A MAN has been jailed for two and a half years after Border Force officers intercepted drugs he was importing from the Netherlands.

Elliott Booth, 26, had three shipments of cocaine, Ketamine and Class A 2C-B tablets that were addressed to his flat in Bingley seized in April, 2017, Bradford Crown Court heard today.

The suspicious packages, each containing small amounts of drugs, were examined at the Border Force depot in Langley, Berkshire, prosecutor Nick Adlington said.

When West Yorkshire Police searched Booth’s address in Healey Avenue, they recovered cocaine, ketamine, tramadol, diazapam, acetylpsilocin, methandienone and MDMA, along with digital scales and two phones.

He told officers he was not aware at first that the drugs parcels were being sent from out of the country but he knew after the first consignment had arrived.

Booth pleaded guilty to a total of 11 offences. They include three charges of drug importation, five of possession of drugs with intent to supply and three of simple possession.

Mr Adlington said that one of the phones seized had 50 messages relating to drug dealing on it, involving 25 conversations spanning a three-week period.

Booth’s solicitor advocate, Julian White, said the offences were more than two years ago.

The total value of the drugs seized was £1,000 and Booth sold them only to a known circle of friends and associates to fund his own habit.

“It was the supply of hallucionogenic and chemically manufactured drugs to his friends,” Mr White said.

He was selling them over the phone and not dealing on the street.

“This is not a commercial operation to fund a lifestyle. He is not buying himself a brand new motor car,” he added.

Booth had begun taking drugs when he was 16 and had continued the habit while travelling widely, including in Cambodia.

They became “a completely overwhelming feature of his life,” Mr White said.

It was naïve and unsophisticated offending, with the parcels of drugs ordered from The Netherlands addressed to his own flat.

Booth was now “a wholly different individual.”

He had a partner, a good job as a duty manager and he was now drug free.

His hardworking and respectable family were standing by him, Mr White told the court.

The judge, Recorder Ian Mullarkey, said Booth was shipping drugs into the country to sell on to fund his habit because he did not want any contact with street dealers.

He had played a significant role in the operation that involved small amounts of different types of drugs.