A 27-year-old heroin addict was warned four months ago that he faced 21 months in jail for selling drugs to an undercover police officer.

Today William Marney began that sentence after giving up his chance of freedom by failing to persevere with a drug treatment and testing order.

Marney,of Penfold Close, Maidstone, was made subject to the 12-month order in July, after he admitted drug dealing.

At the earlier hearing, Maidstone Crown Court was told that Marney was in the county town with his partner and children on July 4 last year, when they were approached by another couple.

The young woman asked Marney’s girlfriend about drugs and Marney disappeared briefly, returning with a wrap of heroin in his mouth, which he passed to the “customer”.

What he did not realise was that the other pair were undercover police officers.

Judge David Croft, QC, told Marney it was “with considerable hesitation” that he was making a drug treatment and testing order, rather than the 21-month prison sentence he originally had in mind.

But there was mitigation in his plea of guilty, in the fact that it was a police officer and not a drug addict that he had supplied, and also in the fact that he was helping to care for his partner’s sick child.

But Marney found himself back before the judge after failing to keep several appointments in connection with the order.

Marney was jailed for 21 months for supplying heroin to the officer and one month concurrent for breach of a conditional discharge imposed for another offence.