[A] TRUSTED courier caught transporting heroin potentially worth up to £200,000 has been locked up for almost seven years.
Police stopped James Duffy as he travelled on the northbound M6 near Carlisle, on May 2, in the belief that he was speeding and using a mobile phone behind the wheel of his Mercedes.
Noting he was “furtive” and “fidgety”, officers searched Scotland-bound Duffy’s vehicle and found two packages of class A heroin with an average 50 per cent purity stashed under some musical equipment. A drugs expert later concluded the 1kg stash, which Carlisle Crown Court heard was an “immensely valuable consignment”, could have been adulterated with bulking agents to double that weight to give it a value, potentially, of up to £200,000.
Duffy, 46, who was also found in possession of £1,050 cash, confessed to police he had also transported drugs on a number of other occasions during the preceding fortnight.
The father-of-two – a self-employed vehicle salesman and mechanic – admitted possession of heroin with intent to supply.
He was jailed for six years and nine months by Judge Barbara Forrester today (FRI).
“You were trusted, obviously, to carry that amount of drugs in your car, and cash as well,” Judge Forrester told Duffy, of Mossneuk Street, Coatbridge, North Lanarkshire.
