A CANNABIS dealer has been jailed four days after his baby son was born.

Thomas Stuart Forrester hadn’t learnt his lesson from the last time he was convicted of drug trafficking, York Crown Court heard.

Prosecutor Heather Gilmore said the 28-year-old had £850 in cash in his jacket pocket and a baton in the driver’s door of his car when police raided his home.

Would-be customers continued to ring his phone asking for drugs after his arrest and in two days 28 messages were left, some complaining that calls went straight to an answer phone.

Judge Andrew Stubbs QC delayed sentencing Forrester so he could attend the birth of his son and defence barrister Holly Betke pleaded for his prison term to be suspended so he could be with his partner and their new baby.

But the judge said Forrester had received a suspended prison sentence three years earlier for a similar offence of possessing cannabis with intent to supply.

“When the police executed a search warrant (at your home), they found all the trappings of a cannabis business,” he told Forrester. “You of all people should know the consequences of dealing in cannabis.

“The response to your suspended sentence didn’t stop you dealing in the same way again.”

He jailed Forrester, formerly of Pateley Place, Acomb, for eight months.

Forrester pleaded guilty to possessing cannabis with intent to supply it and having an offensive weapon.

Ms Gilmore said police raided Forrester’s home on November 24, 2017, and found enough skunk cannabis to fetch between £135 and £195 in street deals.

They also found a cannabis grinder, cannabis seeds, a catalogue for cannabis seeds, and other equipment used in dealing cannabis.

Ms Betke said he had used cannabis as self-medication for back pain. Since learning of his partner’s pregnancy he had cut back and now didn’t use cannabis at all.

He had received the baton by mistake when he ordered a prop for his car bonnet online from China, she added.