A Grimsby drug dealer with 36 convictions for 100 offences has been jailed for three years after police found him sitting on a sofa surrounded by cash, drugs and a flick knife.

Stephen Call, 36, formerly of Cromwell Road in Grimsby, admitted possession of cocaine with intent to supply at Grimsby Crown Court. The offence took place on 20 August this year.

Prosecutor Samantha Laws told the court that the owner of a house on Fraser Street in Grimsby noticed people taking drugs inside the property, which should have been unoccupied. He alerted police officers who were on patrol nearby, and they went to the address.

Inside, officers found Call sitting on a sofa with £450 in cash, a flick knife and wraps of drugs beside him. There were around 28 wraps of cocaine, with a street value of about £280. A mobile phone seized at the scene later provided evidence that Call had been dealing in drugs.

The court heard that Call had been released from prison on licence and had spent three weeks living at Grimsby YMCA. He was then approached by others who told him he owed a debt of £800. He was given a key to the Fraser Street home and told to wait there for instructions.

Speaking for Call, Claire Holmes said her client had been recalled into custody and had been coerced into the offending by others. She said he had a real desire to rehabilitate himself and was working with Cocaine Anonymous to deal with his addiction.

Sentencing Call, Recorder Andrew Haslam KC pointed to the scale of his criminal history. He told the defendant: "You have an unenviable record of theft, burglary and fraud. You have been recalled til February 2027."

Call was jailed for three years. The judge also ordered that the £450 in cash seized by police should be given to St Paul's Boxing Academy, a charity that works to divert people away from criminality and anti-social behaviour. The academy has outlets in Grimsby and Hull.

The sentence is the latest in a long history of offending. Call was given a three-year antisocial behaviour order at Grimsby Magistrates' Court in 2009. He was jailed for two-and-a-half years and given a further three-year antisocial behaviour order at Grimsby Crown Court in 2012. In 2016 he was jailed for three years and four months after admitting dangerous driving, driving while banned, having no insurance, burglary, stealing a vehicle and breaching an antisocial behaviour order. On that occasion he had been high on cocaine when he drove at speeds of up to 100mph during a police chase in the early hours.

In 2020 he was jailed for two-and-a-half years after admitting burglary, handling stolen goods, theft and going equipped for theft, following a catalogue of dishonesty offences in Cleethorpes. The court heard then that he was addicted to crack cocaine.

Cocaine is a Class A drug under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. Possession with intent to supply carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.