A pensioner who became a drugs mule to pay off a debt to gangsters has been jailed.
A court heard how Christopher Dunkin, 67, accepted a £10,000 loan from criminals after an injury cost him his job as a scaffolder.
He was forced to pay it off by transporting drugs. Dunkin, who had a heart bypass operation, was threatened at gunpoint and told his grandkids were in danger.
When he was pulled over by police he had two kilos of cocaine, worth £200,000, hidden in his car. Officers later found 1.8kg of amphetamine in his garden shed.
The case echoes the 2018 film The Mule, in which Clint Eastwood plays a debt-stricken 90-year-old who becomes a drug courier for a Mexican cartel.
Dunkin, from Middlesbrough, was jailed for four years after he admitted possessing class-A and class-B drugs with intent to supply.
Prosecutor David Lees told Manchester crown court: “He was scared for himself and his family.”
