Scots dad ferried £1.2m of cocaine for crime gang amid 'fears they would kill him'

dailyrecord.co.uk:

An engineer who feared he’d be killed if he didn’t ferry drugs for a crime gang has been jailed for two and a half years. John Haughey was caught with cocaine with a street value of £1.2m of at junction nine of the M74 near Kirkmuirhill, Lanarkshire.

The 58-year-old told police he was transporting the huge haul of the class A’ drug “under duress” after he and his family were threatened by the un-named criminals.The gangsters claimed he owed them a staggering £720,000 after their drugs and cash went missing from an empty flat to which he’d forced entry for a landlord.Sarah Livingstone, defending, said Haughey was running a small property maintenance and rent collection business when he was asked to look at the flat involved.She said he realised the property was unoccupied and broke in using a crowbar.The flat was empty but there was “drug paraphernalia” scattered around.Haughey was then approached by members of the gang who told him: “You owe us £720,000,” she said, adding: “He told them where to go and went on holiday.“When he went out for the evening he got a call from his son saying ‘You better get back here.

There’s guys looking for you!’“He said he’d never been so scared in his life. He describes it as a descent into a spiral of fear.”She said Haughey, who had never been in a fight except with his twin brother, had not gone to the police because he feared what the gang would do.She added: “He’d never dealt with people like that before.

He was terrified for his family.“When he was arrested he was relieved that that was the end of it because he could see no way out.”Miss Livingstone added: “He’s not someone who went looking for this and he is not someone who benefited from this.“He didn’t have the courage to do what