TWO men caught running £9,800 of cocaine between Manchester and Bradford have been locked up for a total of more than seven years.

Nathan Smith threw two drugs packages out of an Audi A3 being driven by Scott Bairstow as police pursued them along the M606 on October 15, 2014, Bradford Crown Court heard yesterday.

The parcels contained a total of 246 grams of cocaine split into street deals, with a potential sell-on value of £9,840.

Smith, who was on prison licence after being sentenced to 11 years in 2008 for conspiracy to rob and conspiracy to burgle, was then caught with high purity cocaine valued at £2,000 on June 25 last year.

Prosecutor Nadim Bashir said the drug was found in the toilet at an address in Bingley.

The cocaine was 82 per cent pure and a cutting agent, compressor and scales were found at the property.

Smith, 29, a Bradford man of no fixed address, had been recalled to prison until December 2018 to serve the balance of the conspiracy sentence, the court was told.

He pleaded guilty to two offences of possession of cocaine with intent to supply and was jailed for a total of five years and four months.

Bairstow, 32, of Eskine Parade, Woodside, Bradford, was convicted by a jury of the October, 2014, offence after a trial. He was imprisoned for two-and-a-half years.

Emma Downing, barrister for Smith, said he was a hard working family man on his release from prison but he began using cocaine and ran up a drug debt.

When he lost the drugs he was couriering in October, 2014, his debt increased and his drug use spiralled out of control.

His partner and their children had left the area after the family was threatened, their home ransacked and their dog stabbed by those above him in the drugs supply chain.

Miss Downing said the dealers even ran Smith's partner off the road when she was in the car with her two children.

Ashok Khullar, for Bairstow, said he was the driver in October, 2014, and played a minor role.

He was a family man with children and had worked hard as a asbestos stripper.

The offence was out of character and he had no record for drug dealing.