A Cowling drug dealer sent for five years to a young offenders' institution has failed in a bid to have his sentence reduced.

Joseph Patrick Lally, 20, was handed the sentence at Bradford Crown Court in January after pleading guilty to five counts of supplying heroin and three of supplying crack cocaine.

At London's Court of Appeal last Friday, submissions on his behalf stated that he had pleaded guilty immediately and had been under pressure from others higher up the chain to take part in a drugs operation.

But Sir Richard Rougier, sitting with Mr Justice Cresswell, said the kind of drugs he was dealing in were "the biggest scourge of this society today".

He added: "The consideration of other cases convinces this court his sentence was neither manifestly excessive nor demonstrably out of line with other cases for similar degrees of criminality."

The Court of Appeal heard that Lally, of Millcroft, had been caught last year in a police dragnet operation to stamp out drug dealing in Runcorn. Lally arranged drugs sales to "clients", not realising they were undercover police officers.

On eight occasions he and another man had met officers to hand over drugs.