Drugs courier is jailed for over four years

AN AMATEUR boxer caught trying to smuggle more than £30,000 worth of drugs in to the UK has been jailed for four-and-a-half years.
Police traced Michael McGlinchey to Newcastle City Centre after he left the Queen of Scandinavia ferry in North Shields carrying cocaine and cannabis stashed in his rucksack on March 5 last year.

The 21-year-old had travelled to Amsterdam three days earlier, acting as a "drugs mule" trying to smuggle the drugs back to his home in Northern Ireland.

But McGlinchey, a member of the St Mary's Amateur Boxing Club in Londonderry, was traced when an accomplice was stopped and arrested by customs officials in North Shields as he tried to leave the Queen of Scandinavia.

McGlinchey was arrested in Pink Lane in Newcastle when a passing police officer noticed a strong smell of cannabis coming from his rucksack, Newcastle Crown Court was told.

When it was opened officers found cannabis worth more than £10,000, while 249gm of cocaine – worth more than £22,000 –
was wrapped inside.

McGlinchey, of Westway, Londonderry, Northern Ireland, admitted two charges of importing cocaine and cannabis when he appeared at Newcastle Crown Court.

Jailing him for four-and-a-half years, Judge Tony Lancaster said McGlinchey was a drugs courier.

"You are to be sentenced as a courier of the drugs, not as the person who set up the transaction, but someone who was paid to bring the drugs through this country so they could be distributed on the streets of Northern Ireland," said Judge Lancaster.

"You are a young man with some talent as a boxer, who seems to have got himself involved with heavy drug dealers, following your own dabbling in serious drugs."

Mr Ian Graham, defending, said McGlinchey knew he was smuggling drugs but believed he was only carrying cannabis: "It came as a complete surprise to him when the bags were opened, containing a large quantity of cocaine" said Mr Graham.