A SELF-MADE millionaire is today starting more than five years in prison after losing everything through heroin.

Former managing director Ian James Newsome, 53, ran a legitimate toner recycling business with a £26 million turnover, York Crown Court heard.

But he turned to dealing in heroin, sourcing the drug in Manchester and transporting it to his home town for sale.

He was jailed for five years and four months.

His barrister Victoria Smith Swain said he had run three “very successful” businesses.

“He was a self-made millionaire,” she said. “He has lost everything as a result of his drug addiction.”

Matthew Collins, prosecuting, said police found 27.3g of heroin in Newsome’s car when they stopped him for speeding last year.

They released him under investigation.

Months later, they spotted him as he arrived in Scarborough at the end of a drug buying train trip to Manchester with 13.82g of heroin.

It could have sold for £1,380 on the streets.

“It was a flagrant act of offending when released by the police,” said the Recorder of York, Judge Sean Morris.

Newsome, of Elders Street, Scarborough, pleaded guilty to two offences of possessing heroin with intent to supply.

He has previous convictions for drugs offences including cannabis smuggling in 1991 and dealing in cannabis in 2014.

Newsome told the court he had set up the toner recycling business using a business course he studied when in prison for the cannabis smuggling and that it had had a turnover of £26 million.

Ms Smith Swain said he had struggled with drug addiction for 25 years.

For a seven-year period he had managed to stay clear of drugs.

But he had lost his job at the start of the pandemic and became a carer for his father, who later died of cancer.

He had relapsed into taking heroin and committed the first offence two days after his father’s death.