A TEENAGE drug dealer collapsed in the dock when a judge told him he would be spared a jail sentence.

Benedict Blackwood, 18, from south London, had been facing a four and half years in prison for dealing crack cocaine and heroin in Winchester.

The judge told him people in Winchester disliked Londoners coming down and supplying drugs in the city.

But Judge Keith Cutler said a jail sentence would ruin the life of Blackwood, a student who despite growing up in care hoped to go to university.

The teenager was the second youngest of 19 children and told police he took to dealing to raise money and impress his mother.

The judge said: “He was told he would just get fined for it, as there is so much going on in London.

"We in Winchester don’t like people coming down from London with drugs.

“He (Blackwood) didn’t just come down, it must have been planned, he must know people. Otherwise why Winchester, and not Southampton or Portsmouth or Aldershot?

"He’s found himself involved in something that he didn’t appreciate the seriousness of, until he was arrested.”

The court heard that Blackwood, then aged 17, was spotted near known drug addicts in Sarum Road on May 12.

Soon after the police stopped a car in which he was a passenger on Badger Farm Road and found the drugs.

Blackwood told police: “I’m not a bad person, I’m just doing it to earn some money for my mum.”

Berenice Mulvanny, mitigating, said Blackwood had had a tragic childhood, being put in care at the age of five after being abandoned by his mum. On leaving foster care at 16 he fell under the negative influence of his peers and was “mixing with the wrong people.”

But he was a man of good character, intelligent and studying for a B-Tech in business management with a diploma in sports coaching and a trial for the England under-17 rugby team. He appeared in court in a grey suit, shirt and tie with a college ID lanyard around his neck.

The hearing stopped for several minutes after Blackwood collapsed in the dock when the judge said he would not be jailed.

Sentencing at Winchester Crown Court, the judge said: “A prison sentence would not be a good career move for you and affect your life. The best way to deal with this is to impose a 12-month community order with 100 hours unpaid work.”

The judge ordered that £88.50 found on Blackwood be confiscated. The three warps of crack, weighing 0.2g, and 21 wraps of heroin, weighing 2.9g, were ordered to be destroyed.

As he left the dock Blackwood, of Ladbrook Road, South Norwood, indicated he had learned his lesson, telling the judge: “I promise you we will never meet again.”