A MAN who was caught trying to take more than £52,000 worth of heroin into Jersey with an alleged intention to end his life because of debt was jailed for six-and-a-half years. Paul Scott Boyle, 41, of Broadwater Crescent, Stevenage, was stopped at the is

A MAN who was caught trying to take more than £52,000 worth of heroin into Jersey with an alleged intention to end his life because of debt was jailed for six-and-a-half years.

Paul Scott Boyle, 41, of Broadwater Crescent, Stevenage, was stopped at the island's airport in March and was found to be internally concealing 52.17gm of the class A drug, worth £52,150.

He appeared at the Royal Court in Jersey last week.

Crown Advocate Nuno Santos Costa said: "Boyle stated that he had also been considering committing suicide while in the island and would have used the drugs as the means to achieve this end."

When asked why he had come to Jersey to do this, Boyle stated that he just needed to get away from the UK to escape from his circumstances there.

When asked if he had any debts, he responded: "Debts, fines - you name it."

He also said that the loan company had repossessed his car that week and that he had recently crashed a truck and consequently lost his job as an HGV driver.

The Crown said Boyle was a confessed drug addict with convictions for drug abuse and that he should be sentenced to eight years in jail.

Advocate Michael Haynes, defending, said that his client had had "a brutal upbringing on a rough estate" and had a life in turmoil. He added that Boyle had successfully detoxified while in prison.

Delivering the court's sentence the Bailiff, Sir Philip Bailhache, agreed that Boyle's life was in turmoil.

He said that the court had been influenced by a letter from a drugs councillor in the UK and by the fact that the defendant had been trying, in prison, to put his life back together again.

"We must punish you for what you have done," said Sir Philip, "but we are prepared to show you some mercy and reduce the sentence asked by the Crown."

A spokesman for Jersey Customs and Immigration said: "We want to raise awareness of Jersey's harsher drugs sentencing policy, and the fact that prisoners serve their sentence in the island.