A “DRUGS mule” caught with cocaine and heroin and an improvised weapon has been jailed.

Tony Reece was stopped by police off Barry Avenue, Bicester, on December 11 and found to have 12 wraps of the drugs.

He also had an amount of cannabis for personal use and a knotted sock containing two small weightlifting weights, which he told officers he carried for protection.

The 22-year-old, of Purslane Drive in the town, was sentenced at Oxford Crown Court yesterday after earlier admitting two counts of possessing Class A drugs with intent to supply, possessing a Class B drug and having an offensive weapon.

Claire Tucker, prosecuting, said Reece was stopped at about 7.35pm and volunteered the drugs and the weapon.

She said: “He told officers ‘it is the first time I have done this, it is because I am short of money, it is not even mine’.

In an interview he said he had been offered £50 to pick up the items from a second party, a black female, and then take them to a third party behind Bure Park shops.

“He believed each wrap was worth £20,” Miss Tucker said. She said Reece told officers he had been carrying the weights in a sock for two days after receiving a text message saying “you are a dead man”.

Graham Bennett, defending, said his client was not a dealer but a “drugs mule” and had co-operated fully with police.

Judge Mary Jane Mowat jailed him for two years and one month and said: “Anybody who is involved in the sale of drugs, whether directly as a dealer or as a carrier, if it’s hard drugs then I’m afraid they must expect a custodial sentence.”