A second-hand Bristol car dealer who got involved in a cocaine supply plot when his business hit hard times has been jailed for three-and-a-half years.

Undercover police – who had been keeping Tony Hallard under observation – found more than £20,000 worth of cocaine on him when he was arrested in May last year, Gloucester Crown Court was told yesterday.

Hallard, of Jefferies Hill Bottom, Hanham, pleaded guilty to conspiring with others to supply Class A drugs.

Prosecutor George Threlfall said Hallard had admitted the offence in February this year, but two other men involved in the plot had denied it and sentencing had to wait until after they had been tried at Bristol Crown Court.

Mr Threlfall said that on May 7 last year, undercover police saw Hallard drive onto the forecourt of a Texaco garage on Nags Head Hill at the junction with Kingsway in St George. Another car containing the two accomplices also pulled onto the forecourt, and Hallard was seen to talk to one. The other got in his car and after a time both vehicles drove away.

Mr Threlfall said the two men were stopped and arrested and two socks were found in the car, each containing about half a kilo of cocaine. The total value of the drug was just over £20,000.

Five days later Hallard was observed by police driving a Mercedes car on the Avon Ring Road towards Downend, where he was seen to go to a house and let himself in. After he emerged 20 minutes later, police arrested him and he was found to have a sock in each pocket of his shorts, containing about half a kilo each of cocaine, valued at just over £20,000.

Mr Threlfall told the court Hallard had no previous convictions for drug offences and had last been in trouble 14 years ago.

Defence counsel Robert Duvall told the court Hallard was not a principal or a financier of the drug racket, and had become involved because he was heavily in debt following a collapse in sales at his second-hand car dealership in Warmley High Street three years ago.

He added debts were mounting, Hallard was unable to sell his £475,000 house, even at a knockdown price, and he was sucked into the drug racket through desperation.