Torbay drug death dealer ordered to repay £20k crime profits

Andrew Hodges was brought back to court under the Proceeds of Crime Act

A dealer who supplied a hallucinogenic drug that led to the death of a teenage boy has been ordered to repay the £20,000 he made out of crime.

Nathan Wood, 16, became disorientated after taking "N-Bomb" and jumped into the River Dart in Devon in August 2016.

Andrew Hodges, 47, was jailed for eight years and five months in 2017 after admitting drug dealing and possession.

A judge at Exeter Crown Court gave him three months to pay the money or face an extra two years in prison.

Nathan had just finished his final year at school when he died

Nathan, who had just finished his final year at King Edward VI school in Totnes, and a friend paid £5 for the LSD-style drug, which Nathan cut in half.

He went to the River Dart to see friends, and witnesses said he "did not seem to be himself" before he took his clothes off and entered the water.

A police diver found his body on the riverbed the next morning.

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Following a major police investigation, Hodges, of Marldon, Torbay, was found with stocks of the drug, along with ecstasy and LSD, ketamine and cannabis.

The former legal executive was already on a suspended sentence when he supplied the drugs that led to Nathan's death and carried on dealing despite the tragedy.

Hodges pleaded guilty to five counts of drug dealing and four of possession at Exeter Crown Court before being jailed on 21 December 2017.

He was brought back to the same court under the Proceeds of Crime Act after a financial investigation into his assets.

Judge David Evans ordered him to repay £20,000, which he was deemed to have earned from his crimes, from his available assets of £524,000, which included two houses.