A LONDON crack-cocaine dealer who rented a room in Ipswich while he supplied local dealers has been jailed for six years.Judge Neil McKittrick sitting at Ipswich Crown Court said: “There is a problem in this town concerning the supply of Class A drugs.

A LONDON crack-cocaine dealer who rented a room in Ipswich while he supplied local dealers has been jailed for six years.

Judge Neil McKittrick sitting at Ipswich Crown Court said: “There is a problem in this town concerning the supply of Class A drugs.

“Over the last year or so London dealers have used Ipswich as a fertile place to sell drugs and they usually do it by recruiting young people of good character who they send up to sell drugs. It is a business and you were a courier in that business.”

Ian Gayle, 43, admitted acting as a drug courier and pleaded guilty to possessing 46.2 grams of crack-cocaine with intent to supply.

Gayle, of Fairfield Road, Edmonton had been renting a room in a house in Galway Avenue in Ipswich when the property was searched on December 5 last year.

Godfried Duah, prosecuting, said Gayle directed police to an amount of “weed”. However two packages of crack-cocaine, £480 in cash, a mobile telephone, electronic scales and a razor blade with traces of a white substance were also found.

Gayle told police he was given “a substantial amount” of drugs to bring to Ipswich by someone he owed £25,000 to.

The court heard that the crack-cocaine was worth about £4,600, was 49 percent pure and therefore able to be “cut” further for street deals.

Mr Duah said Gayle had previous convictions for dealing Class A, B and C drugs.

Roger Thomson, mitigating, said his client had been a crack-cocaine addict since he was 16 and was under pressure by London dealers to courier the drugs.

Judge McKittrick said: “Your case, I know, is because you owed money to big boys in London. They pressurised you to come to Ipswich to supply to people who no doubt sell on the street. However, if pressure was put on you to sell drugs I have absolutely no sympathy for you at all.”

He said Gayle had 16 previous drug convictions in New York and London and had been offered help in the past to combat his addiction. But just two years ago he had been jailed for three years for attempting to export drugs from Jamaica.

He added: “I think people like you pose a risk to people in this town.”