A man found by police to be transporting cocaine potentially worth up to £500,000 on the M6 through Eden has admitted a drug trafficking crime.
Ashley Makin, 32, appeared remotely at Carlisle Crown Court this morning over a video link from custody. During a short hearing, Makin pleaded guilty to possessing class A controlled drug cocaine with intent to supply it to another.
His offence was committed on July 1 this year while he was driving a Vauxhall Insignia on the M6 northbound which was stopped by police near Shap.
The court heard around half a kilo of cocaine had been seized. This, say the prosecution, could have had a wholesale value of between £180,000 and £200,000. If sold on the street, it could potentially have been worth up to £500,000.
Recorder Ian Unsworth QC adjourned the case. The respective barristers agreed a formal written basis for Makin’s guilty plea should be produced to assist with the sentencing exercise.
No probation service pre-sentence report was ordered. Meanwhile Makin’s barrister, Amrit Jandoo, conceded the ultimate prison sentence for his client was likely to be “measured in years”.
Makin, of Cawdor Court, Farnworth, Bolton, is due to be sentenced at the crown court on September 21, and will remain in custody in the meantime.
The court also heard Makin was one of two men who had been previously jailed for the terrifying robbery of a McDonald’s restaurant in Stockport in 2015 which involved the brandishing of weapons. He was handed a five-year jail term by a judge at Manchester’s Minshull Street Crown Court in early 2017 for that offence.
