A music promoter has denied being a cocaine dealer and told a jury that more than £3,900 worth of drugs was for his own use.

Damon Mayes told Exeter Crown Court he grew cannabis and swapped it for a range of drugs which he used to keep himself calm.

He was stopped with a pouch containing cannabis and cocaine on his way to a Halloween party in Exeter and police found more drugs at his home in Newton Abbot.

Mayes said he had been a drug user since he was 13 and started taking crack cocaine when he was just 15 and used a variety of substances to cope with the impact of an unhappy childhood and tragic family life.

He has admitted growing cannabis in the loft space of his home but said he did not deal in other drugs and almost £1,000 cash found by police came from his work as a music promoter and road worker.

Mayes, aged 27, of Queen Street, Newton Abbot, denies five counts of possessing class A or B drugs with intent to supply. He has pleaded guilty to producing cannabis and possession of the drug with intent to supply.

The prosecution say he was found with cannabis and four other types of drug after he was stopped for speeding on Western Way, Exeter on October 31, 2014.

They allege he had cocaine, ecstasy, LSD, DMT, MDEC as well as cannabis, most of which was hidden in a can with a false bottom at his home.

He also had £988 cash despite having declared incomes of less than £2,000 for the previous two years.

The prosecution say his iPhone contained numerous coded messages from customers asking for cocaine, ecstasy, skunk, and DMT.

Mayes told the jury the only drug he dealt in was cannabis and all the others were for his own use. He said the messages referred either to him buying drugs or purchases made jointly with other users.

He said he had scales so he could measure the drugs he bought to make sure he was getting value for money and were put into separate bags so he could ration his own use.

He said on the night he was stopped he was on his way to meet friends at a party at a venue in Exeter where they were celebrating the life of a friend who had died.

He said: ‘I had a torpedo full of cocaine and some legal ketamine. They were mine and I was not going to share them with anyone else.

‘I was growing cannabis and would sell it or trade it for whatever drugs I wanted.’

The trial continues.