A 20-year-old man who fled to the Republic of Ireland after being caught drug dealing in Keighley town centre has been sent to a young-offender institution for three years.

Dwaine Smith, who previously lived in Bellerby Brow, Buttershaw, Bradford, was charged after he and three other people were stopped in a car by drugs squad officers in October 2005.

Prosecutor Patrick Gallagher told Bradford Crown Court today that a cigarette packet containing 36 wraps of heroin valued in excess of £300 was found in the footwell where Smith was sitting.

He admitted to police during interview that he had bought a total of 80 wraps the day before and had already sold 44 of them.

Smith, who had no previous convictions for drugs offences, failed to turn up at the crown court in June last year. Judge Roger Scott was told that he had been in the Republic of Ireland until he came back to this country and handed himself in to police.

Smith had pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to offences of possessing heroin with intent to supply and supplying the Class A drug, but his barrister Sophie Drake said he maintained that he had been put under pressure by someone else to sell drugs.

She said Smith had spent more than a year in Ireland, but had managed to get himself drug-free at an institution run by his uncle.

The court was told that just before Smith's return to England his uncle was shot dead and a step-brother also died.

Passing sentence on Smith Judge Scott said he took account of his early guilty pleas and the fact that he had never been to custody before.