A DRUG dealer has been jailed for four years after he failed to convince a jury he wanted to kill himself after he saw his girlfriend with another man.

Police caught Joseph Leo Beattie with cocaine, Ecstasy and amphetamine in his possession when they raided an Acomb house, said Rupert Doswell, prosecuting, at York Crown Court.

Giving evidence, Beattie claimed he was feeling suicidal after seeing his girlfriend with another man the day before the raid and had bought the drugs to kill himself.

But the jury also saw Beattie's diary with its list of his drug sales and other drug dealing paraphernalia and convicted him of drug dealing.

"You weaved a tissue of lies," Recorder Timothy Roberts QC told Beattie. "It is plain to me from the circumstances in which you were found with the drugs that this was no casual encounter with drug dealing."

Long-term amphetamine user Beattie, of Chesney Fields, Acomb, denied three charges of possessing drugs with intent to supply them to others, but the jury convicted him after nearly two hours in retirement. The charges involved 36 Ecstasy tablets, 3.92g of cocaine and 10.74g of amphetamine. They acquitted him of a fourth charge of possessing 2.27g of cocaine at Thoresby Road, Acomb, with intent to supply it.

His girlfriend cried in the public gallery as he was jailed for four years.

Mr Doswell said the police raided a house in Thoresby Road on 8.15am on Sunday, March 5. Beattie was there with some drugs and £260 in cash although it was not his home. Police also searched Beattie's home later that day and found drug dealing paraphernalia, including Beattie's diary.

Beattie said he had started taking amphetamine out of boredom when working as a stevedore in the Falkland Islands in 1982.

He claimed that he was at Thoresby Road because he had slept there. The previous day, his girlfriend had told him she was going out to walk their dog, but he had later seen her in a car with another man.

"I didn't know what was going on. I just lost it," he said.

He walked out of the couple's home and asked his amphetamine dealer for "pills" so he could take an overdose. The dealer sold him the drug mix.

He claimed the diary entries were money lending records.

His barrister Mark McKone said he was a hard worker and had only been convicted of low-level dealing.