by Annette Wilson

A redundant Jaguar Land Rover employee turned to drug smuggling to raise money for his daughter's christening, a court heard.

Peter Jones, 38, of Acuba Road, Liverpool was stopped at Dover eastern docks on March 4 driving a hired van. He told customs he'd come back from Holland with a full industrial oil filler but when officers examined the filler, the motor and switches on the top of the machine were dummies and inside was another container with 74.8kg of power of which 3.44kg was pure amphetamine.

Jones said he'd been approached by a stranger in a pub asking if he would take an empty filler to Holland and return with a full one for £500.

Jones, with another man who was later released by customs, drove to Rotterdam where the van was left unattended for a while then drove back.

He had been given £700 for expenses but never received his £500 payment.

Peter Alcock, for Jones, said it was a tragedy for Jones and his family who were extremely supportive. He had been made redundant from Jaguar Land Rover and was trying to get money together for his daughter's christening.

Jailing Jones for 12 months, less 152 days already served, Judge Nigel van der Bijl said it was a deliberate attempt to bring amphetamine into the UK which had it found its way onto the streets of Liverpool would have caused enormous damage to young people and through them to families and also to people in the community, "And you knew perfectly well what you were doing.

"On the other hand you have pleaded guilty and are effectively of good character and I take into account what's said about your contract terminated by Jaguar because of the recent climate. There are some people who benefitted a great deal from the system that was run before the collapse and some people now of course who weren't anything to do with it who are the sufferers of that and you seem to be one of those. So taking that into account I'm going keep the sentence as short as I can consistent with my public duty, perhaps even shorter than that," said Judge van der Bijl.