The Leicester Mercury has named and shamed 39 drug dealers who had plagued a city estate.

Its close relationship with Leicestershire Police meant the paper was able to publish photographs of all but two of the offenders, who have now been jailed for a total of 132 years.

All were arrested after officers staged a blitz of raids on 50 homes at the end of 2003 following five months of undercover work.

And now the judicial process is complete police were able to hand over details to the Mercury - before they were given to any other media or even posted on the force website - which splashed the mugshots over pages one, four and five.

The paper also published the name, age, charge and sentence of each heroin or crack cocaine dealer.

Social affairs correspondent Ciaran Fagan said it was hoped the paper's coverage would act as a deterrent.

He said: "This shows that they do get nailed when the police put their minds to it and they do get locked up.

"We did a similar exercise earlier in the year with dealers from another part of the city and the response from the community is fantastic."

Do you have a story about the regional press? Ring 0116 227 3122/3121, or
e-mail pastill@nep.co.uk