A DRUG dealer has been jailed for offering to sell cocaine, ketamine, cannabis and codeine.

Damon Evans, 26, from Caerphilly turned to drug trafficking to help him fund his own spiralling and increasingly expensive cocaine habit.

Andrew Kendall, prosecuting, said police found drug-related messages on the defendant’s mobile phone when he was arrested.

Evans pleaded guilty to offering to supply class A and class B drugs.

The offences were committed between March 2022 and this May.

The defendant had been jailed for 13 months four years ago for wounding but had no relevant previous convictions, Mr Kendall added.

Hashim Salmman representing Evans said: “He is still relatively young man and is lightly convicted with a single conviction in 2019 in respect of a wholly dissimilar offence.

“The defendant expressed remorse to the author of the pre-sentence report and this was not a cosmetic attempt but a sincere expression.

“There is a low likelihood of reconviction and he has positive personal qualities.”

Cardiff Crown Court was told Evans had left full-time education at the age of 14 and suffers from anxiety and depression.

The defendant has recently struggled with a crack cocaine addiction, Mr Salmman added.

Judge Paul Hobson told Evans: “I have to sentence you for offences reflecting a drug dealing operation which you were engaged in over a number of months.

“You were arrested in May of this year and drug-related messages were found on a phone that was seized at that time which forms the basis of the prosecution case.”

The judge added: “You were offering cocaine for sale by the half gram and then later in three and a half gram deals while offering to sell cannabis by the ounce.

“This was cocaine dealing was going on for several months, not far off a year. That is a serious matter.”

Evans, of Ty Coch, Rhymney was jailed for 30 months and told he would serve half of that time in prison before being released on licence.