A Dundee dealer who claims to have been bullied into peddling drugs by an English “cuckooing” gang must stay at home for 12 hours a day for a year.
Martin Kyle, 49, said his DNA was found on the drug because he had moved it to clean the property at Ancrum Court in Dundee.
He told police a group of drug dealers from Birmingham had moved into his home and he felt scared to resist because they were armed with weapons.
He claimed he had tried numerus times to call the police.
Kyle admitted being concerned in the supply of diamorphine from his home address on December 17 2020.
Dundee Sheriff Court was previously told hundreds of pounds worth of the Class A drug was found.
Mitigation
At Kyle’s sentencing hearing, solicitor Gary Foulis explained multiple attempts to trace calls Kyle said he made to police himself had proved fruitless.
He said a drug treatment and testing order (DTTO) would be appropriate and Sheriff Paul Brown imposed one for 18 months..
The sheriff also imposed a restriction of liberty order keeping Kyle at his home address between 7pm and 7am every day for the next 12 months.
He noted although evidence of Kyle’s correspondence with police was not available, “great efforts” to source some had been made.
Sheriff Brown said: “Clearly it would be a straightforward matter for me to send you to custody today.
“In the unusual circumstances, I’m dealing with this by an alternative to custody but if there are any issues with this, you can fully expect prison.
“You really need, at this stage in your life, to address these issues.”
Early morning raid
Police received confidential information the property was being used as an illicit drugs hub and an early morning raid was carried out by detectives.
There were four people in the property at the time and analysis of the drug packages found showed a direct DNA link to Kyle, who was the registered tenant at the property.
When interviewed, Kyle told police a group of men had arrived at his home from Birmingham and started using it to sell drugs around the city.
He said he had been told to run drugs for the gang because he had an unspecified debt of his own to pay off and he was fearful of reprisals if he refused to do so.
Kyle told the police he was afraid of the gang because of the weapons they had and stories he had heard previously about the violence they had meted out to others.
Cuckooing refers to incidents where an external group target the home of a vulnerable local to use it as a centre for dealing drugs in an area away from their home patch.
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