News / Ayr drugs mule jailed
A DRUGS mule from Ayr forced to smuggle almost £13,000 worth of heroin internally to Shetland was jailed for three years at Lerwick Sheriff Court on Thursday.
Derek McLean was arrested as he disembarked the NorthLink ferry in Lerwick on the morning of 11 May after Shetland police were tipped off.
On Thursday the court heard that McLean and his partner and child had been threatened by a drugs gang in Ayr if he failed to carry the drugs for them.
The 38 year old cooperated with the police and was only too pleased to be taken to Lerwick’s Gilbert Bain Hospital where he passed 11 packages containing almost 130 grammes of the Class A drug worth £12,754.
Procurator fiscal Duncan Mackenzie said McLean, whose address was given as Peterhead prison, was concerned for his own health as the packages had only been thinly wrapped.
Defending, Tommy Allan explained that McLean had developed a heroin habit after his mother died and built up a £2,000 debt to local dealers where he lived.
“I expect that’s exactly where the people he owed money wanted him to be, because they then threatened his partner and child in the street that if he didn’t pay that money he would be in trouble,” Allan said.
“They said they would take his partner and child away if he didn’t work for them and if he did this they would wipe his debt.
“Through desperation he agreed to carry out the journey with the drugs…and he was right to be concerned because the drugs were not well packaged and posed a risk to his health.”
Allan said that since his arrest in May McLean had made good use of his time in jail, freeing himself of his heroin addiction and taking up what educational opportunities there were inside.
Jailing McLean for three years, reduced from four and a half due to his early plea, Sheriff Philip Mann reemphasised that anyone caught dealing drugs in Shetland will go to jail unless there are “extenuating circumstances”.
The sheriff said that while he accepted McLean and his family had been threatened, he had embarked on this operation of his free will rather than going to the police.
“Therefore I find it very hard to have any sympathy for you whatsoever,” he said.
Shetland has long been a target of mainland drugs gangs due to the lucrative market in the isles where drugs can attract higher prices than elsewhere.
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