Footprints in the mud led police to dealers’ drug stash

TWO drug dealers were snared after muddy footprints led police to their heroin stash and £30,000 in cash.

Paul Neal was jailed for 52 months after he was caught with more than £27,000 worth of the drug.

Co-accused Sean Thomas was jailed for four years as Perth Sheriff Court heard the duo were also caught with the profits they had made from dealing the Class A drug.

The court heard the pair were caught after the Tupperware box they had stuffed with drugs and money and left in woodland in Perth was found – with Neal’s fingerprints on it.

Thomas, 27, and Neal, 35, admitted supplying heroin in Perth’s Friarton Woods between August 14 and 25 last year.

They were caught after police set up a covert surveillance oper-

‘Offence is a serious one’

ation to monitor them. Neal was caught in the woodland they used as a drop off point and told police he was looking for his pet dog but a selfie on his phone confirmed his friendship with fellow drug dealer Thomas. There was no dog.

Sheriff Lindsay Foulis noted the men, who both came north from Liverpool, had been involved in a large-scale operation worth £60,000 in just nine days.

He said: ‘One cannot ignore the fact you both hail from Merseyside and recent reports from Police Scotland indicate that significant quantities of the drugs coming into Scotland hail from that area.

‘The offence to which you both pleaded guilty is a serious one.

‘It is quite clear this was an operation which some thought had gone into.’