A TEENAGER who was moved into a drugs house in Swindon to help deal heroin and crack cocaine on the streets has been spared jail.

Joshua Beeston was just 16 when he was moved from his Peterborough home and installed in a flat across the road from the Outlet Village.

Once settled in at the Rodbourne Road property he and an older mate from East Anglia were used in the trade in hard drugs.

And on the day Wiltshire Police raided the property Beeston, now 18, was in a taxi on a 230-mile round trip to his home city.

Now after hearing he had turned his life around after starting life in care when his parents were jailed for drug dealing a judge gave him a chance.

Mark Worsley, prosecuting told Swindon Crown Court that police had been watching the flat for a while before they carried out a raid in May last year.

He said watching officers saw 22-year-old Kyle Gilligan come out of the flat and meet a known addict, who was arrested straight afterwards and found with drugs.

The property was then raided and more than half an ounce of crack cocaine and four wraps of heroin, worth a total of up to £1,300, was found.

Also inside they found paperwork and photo identity relating to the two men and toothbrushes with their DNA.

On that day he said Beeston had been picked up by a cab in Rodbourne Road at 6.30am, arriving in Peterborough just after 9am and getting back at midday.

Mr Worsley said he had been in the eastern city for just minutes during the £180-round trip, one of many he made which had been paid for in cash.

"We can't say whether he was taking up money or drugs. When in the arms of the police he didn't have any drugs on him. It was a round trip with very little stoppage at all," said Mr Worsley.

"The Crown's case is that some of the drugs in the flat may well have come from a trip he had taken."

Beeston, formerly of Peterborough, initially pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to supply crack and diamorphine, the chemical name for heroin.

But after being told by a judge that he would not be jailed he changed his plea to admit what he had done.

Joseph McKenna, defending, said his client was put on a referral order last year for possessing cannabis and he had used the opportunity to turn his life around.

He said he had moved away from where he grew up, and was surrounded by bad influences, and now had a job at a hotel in Harrogate.

After starting doing the washing up in the kitchen he said he was now a team leader on the reception at night.

Recorder Malcolm Gibney said: "You have pleaded guilty to two very serious offences in that you were party to a conspiracy together with others to supply diamorphine and crack cocaine on the streets of Swindon.

"It is accepted by the Crown that your role was a very minor role in the conspiracy. You at the time were 16 years of age.

"I have accepted that you by any means had a difficult start to life with both you parents being involved in the drug scene and you going into care.

"It is no wonder after you had that misfortune of mixing with other characters within the drug scene."

He imposed a 21-month jail term suspended for two years with 175 hours of unpaid work and told him to pay £250 costs.

Gilligan, who admitted the same charges last year and is currently serving four years for similar matters in Peterborough, will face sentence after the trial of another man and was remanded in custody