Drugs courier made trips across the Pennines (From York Press)

Drugs courier Justin Cook made trips across the Pennines

8:19am Friday 2nd November 2012 in News By Megi Rychlikova, megi.rychlikova@thepress.co.uk

A DRUGS courier has been jailed after he was stopped on the outskirts of York with cocaine and cannabis worth thousands of pounds in his car.

Justin Cook was part of a supply chain delivering cocaine across the Pennines to North Yorkshire, York Crown Court heard.

Christopher Attwooll, prosecuting, said Cook initially pretended he knew nothing of the 28.2g of cocaine a specially-trained police dog found in the back pocket of the front passenger seat, or the 13.5g cocaine found in the back of the driver’s seat, when he was stopped on the A64 at Stockton-on-the-Forest in February last year. Both caches had a high level of purity.

Together with 248g of herbal cannabis, which he immediately handed over to police, the drugs were worth up to £8,040 if the cocaine was split up, mixed with other substances and sold as street deals.

Judge Stephen Ashurst, the Recorder of York, told Cook: “You knew in February last year what a risk you were running if you were caught. People who involve themselves in the chain of drugs supply have to take the consequences.” He said for the last two years there had been “many instances” of a drug run operating from Manchester and Merseyside to North Yorkshire.

Cook, 34, of North Marine Road, Scarborough, pleaded guilty to possessing cannabis and cocaine with intent to supply them to others and was jailed for 18 months. Taryn Turner, for Cook, said he had been a long-term cannabis user and combined with another user to buy cannabis cheaply.

“Others” had known he made regular trips across the Pennines for legitimate reasons. Mrs Turner said: “He was prevailed upon to act as a courier for them,” said Mrs Turner.

His arrest had led to him being sacked as a council worker in Scarborough and for a time he had devoted himself to his teenage son, who would suffer if he was jailed. He would also lose his new job.