Blundering drug bust cops left red faced after returning rental truck.. still full of cannabis
Police hired the unmarked van for use by plain-clothes
officers - and the owner couldn't believe his eyes when the van was
returned full of drugs
Unexpected: John McKinnon with the van full of cannabis
Daily Record
Bungling police hired a van for a drug bust – then returned it still full of bags of cannabis. The careless cops forgot to take their haul out of the back before they let a Mitchell’s Self Drive worker collect the van. And John McKinnon, 33, who went to pick the vehicle up, couldn’t believe it when he saw what was inside. He
said: “There were bin bags full of cannabis. There was no mistaking
what it was. I went running into the office and we phoned the police. “Straight
away, they said someone was going to get their b**ls kicked. But it
still took them an hour-and-a-half to come back out to collect it.” Police in Lanarkshire had hired the unmarked van for use by plain-clothes officers. Dad-of-two
John went to Coatbridge to collect it afterwards and drove it all the
way to Rutherglen, near Glasgow, with the drugs in the back. He said: “They gave me the keys in a sealed blue bag, walked me out to the van, opened the gates and away I went. "There
was a strong smell of cannabis in the cabin but it was only when I got
back to the office and opened up the back that I realised what was in
it. “I’ve no idea how I would have gone about explaining what had happened if I’d been pulled over during the journey. It’s scary.” Police
eventually arrived to collect the drugs, and had to hire the van again
so they could take it away and remove the cannabis. John said:
“When they turned up, they were asking me how it had happened. They were
dumbfounded. But there was no word of an apology or even a thank you
for letting them know. “I’m angry that they allowed me to drive it away like that.” A
police spokeswoman said: “We can confirm that we are investigating a
report that a vehicle hired by Police Scotland has been returned
allegedly with what is believed to be police productions inside. “Inquiries are at an early stage to establish the circumstances and it would be inappropriate to comment further.”
Deputy
Prime Minister Nick Clegg has accused the Conservatives of refusing to
look "imaginatively" at new ways of tackling the UK's drugs problem.
"I don't think we're winning the drugs war," Mr Clegg told BBC Three's Free Speech programme. "I find it very frustrating that my Conservative coalition
partners are not prepared to look more openly" at changing drugs policy,
he said. Home Secretary Theresa May has insisted the current approach is working. "We keep banging our head against the wall," Mr Clegg continued. But he added: "I don't actually think that waving a magic wand and making everything legal is necessarily the right option." The comments come after Lib Dem ex-transport minister Norman Baker moved to the Home Office in the recent reshuffle. He promised to make Mrs May's department "more liberal" and said he would take an "evidence-based" approach to drugs policy. Labour leader Ed Miliband told Free Speech the answer to the drugs problem lay in better education and prevention measures. He said: "We know the effect of drugs can be harmful and I
don't want us to be saying to young people: 'We should legalise drugs,
or decriminalise drugs.' "What I do want to say to young people is let's have proper
education about drugs in schools so that people understand the dangers
of drugs. Let's have early intervention where people are going off the
rails through drug use and let's have proper drug treatment. "I don't think the answer is decriminalisation or
legalisation, I think the answer lies in better education, better
prevention and better treatment." In 2012, Mr Clegg backed calls for a royal commission to
consider decriminalising illegal drugs, despite opposition from
Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron. "We can't be complacent, we owe it to the many many children
in this country who still get snarled up by drugs, whose education
chances are blighted by drugs, whose health is damaged by drugs, we owe
it to them to constantly restlessly look for better ways of dealing with
the scourge of drugs," he said at the time. Mrs May has said calls for a public debate on what could be done differently are "unnecessary".
There were "promising signs" that progress was already being made and the "drugs landscape had been transformed", she added
Mr Clegg said the government's drugs policy amounted to "banging our head against the wall"