Jail for man who brought £50K of cocaine to Island

48-year-old concealed drugs in car door

A man who brought almost £50,000 worth of cocaine to the Isle of Man concealed in a car door has been jailed.

Nigel Mullan, currently care of the Isle of Man Prison, was sentenced at Douglas Courthouse.

The court heard the 48-year-old arrived on the Island on a ferry from Heysham at 5.30pm on 16 October last year.

He had hired a car for 48 hours from a rental agency based in Glasgow and had planned to leave the Island on the morning sailing the next day.

After disembarkation Mullan was stopped by police as part of a routine traffic check.

There was a passenger in the vehicle who had been paid £250 to accompany him on the trip.

After a drug detection dog flagged the passenger side door, an x-ray located an anomaly hidden within the panel.

Police found 492.4g of cocaine which had an estimated street value of £49,240.

The Court of General Gaol Delivery heard Mullan is a father of 10, with his children aged between one and 26, and used to be director of a removals company based in Glasgow.

When asked by police when stopped what his occupation was he cited the business even though it had closed two years previously.

Sending Mullan to prison for seven years and four months Deemster Graeme Cook told him he'd be missing a 'significant part' of his kids' lives but that was 'only down to your foolishness'.

He will also be subject to an exclusion order which bans him from entering the Island for five years once he is released from prison.