A drug dealer who was caught red-handed with heroin hidden in a Kinder Egg during a roadblock has been jailed for a year. 

Vincent Spalding, 42, from Cospicua, had been caught with the drugs during a roadblock in Zabbar in April 2006 after he was seen throwing items out of the car in which he was a passenger. The egg was one of the items thrown out of the vehicle. 

Inside it, soldiers found 14 plastic sachets containing a substance suspected to be heroin while an amount of cannabis was found on his person. 

Court experts testified that there was 0.32 grams of cannabis and 0.77 grams of heroin.

Mr Spalding told the police that the heroin was split into sachets so he could calculate how much he was consuming on a daily basis. But Magistrate Natasha Galea Sciberras said the possession of 14 sachets was significant in itself, especially since they were being carried around and were not at his home. Moreover, what the court found "crucial" was the precision with which the drugs were prepared in individual packets with between 0.03 grams and 0.06 grams each. 

The court noted how no weighing scales had been found during a search at his residence, which denotes the experience he had in calculating heroin doses. 

Moreover, the court found it strange how Mr Spalding spent more than half his weekly income in the form of social benefits to finance his drug addiction without having any other income with which to buy the drugs. He told the court he had been unemployed for the preceding nine years. 

All these circumstances show that the heroin was not for his exclusive use, the court concluded. 

In considering the punishment, the court noted that the case has been pending since 2006 mainly due to Mr Spalding's "intransigence". She therefore jailed him for 12 months and fined him €700 over the heroin and €50 over the possession of cannabis. In addition, he was ordered to pay €523 in court expenses. 

Police Inspector Nezren Grixti prosecuted.