A drug courier who was caught with a £1.2million haul of cocaine has been jailed for four years and eight months.
Ian Caulfield, 34, was driving a Mercedes Sprinter van northbound when police stopped him on the M74 motorway at Abington, Lanarkshire, on July 23 last year.
Officers recovered about 30 kilos of the Class A drug. A judge yesterday told Caulfield at the High Court in Edinburgh : “Addiction to Class A drugs is a terrible problem in our society.”
Lord Richardson said there was no doubt that the supply operation of which Caulfield was a part was “very significant”.
The judge told him that only a prison sentence was appropriate and that he would have faced a seven- year sentence if he was convicted of the offence following a trial.
Caulfield, formerly of Larkhall, Lanarkshire, had earlier admitted being concerned in the supply of cocaine on the day he was stopped by police.
John Scullion QC, defending, said Caulfield had drug misuse issues.
