A drug dealer who was caught as he tried to flee from a police raid on a cocaine factory was jailed for six years and seven months yesterday.
Joseph McGuirk, 34, was seen jumping from a first-floor window of the house where the drugs operation was being run onto a porch and then hitting the ground.
But he was pursued by police as he attempted to escape from the scene in Sundrum Place, Kilwinning and stopped.
A judge told McGuirk at the High Court in Edinburgh: "You are identified as having a significant role in the drugs business and I must sentence you on that basis."
Lord Summers said that McGuirk, of Hedgecroft, Liverpool, would have faced a sentence in excess of seven years but for his earlier guilty pleas.
McGuirk had admitted being concerned in the supply of the Class A drug cocaine between January 2018 and October 2019 in Kilwinning and at other places in Ayrshire, including Kilmarnock, Troon and Galston. The offending was aggravated by a connection with serious organised crime.
The court heard that McGuirk was identified as an important figure in the distribution of cocaine in the Kilmarnock area when another man was interviewed by police following his arrest for drug trafficking offences in the Isle of Man.
A police investigation also discovered the drug factory and storage site at the house in Kilwinning which was controlled by McGuirk. It was raided on October 15 in 2019.
Advocate depute Bill McVicar said the Crown's position was that McGuirk was involved at a "senior level" in the trafficking of cocaine of significant but unquantifiable value during that period and employed others to aid him.
It involved sourcing higher purity cocaine before adulterating it, storing and packaging it for onward distribution to lower-level dealers.
On the day of the raid, McGuirk was spotted in the front passenger seat of a car which was suspected to have been stolen in Liverpool and was using cloned plates.
He was then seen to enter the house in Kilwinning along with an accomplice Mark Dewhurst. When officers turned up at the property, they were confronted by a large bullmastiff which was barking aggressively.
During a subsequent search, they recovered gear for packaging cocaine, along with £11,035, including Isle of Man banknotes, and cocaine worth £2,900.
Dewhurst, 34, of Dalwhinnie Crescent, Kilmarnock, was later heard telling McGuirk he did not get rid of the mixer used to adulterate the cocaine in the police raid.
He was jailed for three-and-a-half years after admitting being concerned in the supply of cocaine in Ayrshire between April and October 2019.
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