By Staff Reporter

Last updated 12:43, Monday, 01 December 2008

A man was caught drug dealing in Carlisle College while training to be a plumber there, the city’s crown court heard.

Alexander Tomczykski, 24, was arrested in September after being seen behaving suspiciously in the college’s ground floor toilets.

When a policeman challenged him outside in Victoria Place he told him he had a wrap of heroin in the back pocket of his jeans.

And when questioned later he admitted that he had been supplying the class A drug for a group of friends for about two months.

Without that confession the police would not have known that Tomczykski was dealing in drugs to fund his £45-a-day habit, prosecutor Gerard Rogerson told the court.

Tomczykski, who lives in Bewcastle, pleaded guilty to two charges of supplying heroin and one of possessing it with intent to supply it.

He was given a six-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, on condition that he spends at least six months at a drug rehabilitation clinic in Hampshire.

His barrister, Kim Whittlestone, said he was “highly motivated” to break his “chronic drug addiction”.