A LORRY driver who smuggled more than £6million of amphetamines and cannabis into the UK has been jailed for four years and eight months.

Jane Hunt

A LORRY driver who smuggled more than £6million of amphetamines and cannabis into the UK has been jailed for four years and eight months.

David Walker was stopped by customs officers at Harwich after he drove his lorry off a ferry from Holland in July last year, Ipswich Crown Court heard.

Walker told officers he was carrying a load of tinned carrots but when customs officers searched the container they found he was also carrying office furniture.

When the vehicle was scanned, items which aroused the customs officers' suspicions were found hidden in three lockers, two of which were opened with keys found on Walker.

A total of 49.4 kilograms of amphetamine worth £4,941,550 and 572.4 kilograms of cannabis and cannabis resin worth £1,203,174 were found in the lockers.

Harriet Bathurst-Norman, prosecuting, said it was not suggested that Walker had paid for the drugs.

“The prosecution say he was hired to bring the drugs into the UK. He is a courier,” she said.

Walker, 56, who had been living in Holland for a number of years, admitted illegally importing amphetamine, cannabis and cannabis resin and was jailed for 56 months less 96 days he has spent in custody.

The sentence was ordered to run consecutively to a four-year jail term imposed in November last year for an offence of death by dangerous driving.

Anya Lewis, for Walker, said her client had been laid off work as a HGV driver in Holland after being involved in an accident in which two men died.

He was in financial difficulties and had been asked by someone he knew to transport the drugs.

“He didn't appreciate the value of the drugs that were being transported and didn't think through the consequences,” she said.