A DRUG dealer who sold crack and heroin at a children’s playground was condemned for exploiting an ‘evil trade’.

Father-of-one Nigel Swafford was sentenced at Oxford Crown Court yesterday after selling the class A drugs to an undercover police officer.

The court heard how the 43-year-old, who lives in Blackbird Leys, made two deals in broad daylight after unwittingly approaching a covert officer for custom.

Carole Fern, prosecuting, said Swafford cycled up to the policeman in a churchyard off Leopold Street on June 15 and proffered the drugs using slang names.

She said the officer took his phone number and placed an order the next day for crack cocaine, receiving a call back in which Swafford said he was ‘still cutting up’.

The pair met later that afternoon next to a play area in nearby Ridgefield Road, where Swafford ‘took a cling film wrap from his mouth’ in exchange for the officer’s £20.

The prosecutor added: “He said ‘call anytime and I will sort you out.”

A second deal was orchestrated at the same location for the same price on the afternoon of June 22, with heroin instead of cocaine.

The court heard how Swafford, of Druce Way, manages the reserves football team for Marston Saints and has a son who he no longer sees.

Defending, Julian Lynch said: “He hopes he can put his life back on track and may be able to see his son again, although it’s a dream at this stage.

“He has got himself clean and has been working in painting and decorating.”

He said Swafford followed the Rastafarian religion and, though a cannabis user, was just ‘experimenting’ with class A drugs at the time.

But Judge Peter Ross stressed the importance of deterring drug dealing, describing it as an ‘evil and corrosive trade’.

He told the court: “I liken it to someone throwing a pebble in a pond - the ripples spread throughout the community...Its victims are not just the addicts but those they prey upon while committing crime.”

The court heard Swafford had served an earlier six-year sentence for importation of a class A drug.

He pleaded guilty to two counts of supplying a controlled class A drug and appeared via video link from Bullingdon Prison yesterday.

He was sentenced to four and a half years in jail and must pay a victim surcharge.