Drug Dealing Binman Jailed

A binman who spent two years drug dealing while working for a local authority was jailed for three years at the High Court in Perth today.

John Smith stashed the Class A drug internally and tried to escape from hospital as police officers kept a bedside vigil waiting for him to pass the illicit package.

Smith was arrested by police on April 14 last year after they were tipped off that he had travelled to Inverness to source the Class A drug and would be returning with it to Fort William.

Advocate Depute Laura Thomson said Smith appeared "nervous and uneasy" when he was detained on his return on April 14 last year and was taken to Fort William police station for a strip search and asked to submit to a medical examination.

Ms Thomson said that on April 17 he got up from bed and started to wash his hands. She added: "He then ran out of the room in an effort to escape. He was quickly restrained.

"Almost immediately he passed a green sausage shaped package."

The package contained nearly 23 grams of heroin with a street value of £2,287. Police found out that several drug users would regularly buy 20 pound bags of heroin from Smith. Some of them would get the drug from him several times a week.

Counsel for Smith, Graham Robertson, told the court that his client had started using cannabis to alleviate back pain and had then moved onto heroin. Mr Robertson said: "These are matters he is somewhat ashamed of. He was a recreational user of cannabis but because of a back injury he suffered severe pain.

"It wasn't being alleviated by the medication he was given and his error was to start taking heroin as a pain relieving analgesic. He ended up finding himself addicted.

Smith admitted being concerned in the supply of the Class A drug between April 14 in 2008 and April 14 last year in Fort William and in Lochaber, Aberdeen and Inverness.