Police searching the Oxford home of jobless Robert Gale found thousands of pounds stashed in his car and drugs hidden in his house and garden, a court heard.

Gale, 37, faces Oxford Crown Court accused of dealing drugs following the search at his address, in London Road, Headington, last August.

He denies two charges of attempting to buy Ecstasy with intent to supply, two charges of possessing amphetamine with intent to supply and another of possessing amphetamine.

Gale has pleaded guilty to possessing cocaine and two stashes of amphetamine.

Christopher Cousins, prosecuting, told the court that when police searched carried out an early morning search of Gale's home and garden they found a quantity of drugshim holding something in his hand, which turned out to be a bag containing 1.163g of cocaine. In his trouser pockets were money bags containing 47 white tablets with a dollar sign logo on them. Police scientists later examined the tablets but they did not contain any illegal drug. Two more similar tablets were found hidden in a fireplace in Gale's living room.

In his garden an orange bag was hidden in a hedge, Mr Cousins said. Inside were 300 more tablets, again stamped with a dollar sign and a bag containing 24.8g of white powder containing amphetamine.

Gale's Toyota car , parked outside his house, was also searched. In the boot was £2,920 in cash and a beige bag containing a further 26.4g of amphetamine.

Elsewhere in the garden, police found a set of scales and, inside his home, a number of diaries Mr Cousins alleged contained details of drug sales.

Mr Cousin said: "The diaries had various workings out of mathematical complications which the Crown says represent the business accounts, so to speak, of a drug dealer."

In a police interview, Gale said he had accepted the batch of 49 tablets, which he had thought were Ecstasy, from someone who owed him money. He denied all knowledge of the 300 tablets found in the hedge.

The case continues.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.