A man was stopped by police with more than £7,000 worth of heroin and an unconscious woman in his car.
Clive Topping, 45, admitted being concerned in the supply of the class A drug by acting as a courier.
He was jailed for 18 months at Inverness Sheriff Court.
Topping appeared via videolink from custody for sentencing having previously pled guilty to the single charge.
Fiscal depute Adelle Gray told the court that police acting on drug intelligence stopped his Ford Focus on September 28 2021 as it headed north on the A9.
She said: “The accused was the driver. He exited the vehicle and appeared under the influence of a substance.
Passenger ‘appeared unconscious’
“As officers got closer they observed two other individuals in the car and a large wrap next to a backseat passenger, who herself appeared unconscious.”
The trio were detained and taken to Burnett Road Police Station in Inverness to be searched.
Topping was arrested and an interview confirmed he used cannabis but denied any involvement in the supplying of a controlled substance.
Later testing of wraps recovered from the car revealed they contained 105.75 grams of diamorphine, which if sold in £10 bags could be worth as much as £7,040.
Topping’s Solicitor Clare Russell acknowledged that a pre-sentencing report on her client suggested he was failing to take responsibility for the crime but told the court: “He was concerned in the supplying, in that he was the courier.”
Ms Russell added: “Mr Topping was not making money out of this, except to the extent that he got paid for driving.
“He was not the gentleman who was going to be selling these drugs and taking the profit.”
‘A cog in the machine’
Topping, said Ms Russell, had been dealing with increasing cannabis use when “he found himself falling into a negative peer group” before the commission of the crime.
She said that he had undergone a detox since being remanded for failing to appear at earlier hearings and was keen to “get himself back on the straight and narrow” on his release.
Ms Russell rejected Sheriff Gordon Lamont’s suggestion that Topping’s role as courier was “significant” but conceded: “Clearly, this is a class A drug we are dealing with.”
Sheriff Lamont told Topping: “This type of offence is one which is a serious offence.
“It should be noted that the community justice social work report described your knowledge of the fact that you were aware of the presence of heroin, and that you accepted money, and that you were what was described as a ‘cog in the machine’.”
He sentenced Topping, of Bruce Gardens, Inverness to 18 months imprisonment, backdated to May 17 of this year.
