Two people caught with £10,000-worth of cannabis after police saw their car speeding on the M6 have been sentenced by a judge.
An officer in an unmarked patrol vehicle was heading north when the Volkswagen Golf — containing Harsimran Singh, 33, and his 35-year-old cousin Matthew Bernard — was spotted on May 4.
The vehicle was stopped, close to Southwaite between Carlisle and Penrith, with driver Bernard and passenger Bernard spoken to. Both claimed they were travelling to look at a car but neither was able to say what type, or where it was.
When the car was searched, a 1kg vacuum-packed parcel of cannabis potentially worth £10,000 if sold on the street was found. Also seized was a smaller amount of the class B drug which was stashed under the driver’s seat.
When Singh was searched later in custody, around £160-worth of cocaine was found hidden in his bottom.
Both men pleaded guilty to possessing cannabis with intent to supply, and were sentenced at Carlisle Crown Court today.
Singh was said to have been in the process of setting up a vehicle trading business. He had been travelling north to look at a car and, deciding to “kill two birds with one stone”, took the cannabis with him under pressure having run up a drug debt.
His cousin Bernard — a previously convicted robber — had travelled with him and, said his lawyer, had played a regretted, peripheral role out of stupidity.
Singh, of Miles Hill Avenue, Potternewton, and Bernard, of Stainbeck Lane, Chapel Allerton, both in Leeds, were both made subject to 12-month community orders.
They must complete probation service rehabilitation requirements, and 120 hours’ unpaid work. Both men had spent 57 days in custody on remand since their arrests, the court heard.
Recorder Julian Shaw told the pair: “You need to adopt a more lawful way of arranging your daily affairs.”
