A man whose suitcase arrived late after he returned to Manchester from a 10-day trip to Thailand was arrested when officers discovered what was inside.
Bailey Avison-Brown, 24, spoke to Border Force staff at Manchester Airport when his bag didn’t show up on October 26.
The following day he got a call to go back to the airport. As Avison-Brown went to retrieve his case, he was arrested. A search had revealed more than 23 vacuum-sealed packages of cannabis.
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“The total weight of the drug was 23.5 kilograms and valued at £94,000,” prosecutor Simon Barratt told Manchester Crown Court. “He had no influence on others in the chain, and there was an element of naivety. Payment of between £5,000 and £7,000 was expected for the trip.”
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The court heard Avison-Brown, who had no previous convictions, had shown ‘deep remorse and embarrassment’ and had ‘not sought to pass the book’.
Mitigating, Naomi Duckworth said his time in custody had been ‘harrowing’. “He was a drug mule – the lowest of the low,” she said.
“Anyone with awareness of the operation would not be as naïve, and quite frankly stupid enough, to undertake these tasks. That’s why they target young, vulnerable people to do that job for them.”
She said Avison-Brown had developed an addiction to cannabis following an attack. She added that he had been diagnosed with ADHD.
“This is a young man who made one very serious mistake,” Ms Duckworth said. Sentencing, judge Tom Gilbart said: “People who bring drugs into this country knowing it causes misery and crime. A great deal of which comes before this court, and before me, as a result of that trade.”
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Avison-Brown, of Red Poll Close, Worsley, Salford, was handed a one-year sentence, suspended for two years. He previously pleaded guilty to being concerned in the fraudulent evasion of a prohibition on the importation of a class B drug.
He was also made subject of a three month electronically-monitored curfew between the hours of 7pm and 7am, 200 hours unpaid work and 15 days of rehabilitation activity requirement days.
He told Avison-Brown, who held his head in his hands, would be released that afternoon, adding: “If I see you again, I will send you to custody.”
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