A DRUG dealer who turned his parents’ luxury home into a heroin factory – complete with a 10-tonne hydraulic press – was busted just a day after dodging jail over another drug charge.

Ross Gray’s parents own a huge four bedroom sandstone villa, thought to be worth around £400,000, in Paisley’s Greenock Road.

Gray, 36, converted the top half of the house into a makeshift heroin-mixing lab, equipped with a hydraulic press to package up his illegal wares.

And he was found to have £13,000-worth of the deadly class A drug stashed at the property – the day after he dodged jail over a separate heroin dealing case.

Police, acting on a tip-off, raided the house on October 26 last year.

The day before, October 25, he had been given a Community Payback Order at Paisley Sheriff Court for dealing the same drug.

And fishing fanatic Gray proved to be quite the catch for police second time round, when they found the heroin and his fingerprints on the press in his parents’ home.

The details emerged last month when Gray admitted his guilt during a Paisley Sheriff Court hearing.

At the time, Procurator Fiscal Depute Alan Parfery explained: “Police conducted a search of the property and found a number of items euphemistically characterised as ‘drug paraphernalia’.”

The officers found knotted bags containing heroin, clear poly bags for more drugs to be bagged up in, digital scales to weigh the drugs, the 10-tonne hydraulic press, four rolls of brown tape, bills in Gary’s name and a compressed block of heroin, wrapped in tape, in a plastic bag.

The block weighed 246.34g, known as ‘a quarter kilo’.

Mr Parfery added: “This was 16 per cent pure. It had a wholesale value of £5,500 and a street value of £12,900.”

Gray was arrested and charged over the find after his parents said they had no idea about what had been found – as he was the one who used the rooms on the top floor of their home.

Further investigations were carried out and officers found one of Gray’s fingerprints on the hydraulic press.

Gray admitted being concerned in the supply of heroin, in breach of Section 4(3)(b) of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, and sentence was deferred for background reports.

When he returned to the dock this week, defence solicitor Kirsty McGeehan, said he knew jail was inevitable as he been a key cog in the sale and supply of illegal drugs.

As he jailed Gray for three years and eight months for the offence, Sheriff Tom McCartney said:

“I consider there is no alternative other than a sentence of imprisonment due to the gravity of the offence.”

The sentence was reduced from the maximum available and backdated to May 11, when he was first remanded in custody.