Phillip Quinn was yesterday convicted of supplying pal Michael Neave with crack cocaine during a swoop on drug dealers.

Phillip Quinn was yesterday convicted of supplying pal Michael Neave with crack cocaine during a swoop on drug dealers.Neave called Quinn, 41, and arranged to buy some of the highly addictive drug for a supposed user, who unbeknown to either of them was a undercover policeman.The conversation was recorded on a secret wire and the officer drove to Quinn's home in Sheriff Street, Hartlepool.The policeman watched as Neave and Quinn climbed into a car before Neave returned with a £20 wrap of crack cocaine.Quinn denied selling him the drug and claimed Neave must have had it already or got it from somewhere else.But a jury of eight women and four men at Teesside Crown Court took just over 30 minutes to unanimously find him guilty of the offence.The court earlier heard Neave complained after buying the drug how he had difficulty opening the wrap because of the way it had been tightly tied.
He referred to Quinn as "Philly 50 Knots".The deal took place in Sheriff Street on November 9 last year during Cleveland Police's Operation Beckford and Quinn was arrested when officers searched his house on May 1.Neave, 42, of Waverley Terrace, Hartlepool, who Quinn had known since their schooldays, was sentenced to three years in prison in September.He had admitted 27 counts of supplying Class A drugs, including the crack cocaine sold to Quinn, between September 26 and November 14 last year.Quinn was remanded in custody until he is sentenced on a date still to be fixed.