A RISING star IT manager at Fujitsu who created his own drug-dealing brand after being stabbed with a machete will spend the next few years behind bars.

Daniel Chapman, of Wayland Close, Bracknell, sold cocaine, MDMA, cannabis, xanax and other drugs under the ‘Dead Lean Team’ moniker.

The 30-year-old would text customers with messages such as ‘Frosty the Snowman is back’ to indicate he was selling cocaine.

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A court heard how Chapman turned to drug-dealing following a decline in his mental health after he was stabbed on a night out two years ago.

He was questioned three times by police between December 2020 and October 2021 after packages from abroad containing MDMA were seized by border force.

Facing multiple charges for drug distribution, Chapman told a female associate that he was thinking of blaming his actions on his mental health.

The woman responded telling him she would get her ‘bent ex-copper father’ to help him out, according to prosecutor Andrew Jordan.

Jed O’Connor, defending, said Chapman led a normal life as an IT delivery manager at Fujitsu prior to launching drug-dealing business.

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He was “highlighted for promotion” and had “potential” but his life was turned “upside down”.

“He went out with some friends and woke up some hous later in intensive care with significant injuries caused by a machete attack on him brought about by three men.

“That evening catastrophically affected his life.

“That led to a collapse in his mental health. He tried to live with this life of pain by turning to drugs.

“He then began selling them to feed his habit.

“The irony is that these men [who attacked Chapman with the machete] are all serving sentences of five years.

“That is a sentence he will serve at the very least.”

Chapman learned his fate at Reading Crown Court on Thursday, February 3 where a judge sentenced him to four-and-a-half years in jail for the supply of cannabis, xanax, cocaine, oxycotine, MDMA, tramadol and the importation of MDMA.