A FATHER of two has been jailed for seven years for acting as a drugs courier and attempting to collect a haul with a street value of £5 million from a freight forwarding yard in Widnes.

William Rice, 29, of Huyton, was arrested when he turned up at Brian Mansell's Forwarding Company Ltd. The day before his arrest an unexpected delivery apparently originating from Germany had been made to the yard.

Becoming suspicious, Brian Mansell, owner of the company together with William Holbrook, the managing director of a neighbouring unit, decided to open one of the boxes. Inside they found tablets with designs printed on them concealed by towels. Mr Mansell immediately contacted Widnes Police.

The next morning three plain-clothes detectives arrived at the yard to investigate the contents of the boxes. Five minutes later a Mercedes car followed by a Mercedes van arrived at the yard.

The car drove off but the van parked up and Rice stepped out and approached a detective saying, 'I've come for some boxes', at which point the detective said who he was. Rice ran off before being caught by police in a violent struggle. He initially claimed he turned up at the site to steal petty cash from a mobile building. But he pleaded guilty at Warrington Crown Court to four counts of conspiracy to supply drugs. The haul consisted of around 595,000 ecstasy tablets, 999 grams of cocaine, 18.72 kilograms of heroin and 30 kilograms of assorted amphetamines.

Sentencing Rice to seven years, Judge Stephen Clark said he had contributed to 'the spiral of misery which flows for those addicted to the drugs.'

He said: "You had a limited role but you were the person chosen to act as courier to pick up the boxes and deliver."