A CARE leaver found his past cannabis addiction too “difficult to resist” during the Covid pandemic, a court has heard.

Richard Fagbola was part of a drug-dealing operation in Swindon between August and December last year, Swindon Crown Court was told on Thursday (February 24).

He was part of a county lines operation known as ‘Romeo’ that supplied crack cocaine and heroin to drug addicts in the town over four months of 2021, prosecutor Tom Wilkins said.

Fagbola pleaded guilty to possession of cannabis with intent to supply it to another and possession of criminal property, but Mr Wilkins said “it is in the context of county lines supply into Swindon”.

But it was heard his life “went a little off the rails” after his father passed away in 2014, and he developed an “association with cannabis”.

After Covid put paid to his good progress in the construction industry, he found it too difficult to resist getting back into the drugs world during the pandemic.

He will likely be released from HMP Bullingdon in just over a month, after the judge sentenced him to eight months behind bars.

He will be expected to serve half of that before being eligible for release on licence and the nearly three months he spent on remand will count towards the overall sentence.

Mr Wilkins explained to the court how Wiltshire Police’s Fortitude team became aware of the existence of the Romeo line after making a welfare visit on a known Class A drug user in the town.

“Officers noticed bulk text messages being sent to him by the Romeo line.

"There were a number of messages sent to him such as ‘Romeo on’ showing they were available for the purchase of Class A drugs.”

When officers from the Metropolitan Police arrested Fagbola, of Du Cane Road in White City, London, they found 142 grams of cannabis on him, as well as £470 in cash.

Mitigating, Ben Hargreaves told the court that for the first time, the 22-year-old has a property in his name and said his “only concern is that the longer he is given, the less likely that flat in Du Cane Road will be available to him”.

Citing a previous suspended sentence he received, Mr Hargreaves continued: “There was progress, but probation were limited under Covid restrictions.

“He was doing well, he hadn’t had any breaches, but I don’t think a huge amount of progress was made because of the restrictions of the probation service in London who struggled under the Covid restrictions.”

Sentencing, Judge James Townsend said he took into account his early guilty plea, age and that Covid means serving a prison sentence is “more difficult than it otherwise would be”.

He jailed him for six months for the drugs offence, adding two months by activating the suspended sentence. The total term was eight months.