A pensioner farmer prevented three armed plain-clothes members of a Garda drugs unit from gaining access to his home because he thought they were “thugs in hoodies”.

A heroin dealer who used to sell ice-cream to parents and their children from his ice-cream van was yesterday jailed for four years.

A man who used to make his living selling whipped ice-cream to children from his van is facing a jail term after getting caught red-handed with more than €26,000 worth of heroin in a coffee jar.