A county lines dealer stashed drug money under a hospital mattress after crashing during a high speed police chase.

Officers attempted to stop a white Fiat being driven erratically in Margate when it evaded two patrol cars.

It sped down the wrong side of a road and ran a red light in Cecil Square when PC Reynaert, a specially trained pursuit driver, activated his blue lights.

But the Fiat swung into Eaton Road and continued to overtake traffic before speeding the wrong way around a roundabout and into Tivoli Road.

It then crashed head-on into a parked car.

Barrington Laing, 20, was in the driver seat and Shaun Prendergast, 21, was in the passenger seat – both men were arrested.

Prendergast had a dark blue jacket on his lap containing an I-phone, electronic scales covered in cellophane and white powder, a small mobile phone and a lump of hard rock weighing 6.96 grams.

In custody officers discovered another wrap inside his mouth.

Inside the Fiat was a stash of £50, four mobile phones and a small quantity of cannabis.

Meanwhile Laing was rushed to Margate’s QEQM hospital where he tried to conceal £780 under a mattress in A&E.

It was recovered by officers who also found an additional £330 shortly after the high speed chase on March 6 2018.

Judge James O’Mahoney told Canterbury Crown Court the case had “county lines stamped all over it.”

“Quite often young men are sent into action in rural and seaside towns dealing drugs away from London where competition is hot,” he continued.

“A disturbing fact is when they are arrested they are then released under investigation and end up continuing to supply drugs and that is what has happened here.”

The court heard Laing, from Thornton Heath, Surrey, who was 20 at the time of the offences, pleaded guilty at a previous hearing to possession with intent to supply heroin and dangerous driving.

He was jailed for four years and four months.

Prendergast, from south East London London, who was 19 at the time of the offences, pleaded guilty at an early opportunity to seven counts of possession with intent to supply Class A drugs and posession of cannabis.

He was jailed for five years and three months to be served in a Young Offenders’ Institution.