A FAILED businessman who turned to drug dealing to pay off his debts has kept his freedom because of his voluntary work for junior sport.

Alex Brown, 24, had cocaine worth up to £6,600 in street deals when police stopped him near Sand Hutton on the A64 between York and Malton, said Rob Galley, prosecuting.

Half the 85g of the drug was high purity, the rest was street deal level purity, and he had texts relating to drug dealing on his mobile phone.

He told police he had got into debt through a failed business, needed money to pay the debts, so started selling cocaine.

Brown, of Dickens Road, Malton, who ran Roomz Ltd, formerly More Happiness Ltd, a real estate management company based at Clifton Moor, for three-and-a-half years until it collapsed last July, pleaded guilty to possessing a Class A drug with intent to supply it to others.

The Honorary Recorder of York, Judge Paul Batty QC, gave him a two-year prison sentence, but suspended it for two years at York Crown Court .

Local sports leaders sent him letters about Brown’s work for Selby Boxing Academy and how he regularly acted as steward for junior football matches.

“You have much to offer your local community and I certainly hope that is what you will continue to do,” the judge told Brown.

He ordered Brown to do 300 hours’ unpaid work to the community on top of what he was already doing.

For the drug dealer, Steven Crossley said his employers described him as “kind-hearted”. Brown had reformed himself since his arrest on February 3 and was determined not to deal in drugs again.