A TIP-OFF led police to a haul of cannabis worth up to £14,000 on an industrial estate in Alexandria.

Officers found numerous bags of the drug when they raided a shipping container on a commercial premises in North Street last year.

The man to whom the container was leased, Peter Horne, was warned that a prison sentence looked “inevitable” when he appeared in court last week.

Horne, 37, pleaded guilty at Dumbarton Sheriff Court to being concerned in the supply of a controlled drug when he appeared before a sheriff on January 21.

Kevin Doherty, prosecuting, told the court police obtained a search warrant for the container on March 8 last year, after getting confidential information that controlled drugs were inside.

Horne appeared in the dock alongside two other men, Ian Mackie and Honar Mohamad, at last Tuesday’s hearing, but Mr Doherty said the Crown was accepting not guilty pleas from both Mr Mackie and Mr Mohamad.

Mr Doherty told the court: “The locus is a commercial premises in an industrial area.

"Within the premises are two shipping container units; the lower container is used for storage, the upper container as an office, which is let to the accused.

At 2pm officers gained entry to the upper container, finding Peter Horne, Iain Mackie and Honar Mohamad within. All three were detained for the purposes of a drugs search.

“There was a strong smell of cannabis within the locus.”

Mr Doherty said the search recovered numerous plastic bags containing green herbal material, including one which was later found to contain 483 grams of cannabis, along with two sets of scales, an iPhone, a roll of polythene bags and a notebook.

The cannabis haul also included three bags inside a single zip-lock bag, which officers from the specialist STOP (Statement of Opinion) unit had said could fetch between £520 and £1,040.

A further bag, containing 16 smaller bags of cannabis, had an estimated total value of between £3,200 and £6,400, while the 483 grams had the same potential value if sub-divided.

“It was the view of officers from the STOP unit that the amounts recovered were far in excess of that required for personal use,” Mr Doherty continued.

“The fingerprints of the accused were found on the bag containing 16 bags. DNA of the accused was identified from swabs on three of the items.”

At the time of the offence, Horne, of Bencloich Road, Lennoxtown, was the subject of a bail order granted at Glasgow Sheriff Court some six weeks earlier.

Defence solicitor Martin Hughes said that bail order had been imposed in relation to a separate case which was not drugs-related, and on which his client had been acquitted at a trial.

Mr Hughes told Sheriff Maxwell Hendry: “This is a matter your Lordship can clearly deal with today, standing the value and quantity of drugs here, and this man’s record. He is prepared for a sentence of imprisonment today.

“He has a long term drug habit, and had sought assistance from addiction agencies without a great deal of success.

“He has recently been in contact with his GP, who has diagnosed stress and anxiety; he has stopped self-medicating with cannabis.

“He was in a relationship, and he takes a fairly intensive role looking after the children.”

Sheriff Hendry said: “He has not served a sentence for some time.

“I think [background] reports are delaying the inevitable, but they may give me some guidance as to what the length of sentence should be.”

Horne will return to court on February 18 to be sentenced; his bail was continued.