POLICE officers searching a drug dealer's home found almost £12,000 in cash stashed in an oven, a court heard.

Leandro Meireles, 23, had earlier been arrested in Westhoughton after he was found carrying heroin and crack cocaine with a street value of £2,000.

At Bolton Crown Court, Harriet Tighe, prosecuting, said officers spotted Meireles in a car parked on Wesley Street on July 11, 2018.

After challenging him, Meireles refused to get out of his car and the officers removed his keys from the ignition and begun a search.

He was found to be carrying a camouflaged bag which contained 26 bags of crack cocaine and 23 bags of heroin.

Meireles had a mobile phone in his pocket and a search of his car uncovered two more mobile phones and £1,218.50 in cash along with a driving license in someone else's name.

Analysis of the drugs estimated the total street value to be £1,965 and they were also found to be of "surprisingly high purity for street deals".

Officers then raided an address on Leach Street in Bolton where they found £11,995 hidden in a cooker hood filter in the kitchen.

A further mobile phone and laptop were also seized from the property.

Officers analysing the phones found repeated text messages to 41 contacts advertising drugs for sale at various prices.

The messages included: "On with the best deals", "New 'w' top quality or your money back" ('w' standing for white which is street slang for cocaine), "3 rocks for £25" and "Top gear / fat bags for a fiver".

Ms Tighe added that Meireles had two previous convictions for shoplifting and possession of cannabis.

Keith Jones, defending, said Meireles, of Saint Clares Terrace, Lostock, had issues with "maturity and poor decision making" when he committed the offences.

Mr Jones said his client had been "foolish" but in the two years since the offending he had not reoffended and had worked as a courier and debt collector.

Meireles, who appeared via video link from HMP Forest Bank, had struggled in custody with Mr Jones describing how prisoners were facing 23 hours per day in lockdown and had "30 minutes to shower and 30 minutes yard time".

He said Meireles, who pleaded guilty to two counts of possession of Class A drugs with intent to supply and possession of criminal property, was now a father with a 13 month old child and was "willing to accept his punishment following the short, sharp, shock of his arrest".

Sentencing Meireles to 30 months imprisonment and activating Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA) proceedings , Judge Graeme Smith, said: "If you sat in this court every day you would see how much misery and destruction is caused by dealing Class A drugs."