Last updated at 09:49, Saturday, 28 April 2012

A man caught with nearly £60,000 of drugs in his car on the M6 in Cumbria has been sent to prison for 40 months.

Michael Barrass, 23, was stopped by police only because they could find no computer record of who owned the Ford Focus he was driving near Penrith on January 7 this year, prosecutor Gerard Rogerson told Carlisle Crown Court.

But after flagging him down they noticed he was “nervous and on edge”, the court heard. They searched the car and found a carrier bag stuffed with four packages of white powder inside a black holdall.

Later examination showed the 7kg of powder was amphetamine worth between £50,000 and £60,000,

Mr Rogerson accepted that Barrass was a courier rather than a drug dealer.

The court heard that Barrass claimed to have been “intimidated” into co-operating with the dealers by threats to himself, his girlfriend and his mother.

Barrass, of Tirril Place, Slatyford, Newcastle upon Tyne, pleaded guilty to possessing the drugs with intent to supply them.

First published at 09:00, Saturday, 28 April 2012
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk