Traces of heroin were found on banknotes and cars seized by police at houses connected with two alleged drug dealers, a jury has heard.

More than two months before the police searches in Flaxley Road and Cockret Road, Selby, plainclothes officers had covertly watched brothers Alan and John Bell enter and leave a house in Charles Street, Selby, alleged to have been their drug dealing centre.

On one occasion, Alan Bell was allegedly carrying a metal cash box, the jury at York Crown Court heard.

Alan Bell, 37, of Cockret Road, John Bell, 49, of Flaxley Road, and Ian Rushton, 41, of no fixed address, deny conspiracy to supply heroin. All three face additional charges. A fourth man, Martin Alexander Keenan, 20, of Charles Street, is jointly charged with John Bell with burglary.

Keenan is not connected with the drug conspiracy charge and did not live in Charles Street when heroin dealing is alleged to have taken place there.

Wetherby forensic scientist Ian Parkinson claimed that one bank note taken from John Bell's house had burn marks and brown residues on it.

He alleged that these indicated the note had probably been rolled into a cylinder and used for smoking heroin.

He also found small heroin traces on 250 bank notes found at the Flaxley Road house.

But he found no heroin on £2,280 in cash found in a metal cash box in Alan Bell's house. Mr Parkinson alleged that he found traces of heroin on or near the driver's seat of a Vauxhall Carlton taken from Alan Bell's house and a Honda Civic that John Bell admits was in his possession two days before his arrest.

The scientist said he could not tell how long the heroin had been in the cars or how it had got there.

PC Adam Heatley, of Selby police, alleged that he saw Alan and John Bell entering and leaving the Charles Street house and driving up and down the road during two hours in August 1998.

PC Martin Wedgwood claimed he saw Alan Bell on a separate occasion come out of the house with a metal cash box.

The trial continues.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.