Drugs debt leads to 30 months’ jail

Friday 26th June 2009, 2:56PM BST.

Kevin Beattie

A TESCO delivery driver has been jailed for 30 months after smuggling 10 kg of cannabis resin into Jersey to pay off a drugs debt.

Kevin Beattie (29) tried to import the drugs into the Island on 13 March when debts to a loan shark in his home city of Newcastle ‘spiralled out of control’.

The Inferior Number of the Royal Court heard that Beattie was stopped and questioned by Customs officers at the Harbour within minutes of arriving in the Island and immediately pointed them in the direction of the drugs, which were hidden inside a door.

He told officers: ‘I might as well tell you. Take the panel off – they are in there.’

Beattie, who became hooked on cocaine while working in bars and clubs in England, later told officers that he had agreed to import the drugs to pay off loans he had taken out to fund his cocaine addiction.

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