Luke Aimson, of Tickhill Street in Denaby, was handed the hefty prison sentence - a ruling met with gasps from his disabled parents in the public gallery at Doncaster Crown Court last week - after pleading guilty to possessing crack cocaine with intent to supply.

He was initially apprehended when police saw him in a stolen Nissan Micra in a petrol station forecourt on December 7 last year, along with another male who escaped by running away and jumping into a canal, prosecutor Neil Coxon told the court.

When officers searched Aimson and the vehicle they found crack cocaine with a street value of £1,000, £510 in cash and two mobile telephones, along with a small bag of cannabis and a single ecstasy tablet.

Aimson later admitted in interview that he made £400 a day by selling crack cocaine - in order to fund his own drug habit which cost him between £100 and £200 per day.

One of the recovered mobile telephones was used purely for drug dealing and Aimson used an escort, who he paid in drugs, to drive him round for business, the court heard.

Richard Jepson, in mitigation, described his client as a young man who had become dependent on drugs and who had made a "terrible mistake".

He added that Aimson, who has been physically assaulted since the drugs were confiscated, left college to work full time with his father, before turning to drugs after losing his job and seeing his father leave the family home.

Both of his parents, whose property has also been subjected to violence in the aftermath of their son's arrest, were said to be "deeply concerned" by his behaviour.

Aimson pleaded guilty to possession of crack cocaine between June and December 2007, possession with intent to supply the class A drug, possession and intent to supply ecstasy, possession of cannabis and the possession of a stolen motor vehicle.

Judge Recorder Rodney Jameson, QC, said during sentencing that he could not ignore a previous police caution in April last year for the possession of cannabis and heroin with intent to supply.

"That should have stopped you and it did not," he said.

"This is an unfortunate case because you are a young man with quite a bit about you - all of which you have done your best to throw away by becoming involved in the use and sale of drugs.

"You have added to your parents' problems by what you have done - they are partly the victims of this."

Aimson was handed prison sentences - to run concurrently for five years - for four of the charges, with no separate penalty for the possession of cannabis.