UPDATE: 1.30pm

Connor Davies has been caught and taken back to court which resumed with a police officer in attendance, and Davies had his sentence explained to him by the judge.

UPDATE: 11.08pm

A MAN who was told by a judge that he would be receiving a custodial sentence for dealing drugs jumped out of the dock and ran out of Newport Crown Court this morning.

Connor Davies, 20, of Livale Court, Bettws, was at the court to be sentenced for one charge of possessing cannabis with intent to supply.

But when Judge Peter Heywood told him that he would be failing in his public duty if he did not give Davies a custodial sentence, the drug dealer grabbed hold of the screen in front of the dock, pulled himself over it and ran out of the courtroom.

A security guard who was sat with Davies attempted to clamber over the screen after him but fell, leaving the defendant to run straight out of court one.

Once he had escaped from the room, the judge said he was sentencing Davies to 12 months in a young offenders’ institution.

Alarms were raised but security guards at the court’s entrance said Davies had run straight past them, out of the building and past a cameraman.

The court heard earlier that Davies had been found with 165.18 grams of cannabis after police executed a warrant at his mother’s house on February 6.

David Pugh, prosecuting, told the court Davies had admitted to police that they were his drugs but that he threw a rucksack containing four bags of his drugs out of a window before police could search his bedroom.

Mr Pugh said the street value of the haul found at the house was worth about £2,000 and that Davies, who appeared in court dressed in a blue striped rugby shirt, had told police in interview that his life was dependent on his drug dealing. He had admitted the offence at a hearing in May.

Ben Waters, defending, said Davies had since found a job which he would lose if he was given a custodial sentence and that he had found a girlfriend after he was charged who was “a very positive influence” on him and not involved in drugs.