DRUG DEALER Shaquille Cumberbatch has been jailed for four years and 10 months after boasting of making £450 a day when relocating to the ‘softer market’ in Swindon.

Cumberbatch, 20, moved into the Nythe home of a vulnerable young woman early last year and exploited her to help his illicit trade.

And when police raided the flat they found almost £6,500 worth of heroin and cocaine as well as other drug paraphernalia.

Rob Welling, prosecuting, told Swindon Crown Court police raided the premises in St Ives Court, Tynehan Road, on February 25 last year.

Inside they found 58 grams of cocaine and 60 grams of heroin worth a total of £6,480 along with the defendant and Shakira Moss, 19.

“What they had clearly walked in on was an insurgent drug dealer’s drug operation,” he told the court.

“Mr Cumberbatch, from London, had come to Swindon to exploit perhaps a softer market.

“He had used Shakira Moss to run the drug line, a phone from which Miss Moss was running the drugs, delivering the drugs, and Mr Cumberbatch was running her. It was clear from text messages to her.”

Mr Welling said the defendant’s own mobile also contained texts in which he boasted about the amount of money he was making.

He told a friend he was taking £450 a day selling £10 deals without offering any discount for users buying in bulk.

Mr Welling told the court that the sums involved could push the case into a higher category in the sentencing guidelines.

Cumberbatch, of Colindale, north London, admitted two counts of possessing drugs with intent to supply.

The court heard he was put on a detention and training order at the youth court for a similar matter in 2011.

Angela Shaw, defending, said her client realised he was facing a lengthy jail term and fell into dealing after finding it hard to get work with his previous convictions.

Jailing him Judge Douglas Field said: “You came down from London to try your hand at drug dealing in Swindon and St Ives Court was the scene of the operation and you were certainly playing a significant role.

“You were running your co-defendant Miss Moss and you were taking large sums by way of profit.

“I am not placing you in category three as a result of what your boasting was, that you were making £450 a day.”

He also imposed an ASBO banning him from having more than one mobile, or one not registered in his name, for 10 years.

Moss, of Church Place, Railway Village, was put on a two-year suspended sentence at an earlier hearing after admitting the same charges.