A DELIVERY driver who ran a mobile cannabis dealing business has been given a sentence “harsher” than a short jail term.

Police watched as a drug user got into the gold-coloured Nissan driven by Petru Sumanariu, 40, in east York, said Nick Adlington, prosecuting at York Crown Court.

When the car drove off, they followed and stopped the car, catching Sumanariu red-handed with cannabis worth up to £2,000.

His customer was also arrested with cannabis in his pocket, though Sumanariu claimed they hadn’t had time to complete the deal.

Sumanariu, of Wigginton Road, York, who works for Just Eat, pleaded guilty to having cannabis with intent to supply it to others.

“You deliberately chose to make money by dealing in drugs,” the Recorder of York, Judge Sean Morris, told him.

National sentencing guidelines indicated that he should give Sumanariu a six-month jail term, which, if he served it, would mean him spending three months in jail.

“I’m going to imprison you in your own flat,” the judge told him as he made him subject to a 12-month community order with a six-month nightly curfew from 6pm to 6am and 150 hours’ unpaid work.

“I think that makes a harsher sentence than putting you inside for three months playing ping pong.”

The judge ordered that £520 found by police in Samanariu’s possession on his arrest be confiscated.

The drug user who was Sumanariu's passenger was not prosecuted. Police dealt with him in a different way.

Mr Adlington said police on patrol spotted the car parked on Deramore Drive, Badger Hill, on November 13, 2021. A young male in a long coat got into the car and it drove off.

Police stopped it near Sussex Road. When asked, Sumanariu told them where he had 20 bags of cannabis in the glovebox. Police also found £350 in cash in the car, and in his home they found £170 more cash, two cannabis grinders, some scales, a list of names and numbers, and more cannabis.

Altogether the cannabis found in the car and flat weighed 233.4g.

A police drugs expert estimated it would fetch between £1,730 and £2,045 on the street.

Sumanariu told police he would charge £60 for a 7g bag and £30 for a 3g bag. He claimed some of the money found by police was his earnings as a delivery driver.

Lily Wildman, defending, said he had not been involved in drug dealing before and had shown a “significant lack of judgement”.

“This is not something he will get involved in again,” she said.

He had been working for Just Eat since 2019 and was a hard-working person. He had sold the Nissan "around 12 months ago", said the defence barrister and now used a different car for his delivery job.