A NORTH YORKSHIRE drug courier has been jailed for four years for his work as a key part of a major cannabis ring.

Outwardly, Philip James Easey, 41, was a respectable family man with a daughter and a wife who ran a business in York, York Crown Court heard.

But undercover police saw him take 50 kgs of cannabis with a street value of £250,000 to Manchester on January 15 and hand it over to middle-tier dealers.

Two months later, he had another 10 kgs of cannabis resin.

"He was no doubt a very willing and essential participant, a person who knew precisely what he was doing and for whom he was doing it," said Judge James Spencer QC.

"And while the precise commercial construction of this particular trading is unclear, he was doing his work for substantial reward."

The judge said: "The level of trade in cannabis that we are dealing with here was a moderately high level of trade which suggests significant capital investment and which also suggests significant potential profit."

Easey, of Northfield Lane, Riccall, pleaded guilty to supplying cannabis, possessing cannabis with intent to supply and two charges of possessing cannabis.

The judge said he had in recent years led a "feckless lifestyle" and had "operated behind the facade of his respectable family and friends".

Easey had claimed that he had turned drugs courier under pressure from men to whom he owed £6,000 after his failure to run a club in Tenerife. But Judge Spencer said he was not a dupe or acting under threats.

"He did it (the cannabis dealing) because he saw it as the way to see a profit," said the judge. Easey's role in the cannabis chain had come close to its importation.

Prosecution barrister Andrew Campbell QC said Easey was part of a cannabis conspiracy and was a "thoroughly dishonest" man who had lied to a mortgage company to get a mortgage, to a credit card company to get a credit card, to police and through the defence statement his solicitors filed during the court case.

For Easey, Simon Phillips said he was a family man whose wife and daughter would suffer during his imprisonment. He intended to learn web design while in jail.

There was no suggestion that a toy shop run by his wife in Gillygate, York, was anything but respectable.

Easey will return to court in February to learn how much money he must forfeit for his drug trafficking crimes.

Updated: 10:45 Wednesday, October 02, 2002