An engineer who feared he’d be killed if he didn’t ferry drugs for a crime gang has been jailed for two and a half years.
John Haughey was caught with cocaine with a street value of £1.2m of at junction nine of the M74 near Kirkmuirhill, Lanarkshire.
The 58-year-old told police he was transporting the huge haul of the class A’ drug “under duress” after he and his family were threatened by the un-named criminals.
The gangsters claimed he owed them a staggering £720,000 after their drugs and cash went missing from an empty flat to which he’d forced entry for a landlord.
Sarah Livingstone, defending, said Haughey was running a small property maintenance and rent collection business when he was asked to look at the flat involved.
She said he realised the property was unoccupied and broke in using a crowbar. The flat was empty but there was “drug paraphernalia” scattered around.
Haughey was then approached by members of the gang who told him: “You owe us £720,000,” she said, adding: “He told them where to go and went on holiday.
“When he went out for the evening he got a call from his son saying ‘You better get back here. There’s guys looking for you!’
“He said he’d never been so scared in his life. He describes it as a descent into a spiral of fear.”
She said Haughey, who had never been in a fight except with his twin brother, had not gone to the police because he feared what the gang would do.
She added: “He’d never dealt with people like that before. He was terrified for his family.
“When he was arrested he was relieved that that was the end of it because he could see no way out.”
Miss Livingstone added: “He’s not someone who went looking for this and he is not someone who benefited from this.
“He didn’t have the courage to do what the law demands. He’s regretful and remorseful about what he did.
“He became involved in this and accepts that he’s going to pay for it by going to custody.”
She said Haughey accepted the extremely serious nature of the offence to which he’d pleaded guilty.
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She advised that an independent report valued the cocaine at between £72,000 and £100,000 rather than the Crown’s estimate that it could fetch up to £1.2million if broken down into street-level deals.
However, she admitted: “By any measure these are huge quantities of drugs.”
Haughey of Moodiesburn, Lanarkshire, appeared for sentence at the High Court in Livingston after earlier pleading guilty to being concerned in the supply of cocaine.
Police acting on intelligence stopped Haughey's Peugeot Expert van on the motorway on October 21, 2020.
A search recovered 10 taped kilo blocks of the drug with one selected bag being of 78% purity.
Several phones, a set of keys and small remote for a lock up garage used as a drugs factory were also recovered. DNA and fingerprint findings were consistent with Haughey having handled the items.
The storage unit, situated yards from Sauchiehall Street, in Glasgow city centre was found to contain items such as heat-sealed bags, scales, rubber gloves and a plastic bag containing white powder.
Haughey "spoke freely" when quizzed by police and confessed to being involved in transporting, weighing and preparing drugs.
Passing sentence, Judge Michael O'Grady QC told Haughey the courts had made it clear that those who became involved in “escapades of this nature” could expect a significant custodial sentence.
He said he took into account the accused’s lack of a criminal record, his previous good character, the limited role he had played in distributing the drugs and the circumstances of his involvement.
He said: “Because of these factors I feel able to proceed on a basis which I would not normally do.
“I’ll afford you the full discount of one-third on the sentence which will be backdated to 11 February this year and will be one of two-and-a-half years imprisonment.”
