A county lines drug dealer snared with nearly £15,000 of cocaine and heroin at a Scots bus station has been jailed for 18 months.
Demetre Dobson, who is originally from the Birmingham area, was caught by detectives staking out the Edinburgh Bus Station in the city centre.
Dobson was arrested after getting off a bus with a stash of drugs in a JD Sports bag.
The 21-year-old appeared via video link from prison at the city’s sheriff court on Tuesday after sentencing was deferred for reports.
Defence agent Chris McFarlane said Dobson had “involved himself in a county lines operation against a background of pressure from criminal gangs south of the border”.
Mr McFarlane said his client recognised he’d made “poor choices” and “regrets” his involvement, adding he has a “supportive family”.
The solicitor said Dobson intended to “move away from criminal peers”.
Sheriff Robert Fyfe said Dobson had committed a “very serious offence”. He added: “You came from Birmingham to Edinburgh for the sole purpose of being involved in the supply of Class A drugs in Scotland.”
The sheriff said the “damage” the drugs could do in the local community was a “grave concern”.
He sentenced Dobson, who had already spent 183 days on remand, to 18 months.
In county lines networks, drugs are transported from one area to be sold in another, often across police and local authority boundaries, at the behest of gangs.
The network is often controlled with a single phone number or ‘deal line’.
At a previous hearing, fiscal depute Jack Caster said detectives attended the bus station on Elder Street at around 8am on November 28 last year after receiving “intelligence”.
Mr Caster said the officers waited for a National Express bus from Birmingham to arrive and arrested the accused when he disembarked.
The court was told Dobson was searched and brown and white substances were found in a black JD Sports bag.
Mr Caster said tests later established the substances were 72g of heroin with a street value of around £3600 and 110g of cocaine valued at around £11,000.
Dobson pled guilty to being concerned in the supply of heroin and cocaine last November 28.
