A drugs courier who took cutrate pensioners' bus trips to Spain to smuggle over half a million pounds worth of cannabis was jailed for three years in Belfast yesterday.
Ian Webster had "stuck out like a sore finger" during his "unsophisticated operation", said Mr Charles Adair QC, defending. He also told Belfast Crown Court that all Webster (33) got for the smuggling was a few days' holidays in Spain as he even spent the £6,000 he had been paid as a courier.
Mr Adair said those using Webster had stood to "reap the rewards", not the defendant, and it was accepted that Webster had "no trappings of wealth". He was arrested at his home in Balloo Walk, Bangor, Co Down, on March 2nd last year, the day after his last smuggling trip to the continent.
Crown Counsel Mr Peter Magill said police had been alerted by Customs officials who arrested a person on the Seacat ferry in Scotland as part a drugs operation. Webster had admitted he had just returned from Spain and when asked what was in two suitcases uncovered by police, he had told them, "You know what's in the cases".
Mr Magill said that just under 34 kg of cannabis resign was recovered, but that during interview Webster told police of two previous drug smuggling trips he had made.
Mr Magill said the drugs had a street value of £10,000 a kilogramme. Judge Jack Petrie, who told Webster he had no option but to jail him, also ordered that he do 12 months' probation on his release from prison.
