A MAN who dealt drugs from outside a city centre pub was caught with £1,000 of heroin and crack hidden in his pants.

Joseph Devereux set himself up on a bench outside the Gloucester Arms in Friars Entry, Oxford, on November 19 last year to sell drugs to a string of users.

The 45-year-old was jailed for four and a half years at Oxford Crown Court on Monday.

He was convicted last month on two counts of possessing Class A drugs with intent to supply. He told officers when he was arrested he thought he had bought speed and was surprised the drugs were crack and heroin.

Matthew Corrie, prosecuting, said: “He went to the Gloucester Arms to deal drugs and was seen acting suspiciously by CCTV operators.”

The cameras recorded him exchanging drugs for money with a man on a bicycle in Gloucester Green before heading to St Giles and doing the same with a woman at a bus stop, Mr Corrie said.

He was arrested outside the YHA youth hostel in Botley Road, where he had been staying after coming to Oxford from Walthamstow, east London.

Officers found £162.87p in cash on him and an additional £199.85 in a bag in the hostel. He told police he had drugs in his pants.

Some 57 bags of crack cocaine and heroin were found, worth about £1,000.

Clare Fraser, defending, said Devereux had been “a heavy drug user for a significant period of time along with a significant problem with alcohol”. He had been drug free for 11 months, she said.

She said he felt “ashamed” adding: “He’s not someone who had concerned the police in this area before and he was not dealing drugs here on a regular basis.”

Judge Gordon Risius said Devereux, of Brookfield Avenue, Walthamstow, had 15 previous offences between 1977 and 1998.

A Proceeds of Crime Act hearing will be held on January 7 in a bid to recover some of his dealing cash.

Gloucester Arms landlord Richard Daniels welcomed the sentence and said: “We don’t tolerate drugs at all.

“If anyone is caught taking or dealing they are barred for life.”