A DRUG dealer caught in a massive police crackdown on street heroin sales in York has escaped a jail sentence.

All 12 criminals who had previously been sentenced after admitting supplying undercover police with heroin or cocaine are now serving sentences ranging from two to four years.

But when Alex William Eadie, 18, appeared for sentence before Judge Jonathan Durham Hall QC, he got a two-year conditional discharge.

Eadie, now of Tybarn Lane, in Liverpool, admitted one charge of supplying heroin.

He had originally been jointly charged with two other defendants with conspiracy to supply the drug.

Ashley Donovan Done, 19, of Spalding Avenue, Clifton, and Lee Michael Franklin, 22, of no fixed address, both admitted several charges of supplying drugs and were each jailed for two and a half years. The prosecution accepted not guilty pleas from all three on the conspiracy charge.

Eadie's barrister, David Dixon, said the defendant had been 17 at the time of his single heroin deal and had turned his life round since his arrest.

He was now living with his mother and stepfather in Liverpool. He had never been to prison before and had fewer previous convictions than the other two.

The three were arrested as part of Operation Holland, in which detectives went undercover on the streets of York, masquerading as drug addicts and bought heroin and cocaine from drug dealers. More than 30 people were arrested during the operation, which also involved several house raids.

Coun Ruth Potter, who sits on North Yorkshire Police Authority as a representative of City of York Council, has welcomed the operation.

Coun Potter told The Press last month the difference the operation made was already evident - having made the streets of York safer and life more pleasant for people who lived next to dealers or places used by them.

"They had done some very good work in bringing people to justice," she said of the police.