A MAN who denied involvement in an drugs supply operation after £7,000 worth of illegal substances were found near Carlisle has been acquitted by a jury.
The city’s crown court heard how a vehicle driven by Paul Roe was stopped on a slip road at Southwaite services, off the M6, on January 27 last year. Cocaine, ecstasy tablets and cannabis with a potential street value of around £7,000 was found wrapped inside a carrier bag in the boot.
Roe, 56, later admitted possessing the three drugs with intent to supply.
His son, 30-year-old Scott Roe, went on trial at the crown court this week having denied three charges alleging being concerned in the supply of class A cocaine and ecstasy, and class B cannabis. Scott Roe’s fingerprints had been found on four layers of tightly wrapped packaging described by a prosecutor as a “drug-dealing pass-the-parcel”.
But, giving evidence this morning, Scott Roe maintained he was innocent and told how he merely handled bags which his father had collected for an unknown purpose from his Manchester flat hours before Mr Roe senior was arrested in Cumbria.
And this afternoon (WED), Scott Roe was found unanimously not guilty of all charges he denied by a jury of seven men and five women who heard all evidence in the case. He was discharged from the dock by Recorder Tom Gilbart.
His father, of Wintermans Road, Manchester, is due to be sentenced at the crown court later this week.
