A Huddersfield teenager has been sent to a young offender institution after police twice caught him with drugs.

Leeds Crown Court heard officers went into an address in New Hall Road, Lockwood on the morning of September 25 last year.

Inside they found O’Neille Gabriel Joseph, then 18, and another male. The teenager was carrying a bag inside which were two wraps of crack cocaine, nine of heroin and 16 wraps of cannabis.

His driving licence and bank card were also in the bag along with two mobile phones.

Joseph maintained he had been asked to deliver the bag to that address and had not known the Class A drugs were inside.

He said he was told he could take some cannabis for himself for doing the delivery and had dropped his personal items into a compartment of the bag and had not looked at what else was in there.

After hearing evidence from Joseph, Judge Tom Bayliss QC rejected his account and said: “I am quite sure you knew exactly what was in the bag.”

Robert Galley, prosecuting, said while on bail for those offences on July 10 this year Joseph was stopped by police near Westgate in Huddersfield town centre and found some cannabis in his possession for his own use and a kitchen knife in his pocket.

Georgina Goring, representing Joseph, said he had left school with seven GCSEs and started at Kirklees College studying for a diploma in health and social care.

Leeds Crown Court
Leeds Crown Court

At the same time he began doing some plastering work part-time in Dewsbury and became involved with some older males who he thought were friends.

“It is then his life took a turn for the worse,” she said.

At the time of the offences he was smoking cannabis himself but had since stopped.

Ms Goring added: “He has now realised the detrimental effect it was having on his life”.

She said he was only 19 and suggested he was naïve and at a crossroad in his life and could be given a chance to remain in the community.

Joseph, of Clement Street, Birkby, admitted possession with intent to supply cannabis, heroin and crack cocaine last September and possession of cannabis and a bladed article in July. He was given two years eight months in a young offender institution.

Judge Bayliss said there had to be punishment. “You have simply no concept of the harm you are doing by your actions.”