Kent dealer who hid drugs in nail varnish bottles found hiding out in wardrobe

A drug dealer from Folkestone who was found in a wardrobe when police came to arrest him has been jailed. Tallanius Bridgland admitted being concerned in the supply of class A drugs - some of which had been hidden in a tub of nail varnish bottles - following a Kent Police investigation.

Detectives identified a mobile phone number that was being used to contact a known drug user in the town on multiple occasions in July 2024. Investigators were able to link the same phone number to a man who was connected with an address in Blunden Drive.

On October 2, officers attended the address and arrested Bridgland after finding him in a walk-in wardrobe inside a bedroom. A subsequent search with the assistance of a police drugs dog led to the recovery of wraps of class A drugs, also found inside the bedroom.

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Some of the wraps - which contained cocaine and heroin - had been stashed inside a large tub of nail varnish bottles. Cash and a mobile phone were also seized. Later that day, officers charged Bridgland, 29, with being concerned in the supply of class A drugs.

Bridgland pleaded guilty and on November 26, at Canterbury Crown Court, was sentenced to five years and seven months in prison. Detective Sergeant Scott Drake said: "Drug addiction causes no end of misery to the lives of users and everyone concerned with them, as well as to those communities where the effects of substance addiction ripple out.

"Dealers, who are the root of the problem, may go to all ends to try to avoid us but we will always strive to bring them to justice and to remove drugs from the streets of Kent."