A dad who took a three-year-old boy with him to collect £600,000 worth of cocaine was jailed for 45 months yesterday.
Gavin Kirkcaldy, 30, came under police observation when he met an associate of an English crime gang at a pub car park to collect 2kg of the drug.
Police detained him as he walked away with the child from the rendezvous with a Range Rover driver at the Kittoch in East Kilbride.
They found the 75 per cent pure cocaine in a rucksack he was carrying.
Judge Lord Beckett told the dad at the High Court in Edinburgh that he accepted Kirkcaldy was under pressure to act as a courier, but told him there was no alternative to imprisonment for such a serious crime.
He added: “While your role may have been a limited one, it was an integral part of the distribution from England to Scotland of a very large quantity of cocaine.”
Kirkcaldy, formerly of Dunfermline, earlier admitted being concerned in the supply of cocaine on November 6 last year.
Michael Anderson, defending, said Kirkcaldy started to take cocaine “at a pretty ferocious rate” after an incident in which his best pal was killed and a debt had been built up.
He added: “He made the wrong choice to get involved in this particular offence to clear that debt.”
Kirkcaldy followed sentencing via a video link to prison.
