Six months more for dealer

Feb 23 2008 by Chloe Griffiths, Liverpool Daily Post

A DRUG dealer who spent 54 days on the run from prison has been jailed for an extra six months.

Lee Weston claims he packed his bags and walked out of Category D Sudbury prison because he wanted to care for his mother and wife.

Louise McCloskey, defending, told Liverpool Crown Court that Weston, who had been jailed for five years in November 2006 for conspiracy to sell Class A drugs, had felt under increasing pressure to help his struggling family.

She said his wife had visited him in prison, tearfully telling him she couldn’t cope with their four children and was suffering from depression.

Soon after Weston’s mother suffered a stroke and was diagnosed with severe angina.

On December 14 last year, Weston, 28, formerly of Beechdown Crescent, Huyton, absconded from the Derbyshire prison where he had been transferred just three months before..

Despite giving Weston full credit for handing himself in, Judge Mark Brown said he had to impose a further prison sentence.