A ‘promising’ university student was caught selling thousands of pounds of class A drugs from his Owens Park digs.

Toby Walkland, 22, was suspended from the University of Manchester and was hauled before the courts after police found more than 100 ecstasy and 2C-B tablets in his room at the Fallowfield campus.

Smaller amounts of LSD, ketamine, cannabis and psychedelic drug 4-HO-MET were also discovered at his Beech Court flat.

Scales, snap bags, gelatine capsules and a safe were also found, when it was visited by officers and a university representative at 7am on May 5 last year.

At a Manchester Crown Court sentencing hearing, Walkland, who was taking as well as selling drugs, was spared jail after his barrister said it was an ‘exceptional’ case.

The court heard Walkland, who was studying anthropology, became involved in drug culture at university to make friends.

“It may be the defendant was seeking friendships in a culture which was rather alien to him,” his barrister Mark Friend said.

“The defendant recognises the utter folly of his behaviour and is wholly remorseful for it.”

A total of 116 MDMA tablets and 138 2C-B tablets were recovered, the court heard.

Prosecuting, Simon Barrett said the 254 tablets could have been worth between £1,640 and £3,038.

After he was arrested, Walkland said: “I just wanted to make some money.”

He later pleaded guilty to two counts of possession with intent to supply class A drugs and four counts of possession of drugs.

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Mr Friend appealed for the judge to impose a suspended sentence, saying it was an ‘exceptional case which merits an exceptional course’ and had ‘many powerful mitigating features’.

He said the defendant was ‘of positive exemplary good character’ and had initially struggled at university.

The barrister said: “The defendant rather fell into his studies as a consequence of other issues in his life.

“He struggled rather considerably at university at the beginning.”

Mr Friend said Walkland is now free of drugs having referred himself for help via his doctor and has found employment.

Walkland, of Red Bank Vale, Shipley, Bradford, has also undertaken work for a charity which supports people with substance abuse, the court heard.

“This is a man who has learnt a valuable lesson indeed,” Mr Friend added.

He was suspended from university, but wants to conclude his studies ‘which he started to promisingly’, the barrister said.

Sentencing, Judge Hilary Manley said: “I accept that you were supplying on a social basis and that you were doing it in order to continue to fund your own use of those drugs.

“To send you to prison would serve no purpose to society at all.

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“It would simply undo all the hard work you have done.”

Walkland was sentenced to two years in prison, suspended for two years, and must complete 20 days of a rehabilitation activity requirement and 200 hours of unpaid work.