A drug dealer has been jailed after boasting in a text to an accomplice that Keighley would become an “M-cat gold mine”.

Leeds Crown Court heard police inquiries led back to John Sutcliffe after his co-accused, Dean Randle, was arrested and 111 grammes of M-cat was found in bags in a cash box in that man’s garden.

His mobile phone was seized, and it was clear from the messages on it he and Sutcliffe were partners running a drug supply operation in Keighley and Bingley.

Sutcliffe’s home was searched in April last year, and further drugs were recovered along with his phone containing incriminating messages relating to ketamine, steroids and cannabis, as well as M-cat, said Craig Hassall, prosecuting.

One of the messages referred to supplying a kilo for £2,000, and another to kidnapping and torturing a man who had not paid a drug debt.

The court heard on June 8 this year Sutcliffe was also involved in a bizarre assault at a party in Riddlesden, when he and another man – Ashley Greig – having taken drink and drugs, dared each other to cause injury to the other.

Mr Hassall said in that drunken bravado, Sutcliffe presented his arm to Greig, who cut it with a kitchen knife, and Sutcliffe then did the same in turn to Greig, to the horror of onlookers.

The girl whose party it was asked them both to leave, and the pair attended Airedale Hospital where their wounds were stitched.

Sutcliffe, 25, of Beck Road in Bingley, was jailed for a total of two years four months after he admitted conspiracy to supply class B and C drugs, and assault causing actual bodily harm on Greig.

Randle was jailed last week for a total of three years 11 months after admitting the same two conspiracy charges, and another involving conspiracy to import cathinone-type drugs.

Jailing Sutcliffe, Judge James Spencer QC said while the extent of their supply was unclear, he and Randle had clearly decided to exploit the market for synthetic drugs in the Keighley area.

He said it also appeared from some of the alarming messages on the phones “you were going to use your imposing presence to enforce your debts”.

Greig, 25, of Compeigne Avenue in Riddlesden, who admitted assault causing actual bodily harm to Sutcliffe, and theft and criminal damage at a house in Keighley, was separately jailed for ten months on Tuesday.

Mr Hassall said in addition to the assault at the party, Greig had entered an unoccupied house in Keighley and caused substantial damage by removing the radiators and copper piping.

Jailing Greig, Judge Spencer said he and Sutcliffe had acted in “an alarming way” at the