A BUSINESSMAN caught with a large haul of drugs has been jailed for eight years. Patrick Goodman was also ordered to hand over almost £22,000 and will face a further 15 months behind bars if he does not pay up.

Police raided his rented buildings at 150-acre Swigs Hole Farm in Horsmonden and seized £100,000 worth of drugs, Maidstone Crown Court heard.

Goodman, whose business interests included recycling clothes and rags, was filmed by officers removing a holdall from his tipper truck.

He put on latex surgical gloves to avoid leaving any fingerprints and concealed the bag under a tarpaulin. The holdall was found to contain 4,028 Ecstasy tablets.

Over the next two days, with the help of sniffer dogs, officers also uncovered 13.51kg of cannabis, 362g and 990g of cannabis resin, 474g of skunk cannabis, 827.1g of amphetamine sulphate and 252g of cocaine.

Richard March, owner of the farm since 1976, said he was shocked when he heard Goodman had been arrested for drugs.He said. “It was my impression that he was anti-drugs. He had a stepson who had a drugs problem.”

The trial had to be started again with a fresh jury when Judge Warwick McKinnon spotted that Goodman had been jailed for two years in Tangiers in 1994 for smuggling drugs.

Goodman, of Mile Oak Road, Paddock Wood, pleaded not guilty to seven charges of possessing drugs with intent to supply. He denied knowing that the drugs were on his premises and said they were not his.

Goodman, who said he had a contract with KCC, claimed that he wanted to consider the situation when he found the holdall.

“I didn’t want to get anyone into trouble,” he said. “I would have consulted the police later. I was concerned about who had put it there.

“If it was my stepson, I didn’t want to get him into trouble without discussing it with my wife.”

Goodman was acquitted of possessing 990g of cannabis resin and 252g of cocaine but convicted of the five other charges.

Judge McKinnon told him: “You are a dealer. The offences are of an extremely serious nature as they cause drug addiction. No other sentence than a substantial custodial sentence can be justified.”