Cocaine package courier is jailed

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/northern_ireland/8207397.stm

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A "trusted" drugs courier caught with £30,000 of cocaine in Coleraine has been jailed for two-and-a-half years.

Ballymena Crown Court heard police found a package of cocaine in the passenger footwell of a car driven by Robert Colvin on Portstewart Road.

Colvin, from High Street, Moneymore, confessed there was another package of drugs hidden in his home.

He admitted possessing cocaine with intent to supply and driving while disqualified and without insurance.

Colvin, who was to be paid £1,000 for delivering the drugs to Portstewart, is to spend a year on probation on release.

Prosecution said that, in the police view, Colvin was a "tried and tested and trusted courier" given the amount and value of the drugs.

Defence claimed that Colvin had "succumbed to temptation" when he was offered the cash to deliver the packages because he was in financial "dire straits".

Judge David Smyth QC said he appreciated that Colvin only got involved for the money but told him that "you knew what you were doing and were trusted by those who were doing it".

"The duty of the courts is to try and disrupt drug trafficking and that means imposing reasonably severe sentences," he said.

Colvin was also banned from driving for six years and given a £1,000 fine for the driving offences.