Drugs Mr Big was freed and freed again to ply evil trade
THE SNP faces demands for an urgent review of the early release system after it emerged a prolific drugs trafficker was twice released early from jail – only to continue flooding the streets with heroin.
Cameron McFarlane, 57, was jailed for five years and four months in 2009 over a £7million haul of cocaine.
But he was freed early and should still have been behind bars when a police surveillance operation saw him hand £850,000 of heroin to a convicted killer.
That resulted in McFarlane being given a seven-and-a-half-year prison sentence in 2013, later reduced to five years on appeal.
But he was again released early – allowing him to return to drug dealing instead of completing his sentence.
Scottish Conservative leader ruth davidson is campaigning to overhaul the parole system which has been branded secretive and unaccountable by victims.
Last night, Tory Justice spokesman Liam Kerr said: ‘This is just the latest case which proves we need a proper review of a system which lets far too many dangerous criminals out far too early.’
Last September, McFarlane was caught with 44lb of highpurity heroin and on Tuesday was handed a nine-year sentence after pleading guilty.
during McFarlane’s decadelong reign as a major importer, the number of drugs-related deaths in Scotland has more than doubled to 867 in 2016.
Mr Kerr added: ‘This is a lesson the SNP should be learning hard when it comes to soft touch justice.
‘drugs ruin lives and communities, and it is dangerous offenders like this who facilitate this misery. For our justice system to have been so repeatedly lenient on him is a disgrace.
‘The SNP Government is soft on crime and soft on drugs – both of those failings are apparent in this case.’
McFarlane, from Alloa, Clackmannanshire, arranged for 44lb of heroin worth £600,000 to be smuggled from Amsterdam in tool boxes attached with magnets to the underside of a lorry.
He used a tracking device to monitor the HGV’s journey to a freight yard in Throsk, Stirling-woman shire, but his smuggling operation was being watched by dutch and Scottish police.
Jailing McFarlane at the High Court in edinburgh, Lord Pentland branded him ‘a hardened drug dealer with no respect whatsoever for the law’.
He said: ‘It is especially concerning the present offence was committed while you were on licence in the community. you grossly breached the trust placed in you.
‘Previous custodial sentences have not deterred you from con- tinuing to involve yourself at an organisational level in the drugs trade. It is a trade that causes misery and devastation to many individuals and communities.’
In 2013, McFarlane was jailed for seven-and-a-half years, later reduced to five, after police saw him pass £850,0000 of heroin to killer edward Munro, of Maryhill, Glasgow.
Munro, who was given four years, served 22 years for the 1976 murder of an 83-year-old at her home in Stepps, near Glasgow.
McFarlane’s first drug dealing sentence came in 2009 when he was jailed for five years and four months. Cocaine worth £7million was hidden in his lorry.
McFarlane was also sentenced to two years at Poole Magistrates Court in 2001 for tobacco smuggling.
It follows the scandal of knife thug James Wright who was freed early but went missing for six months after tampering with his electronic tag. He then stabbed to death father of three Craig McLelland, 31, in a random attack in Paisley last year.
Criminals jailed for four years or longer can apply for parole half way through their term.
It is thought that McFarlane’s early releases were not granted by the parole board but because he qualified automatically.
A Parole Board for Scotland spokesman said it would not comment on specific cases.
A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘From 2016 we ended the previous system of automatic early release for longterm offenders serving sentences of four years or more.’
‘SNP is soft on crime and drugs’