Moment police find class A drug dealer hiding in wardrobe

A drug dealer who hid in a wardrobe when police came to arrest him has been jailed for more than five years.

On October 2 2024, officers rushed to a house in Folkestone, Kent, and found Tallanius Bridgland, 29, skulking in a walk-in wardrobe packed with clothes.

Detectives had identified a mobile phone number in July this year, that was being used to contact a known drug user on multiple occasions.

A search of the property with the assistance of a police drugs dog led to the recovery of wraps of class A drugs, also found inside the bedroom.

Some of the wraps - which contained cocaine and heroin - had been stashed inside a large tub of nail varnish. Cash and a mobile phone were also seized.

Bridgland admitted to being concerned in the supply of class A drugs following an investigation by Kent Police.

On November 26, 2024, Bridgland was sentenced to five years and seven months imprisonment at Canterbury Crown Court.

In a video captured on police bodycam, officers can be seen rushing into the property and quickly finding Bridgland in the wardrobe. 

He is then dragged out, placed on a bed, and asks officers ‘what am I being done for’.

When police explain that he has been arrested for the supply of class A drugs, Bridgland replies ‘what drugs’.

Detective Sergeant Scott Drake of Kent Police, said: 'Drug addiction causes no end of misery to the lives of users and everyone concerned with them, as well as to those communities where the effects of substance addiction ripple out.

'Dealers, who are the root of the problem, may go to all ends to try to avoid us but we will always strive to bring them to justice and to remove drugs from the streets of Kent.'