A COCAINE addict who acted as an "intermediary" for his own dealers is now being given random drugs tests by his mum.

Ryan Greenhalgh ran up a debt with his own narcotics suppliers and turned to being an errand boy for the criminals in exchange for being given more time to pay.

Prosecutor Andrew Mackintosh told Bolton Crown Court: "Officers had been deployed in the centre under Operation Muswell which is an operation designed to confront drug dealing and drug use in the area."

The 23-year-old, of Clammerclough Road, Kearsley, unknowingly sold drugs to undercover police officers three times.

He pulled up in a Renault Clio on November 29 last year and handed over a £40 bag of cocaine to officers in the car park of Morrisons in Blackhorse Street.

The same location was used for an identically-priced deal the following month, on December 5, when Greenhalgh arrived in a Citroen van and told the officers he was "busy as f--k".

Greenhalgh was behind the wheel of the same vehicle when he supplied the officers for the final time on January 16 outside The Dragonfly pub in Nelson Square in Bolton town centre.

The cocaine delivered in that transaction was just 13 per cent pure.

Alistair Reid, for Greenhalgh, told the court his client worked as a senior engineer for an telecommunications firm.

The defendant's problems came to head when there was a deterioration in his relationships and he ended up sleeping overnight in his work van in service station car parks and receiving parking tickets that got back to his employer.

Mr Reid said Greenhalgh confessed his predicament to his employer and the firm advanced him salary so he could settle his £2,500 drugs debt.

The defendant was also subject to random drugs test by his mother as a condition of receiving the family's ongoing support to beat his addiction.

Greenhalgh was arrested as part of a series of police dawn raids on September 10 and admitted three counts of supplying cocaine at the crown court on October 2.

Mr Reid said: "He was acting as an intermediary. He has no influence whatsoever on anyone else in the chain of supply.

"I accept this is a sophisticated organised supply arrangement but the defendant's role is limited."

Judge Graeme Smith sentenced Greenhalgh to two years' imprisonment, suspended for two years, on Tuesday.

The judge told the 23-year-old: "This is a case where I believe that you have learned your lesson and you are now a different person."