A LORRY driver caught smuggling drugs worth more than £3m into Dover has been jailed for 17 years.

George Hamilton, 38, was stopped at the Eastern Docks on March 24 last year with 22.5kg of pure ecstasy, 44.1kg of pure amphetamine and 7.07kg of herbal cannabis hidden among his load of groupage on his trailer.

Sentencing Hamilton, from Bangor in County Down, Judge Michael O’Sullivan said the massive amount of drugs were worth £3.4m.

He said: “You acted as a courier, an important, indeed vital, role in the chain of criminality.

“It is clear you had to be trusted by those who organised this importation. Such a high value load would not have been left to someone who was unreliable.

“Those involved in trafficking Class A must expect to receive long sentences and there has to be a deterrent element. The result of the use of such drugs causes untold misery to the user, family and friends and the community at large as many offences are drug related.”

Canterbury Crown Court heard Hamilton told customs he knew nothing about the drugs and couldn’t remember the boxes being put on his trailer, and that the only place they could have been put on was at his last stop in Copenhagen where he had been asleep in his cab.

The court heard an expert found discrepancies in Hamilton’s tachograph recordings and found phones and Sim cards, which the Crown said were connected to the drugs.

“The tachograph was manipulated so the real journey wasn’t shown and Hamilton lied to cover it up because he knew full well the drugs were on the load,” said Vivian Walters, prosecuting.