A DRUG addict who invented a "pathetic" story in a failed attempt to get a major dealer off the hook has narrowly avoided jail.

Daniel Warren tried to take the rap for a couple charged with possessing with intent to supply cocaine with a street value of between £10,000 and £24,000.

But Taunton Crown Court heard that the story spun to police by Warren, 41, of Upper High Street, Taunton, was so "ludicrous and implausible" he was not believed.

He was handed a 12 month prison sentence for attempting to pervert the course of justice, two months for breaching a conditional discharge imposed for possession of heroin and one month for failing to surrender to bail. The consecutive sentences were suspended for 18 months.

The court was told that Warren handed himself in to police almost three months after a couple arrested in Hertfordshire were found to be in possession of nine ounces of cocaine.

Warren claimed he had found the drugs in a bin in London and put them in the woman's handbag without her knowledge, only for her to leave the scene before he could retrieve them.

Police knew Warren was lying, but he denied he had been bribed to invent the story.

The Recorder at Taunton Crown Court, Miss Rosaleen Collins, said he had no impact on the drugs case, which later saw the man jailed for 54 months, while no evidence was offered against his colleague.

She told Warren: "What you did was to interfere with the police investigations by trying to throw them off the scent.

"Your attempt to pervert the course of justice would have been perhaps more than a nuisance to police with what was really a pathetic story.

"It's an irritation and an attempt to interfere with our system of justice.

"Your story was so poor, so transparent and didn't last terribly long."

The court was told that Warren, who has a long list of previous convictions mainly to fund his drugs habit, was making efforts to beat his addiction.