A “naive and stupid” 19-year-old from High Roding who volunteered to sell drugs to a plain-clothed police officer has been spared a jail sentence.

Callum Allington, of The Street, had borrowed £250 to buy concert tickets to treat his girlfriend but was then threatened and forced into supplying class A drugs to pay it off, a court heard.

He was sitting in a car in Tesco car park, in Springfield, Chelmsford, with half a bag of mixed drugs.

But a police officer, not in uniform, had seen him using his mobile phone as he drove in and went over to speak to him.

Allington wound down the window and immediately said: “How many grams do you want?”, prosecutor Emily Lauchlan told Chelmsford Crown Court.

Trainee mechanic Allington pleaded guilty to possessing 5.766g of cocaine on 6 February this year with intent to supply; and with possessing 94 tablets and 13.294g of powder MDMA (ecstasy) with intent to supply.

The drugs were worth between £750 and £1,770.

Judge Patricia Lynch QC imposed a two-year prison sentence, suspended for two years, with a 10-day rehabilitation activity requirement and 36 hours at an attendance centre.

He was also ordered to pay £100 costs.

She said Allington had borrowed £250 off a friend of a friend to take his girlfriend to a concert he couldn’t afford.

“You were threatened by him. Instead of turning to your decent family you gave in to a drug dealer. You were naïve. You were stupid but it was the arrogance of youth.”

She added: “You are not a seasoned or hardened drug dealer.”

As the judge sentenced him, she told him: “It’s your fault and you deserve to suffer through it. Your family have done nothing. Turn and look at your mother.” - who was crying in the public gallery.

Mitigating, Matthew Sorel-Cameron said Allington “picked the wrong person” to borrow from. He repaid the first £50 but was then pressured into making the next instalment more quickly.

“Then this other man told him if he didn’t deal the drugs he would cut his mum and dad if he was not repaid.”

Allington was told to sell all the drugs in a bag to clear his debt and was halfway through it when he was arrested.

He should have gone to his parents or the authorities.

He had no “street smarts”, as seen by him simply offering drugs to a man who walked up to the car, added the barrister.