have a job again and an employer who is anxious to help.

'I accept you were under severe personal pressure at the time these offences were committed.'

Mr Gordon Richings, prosecuting, said Atherton was stopped in a car in Okehampton March last year and found with cocaine. A mobile phone was seized and scores of messages showed he had been dealing since January.

Police later raided the house he was living at in Okehampton, where they found scales and drugs bagged up and ready for sale. They seized cocaine worth £310 and the dance drug NRG2 worth £250 to £320. Atherton claimed he was buying in bulk to share with friends at a birthday party.

Mr Nick Bradley, defending, said the offences were born out of Atherton's own drug misuse which he now acknowledged had caused him problems and which he had addressed.

He said it led him to lose his job as a plasterer and to run up debts to dealers who put pressure on him to repay them by selling drugs for them.

He said he has turned his life around since his two arrests last year and is now working again and living with his mother.