ENDAD Rahman flushed heroin with a potential street value of £10,000 down the toilet to protect his drug addicted girlfriend, it was claimed in court.

And after the act, which he said was to keep her free of drugs, he pleaded guilty to possessing a Class A drug.

Rahman, 23 and formerly of Ponting Street but now living in Rochdale with his parents, was sentenced to a 120 hour community punishment order.

He was also ordered to pay £400 in prosecution costs.

Ian Halliday, prosecuting, told Swindon Crown Court that Rahman was living with Kirsty Doole, 18, and her family in St Margaret's Green, Swindon.

"Kirsty had a heroin problem," Mr Halliday said. "It was believed by the family she had put her habit to one side."

Mr Halliday explained how, when Kirsty was sent to a Young Offenders Institution for three months after breaching bail, her parents found more than £1,000 cash in her jacket and two bags of drugs in her handbag.

"Her parents called the police and they looked at the drugs in situ," said Mr Halliday. "They took the decision to see if anyone else was connected."

Mr Halliday described how later that day Rahman returned home, and how he saw police moving in on the house.

"He was seen to race upstairs, pursued by police. He locked himself in the bathroom and the police announced their presence by calling 'open up, police'," said Mr Halliday. "Police heard the toilet being flushed."

Mr Halliday said that police found scales, a dealer's list and plastic bags in the house and found 106g of a substance containing 54 per cent heroin, in a drain.

He added that Kirsty told police how it was she who would have sold on the drugs if she had had the opportunity.

In mitigation Mark Ruffell said Kirsty had admitted selling drugs and admitted the drugs found were hers.

He said: "There is an element here that the greater good is still served by destroying those drugs and trying to keep someone else off heroin.

"Mr Rahman had come off heroin. He could have hidden the drugs, he could have run out the front door.

"He made a spontaneous decision to destroy them there and then, and perhaps one can understand how he must have panicked.

"He is not the drug dealer in this case, or the drug user."

The recorder told Rahman that becoming involved with drugs of this quantity, about which courts take an extremely serious view, had exposed him to great danger.