A man caught in a car with almost £15,000 of heroin and cocaine while a lamb ate chips in the back seat has avoided jail.
John McNeil, 56, was a passenger in a Volkswagen Golf stopped by police on the M74 in Glasgow on 22 April 2023.
Officers found a lamb in the back of the car eating from a bag of chips. A police dog later discovered £4,640 of cocaine and £10,050 of heroin hidden beneath the front passenger seat.
McNeil, from Fairlie in North Ayrshire, and the car’s driver Lindsey Sangster, 41, were subsequently convicted of possessing drugs with intent to supply.
McNeil returned to Glasgow Sheriff Court on Monday to be sentenced. Sheriff Tony Kelly ordered him to carry out 300 hours of unpaid work and placed him under electronic monitoring for six months.
He will have to remain indoors between 8pm and 5am during the curfew.
The sheriff told McNeil the offences were serious enough to justify a custodial sentence, but said he was stepping back from sending him to prison because of the age of the offences and an assessment that his risk of reoffending was low.
Sangster, from Kilbirnie, failed to appear for sentencing and a warrant was issued for her arrest.
The unusual case began when Sergeant Nick Twigg stopped the car on the motorway shortly after 6pm.
Sangster and McNeil were sitting in the front, with another man in the rear alongside the lamb.
The court heard officers initially found a glass pipe in the driver’s door, with further pipes recovered from McNeil and the other passenger.
Sgt Twigg told jurors that when he asked where the lamb had come from, McNeil said Sangster was a “trainee shepherdess”.
Prosecutor Julianna Keenan asked whether there was anything to support that explanation.
The officer replied: “No, the lamb at the time was eating a bag of chips left on the back seat.”
Police later took the car to a station where sniffer dog Billy located two bags beneath the front passenger seat.
The court heard police believed the quantity of drugs recovered was too large to be for personal use.
The lamb, later nicknamed Pablo, belonged to North Lanrigg Farm in Motherwell.
Farmer Kirsty Mair had not given permission for the animal to be taken.
McNeil told jurors that he had experience working with animals through his father, a retired agricultural contractor.
He claimed the group had found Pablo standing in a dangerous position in the road while travelling home to Ayrshire after a trip to Edinburgh.
McNeil said the lamb appeared dehydrated and that they intended to return it to its owner using identifying marks on its ears.
Both McNeil and Sangster denied knowing the drugs were in the car.
A separate charge relating to the lamb was dropped during the trial because there had been no reported theft at the time.
Pablo was taken to a farm in Ayrshire for several days before being returned to his owner.
Sangster had separately admitted driving while under the influence of drugs.
She was banned from driving for 18 months and ordered to carry out 100 hours of unpaid work.
Defence lawyer Bronwyn Moore told the sentencing hearing that McNeil was now working as a team leader for a construction company.
She said he accepted that at the time of the incident he had been living a chaotic lifestyle fuelled by drug misuse and had been “at the height of his addiction”.
Following Pablo’s return to the farm, Mair said: “If you want to be inconspicuous, don’t steal a lamb and have it in the back of a car going down the motorway.”