Kent Nicholls of Bailey Head, Oswestry, admitted charges of supplying heroin to 41-year-old musician Andrew Leake of Hengoed. He also pleaded guilty to a second charge of administering heroin to Mr Leake to endanger his life or inflict grievous bodily harm.

The court was told that Nicholls could have faced a manslaughter charge but it could not be established that his actions alone were the cause of Mr Leake's death.

Prosecutor Patrick Darby described how the pair, old friends from school days, were drinking in an Oswestry public house on April 29 last year.

There came a point when the barman decided that Mr Leake had had enough and the pair agreed to move on to Mr Leake's home where, he said, there was plenty of booze.

Collapsed

Mr Leake tried smoking heroin, but when he said this had had no effect he asked Nicholls to inject him. Nicholls did so and sometime later Mr Leake collapsed.

Nicholls rang the emergency services and under instructions carried out mouth-to-mouth resuscitation in a bid to save his friend, who was taken to Wrexham Maelor Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

A Home Office pathologist found double the drink-drive limit of alcohol in Mr Leake's blood, along with heroin. He died from inhalation of gastric content along with alcohol and morphine intoxication.

Sentencing Nicholls, Judge Robin Onions said he should not have given in to Mr Leake's demands for heroin, but it was to his credit that he remained on the scene, called the emergency services and did what he could to help his friend until they arrived.

The judge told Nicholls he could have been facing a manslaughter charge, but a toxicologist found that Mr Leake's cough reflex ability had been affected by drink – to the extent that he was unable to clear his throat.

The judge expressed his sympathies with Mr Leake's family, and told Nicholls: "Put heroin behind you. It is a killer."