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Drug courier caught with £700 of heroin
A FILEY drug courier caught transporting £700 worth of heroin across the Pennines has been jailed for 15 months.
Martin Edward Hardwick, 39, who admitted making a similar trip twice before without being caught, was sentenced at York Crown Court for possessing a Class A drug with intent to supply.
The court heard he had been driving dozens of cling film wraps of the drug between Manchester and Scarborough when he was stopped by police on the A64 Malton bypass last November.
Police officers noticed Hardwick, of Belle Vue Street, drop a cigarette packet from the driver's door and kick it behind a wheel on his car.
When recovered, the packet contained 57 cling film wraps of heroin, which Hardwick initially denied had anything to do with him.
Bashir Ahmed, prosecuting, said the defendant finally admitted having picked up the drugs from someone in a lay-by in the Manchester area and was being employed to transport it to others in Scarborough who would then have sold it on the streets.
He told the police he had done the trip twice before.
Ian Brook, mitigating, said his client, who has previous convictions for driving with excess alcohol, possession of an offensive weapon and having a bladed item in a public place, was easily led.
He added that Hardwick, himself an addict and unemployed, carried out the latest offence in return for heroin for his own use. The court heard he had returned to drug abuse after his partner and their children moved out 18 months ago.
Mr Brook said custody would prove especially hard for his client because he suffers from claustrophobia.
Jailing Hardwick for 15 months, Judge Robert Bartfield told him that although he accepted he was a "rather meek" person with some mental health problems, the offence was too serious not to attract a custodial sentence.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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