A CANNABIS dealer given a last chance by a judge was caught with drugs less than three months later.

But despite warning Nikolai Snitynski ‘take it from me, if you breach this you will go to prison’, Judge Douglas Field has given him another opportunity to prove he can get clean.

The 21-year-old was put on an eight-month suspended sentence in early February after he was found with half a kilo of cannabis while on bail for a similar offence.

But on Friday, April 20 he was stopped by police and found to have 4.7 grams of the drug, worth about £40.

Snitynski, formerly of West Manton, near Marlborough, but now living in Milton Road, Swindon, pleaded guilty to possession of a class B drug.

The conviction means he is in breach of the suspended sentence which could now be activated, meaning he would have to serve the time behind bars.

But Judge Field decided to adjourn the case to see if Snitynski could tackle his drug problem.

He said: “I read the last part of the probation report: ‘He has been set a target by the crown court to become clean of cannabis by July 4 which he is set to achieve’.

“I am not holding out any promises: bearing in mind some of the promising things I have read in the report I think it would only be fair to give him the opportunity to come back and say ‘I have achieved this’.”

The judge, who passed the initial sentence, released the defendant on bail to appear before him at Salisbury Crown Court on Friday, July 6.

Snitynski was first stopped by police in Old Town on Wednesday, February 9 last year when his car pulled out in front of a police patrol at a mini roundabout.

He was found to have two bags of the drug, text messages relating to dealing on his phone and more drugs at his home, along with electronic scales and small plastic bags.

After being released on bail he was stopped again near Thamesdown Drive, Swindon, in June in a car laden with drugs When they searched the car they found almost half a kilogram of the drug, worth about £4,000, and at his home a new set of scales and more bags.

At that hearing Andrew Eddy, defending, said he had now addressed his addiction and ‘turned the corner’ in his life.

Passing sentence, the judge said: “It is commonly thought that because it is cannabis it doesn’t really count: cannabis is class B drug and people who supply cannabis go to prison.

“Your saving grace is the reports that I have read about you and it does appear that you now have faced up to this deep-seated problem that you have had with cannabis.

“I have decided just, and I say just, to impose a suspended sentence order.”

Judge Field imposed an eight-month jail term which is suspended for 18 months and put him on a drug rehabilitation requirement.