Drug dealing pair plead guilty just before trial

TWO Middlesbrough drugs traffickers have been jailed, after changing their pleas to guilty at the last minute.

- By ESTHER HALLIGAN

Daniel Bowden, 38, and Ryan Grainger, 27, were due to stand trial for supplying cocaine across the region but both men admitted their offences on Monday - the day their trial was due to begin.

The pals were caught after police stopped a BMW in the Nether fields area of Middlesbrough, on March 30. Officers were acting on intelligence that the car was linked to a drugs supply.

Bowden - who was dressed in a green tracksuit - got out of the car, threw a man bag away and fled.

He was found hiding in some gardens on Fosdyke Green. Grainger was driving the car; he was arrested at the scene.

Police searched the men, the car and Bowden's home:

Bowden's manbag was filled with individual wraps of cocaine. He had a further bag of cocaine in his jacket. Grainger had four bags of cocaine on him. £4,000 was found in the BMW.

In Bowden's house, on Saltersgill Avenue, police found testosterone, digital weighing scales with traces of drugs on them; an iPhone and a SIM card.

On Monday, Teesside Crown Court heard that Grainger's bank details were stored on the phone.