A drug dealer threw away nearly £700 as he fled police on foot through Oxford city centre.

Reuben Campbell-Maasz, 19, and Hodijah Samuels, 22, fled after police spotted someone leaning suspiciously into their car parked off Oxpens Road, Oxford Crown Court was told.

Yesterday the pair were jailed for three years and 27 months respectively after being convicted of possessing heroin with intent to supply.

When the officers approached the vehicle, both men ran off and Campbell-Maasz threw away about £700 in cash during the chase, the court heard.

A police search later unearthed nine wraps of heroin inside the vehicle.

Recorder Simon Blackford said: “The facts of June 24 last year are that both of you were seen together in a car in Oxford and it appeared to police that someone was leaning into the passenger side where Mr Campbell-Maasz was.

“When police approached you both ran off and in the course of the chase Mr Campbell-Maasz threw away the sum of approximately £660 in cash, before he was caught by the police officer chasing him.

“Later on, nine wraps of heroin were found in the vehicle you had been in.”

Ian Brownhill, defending Campbell-Maasz, said his client had been getting his life “back on track” following the incident and his girlfriend was now pregnant.

He said: “During the period on bail he behaved himself and looked as though he could be moving in the right direction.”

He said Campbell-Maasz had not had the most pleasant of upbringings and said his grandmother, a key maternal figure in his life, had recently died.

John Waller, defending Samuels, said his client showed “extreme remorse” for his actions and said he had fallen into the wrong crowd following his parents’ divorce.

He said: “My submission is that this has been a wake-up call to him in terms of going in the right direction.”

But he said his client was only the driver in the incident and he did not have an understanding of exactly what had been going on.

Mr Walker said Samuels had been working as a forklift driver at BMW during his earlier trial, working nights before attending court the next day.

Campbell-Maasz, of William Lucy Way in Jericho, was sentenced to three years in a young offenders’ institute and Samuels, of Hollow Way, Cowley, was jailed for 27 months for possession with intent to supply a class A drug.

Campbell-Maasz had previously admitted possession of a small quantity of cannabis and was convicted for possessing criminal property, but the judge gave no separate penalty for either.

Recorder Blackford said: “It amounted to a very small amount of heroin, but nonetheless the fact is that heroin causes misery to those who become addicted to it and the law for that reason no doubt regards dealing in drugs or possession of hard drugs with intent to supply them as very seriously indeed.”

But he recognised Samuels had a “lesser role” in the crime as driver of the car.

Both defendants waved to their family members in court before being taken away.