A MAN who was caught rummaging through a bush has been jailed for his part in a drugs supply chain.

Marek Roman Tarnawski was told that his involvement in the supply of Class A drugs helped make crack cocaine ‘the scourge of the area’.

The 28-year-old, from Westmacott Road, Weymouth, was found searching through a bush opposite the Swannery car park in Weymouth at 9.10pm on August 1 last year, Dorchester Crown Court heard.

Prosecutor Joanna Morrissey said: “Police attended because it had been reported that Mr Tarnawski had been searching through the bush in a frantic manner as though he was attempting to find something.

“It was described as though he was trying to pull the bush out from its roots.”

When officers arrived at the scene, Tarnawski moved away from the bush, Mrs Morrissey said.

She added: “He jogged away and slowed down, then police officers arrested him.”

A glass jar was found in the bush containing a wrap of white powder and a package of white powder, she added.

The powder inside was 67.38 grams of crack cocaine with a purity of eight to 11 per cent, the court heard.

Had the purity level been at 100 per cent, the street value of the drugs would have been £6,700, Mrs Morrissey added.

Messages were also found on Tarnawski’s mobile phone relating to the supply of drugs, the court heard.

Tarnawski pleaded guilty to being concerned in the supply of controlled drugs to another.

The court heard that he had 13 previous convictions for 29 offences.

Mitigating, Brian Sharman said: “His involvement in what they were doing was to go to the bushes and get the drugs out from where they had been stored, because another person was selling them on.”

Recorder Malcolm Gibney told Tarnawski: “You were part of the supply chain.”

Tarnawski received a 21-month prison sentence and waved to the public gallery as he was sent down.