A drug dealer who used bulk text messages to sell heroin and crack cocaine has been jailed for more than three years.

Toby Able was sentenced to three years and two months’ imprisonment at Maidstone Crown Court yesterday (September 26) after pleading guilty to supplying both crack cocaine and heroin.

In March, the 22-year-old was initially identified as a suspect after police seized a phone from a woman arrested for class A drug supply offences.

Subsequent inquiries, including an examination of the phone, identified Able, of Maidstone Road, Chatham, as the holder of a phone number that had been used to send marketing messages to drug users in Medway.

A search warrant was carried out at Able’s home on July 6 and police found two phones which had been used to send the messages.

He was arrested and later charged.

Detective Sergeant Kelly Leventis, of Kent Police’s County Line and Gangs Team, said: “Able spent four months as a key player in this supply chain of class A drugs to the Medway towns.

“He reaped significant financial benefit from taking advantage of addiction and showed little understanding of the corrosive effects his offending will have had on the towns and neighbourhoods he targeted.”