A court blunder led to a suspected drug dealer being arrested and hauled before the courts in error over a breached curfew.

Sam Whittle is currently on bail after being charged with supplying crack cocaine and heroin in Ashford and was given strict bail conditions after appearing in the magistrates court.

At the time, the 23-year-old who lives in Canterbury, denied the allegation and was bailed with conditions to not visit Ashford and be under curfew at his address each night from 7pm to 7am and report to police once a week.

He was also ordered to wear a GPS tag so his whereabouts could be monitored at all times.

However, Whittle, who is training to become a boxer, found the conditions interfered with his training sessions which are staged between 6.30pm and 7.30pm, which would lead to him being home late.

So he went back to Folkestone Magistrates’ Court in November and asked for his conditions to be varied.

He successfully managed, without the help of any legal advice, to get magistrates to vary the bail conditions to 8pm to 8am each day.

This meant he could get into the boxing gym and attend sessions and gave him ample time to get home again so he was not in breach of the conditions.

However, an admin error at the court meant the variation of hours had not been passed on to the police or the tag monitoring company.

So, when he got home later than 7pm on November 29, the monitoring company flagged his lateness as a breach and police arrested him.

He was kept in custody overnight and was brought up from the cells on the morning of December 4 at Margate Magistrates’ Court.

Despite admitting the breach of bail, the bench was told he had successfully applied to other magistrates to get his hours varied.

Julie Farbrace, prosecuting, told them the variation should have been changed but it had not been because of an admin issue.

Magistrates told Whittle, of Wincheap, Canterbury, it was unfortunate the error had happened.

The chairman of the bench added: “We will make sure these hours are changed to 8pm to 8am but the other bail conditions still remain.”

As a result, Whittle was released from custody but is still due to appear at crown court on January 6 for a preliminary hearing over the drug allegations.