A drugs courier was caught red-handed on the M6 near Penrith as he transported 15 kilos of cannabis worth £150,000.

Jacob Rowe, 26, told police the drugs criminal who ordered him to take the drugs to Glasgow – where he was due to be working anyway – was to pay him £200.

At Carlisle Crown Court, the defendant, of Ironside Close, Bewdley, near Kidderminster, admitted possessing the class B drug with intent to supply.

Police stopped Rowe’s car on March 5 at 11.10am as he drove northbound near the motorway’s Junction 41. Smelling cannabis, the officers searched the car, finding a cannabis grinder and, inside a laundry bag, a package containing 15 kilos of the drug.

Rowe said he had no drugs debt but insisted that the person who told him to transport the drug had a “reputation for violence".

Rowe’s barrister said the defendant – a highly-qualified electrical worker – was determined not to wade "further into the murky world” of drugs.

Recorder Richard Archer said people who transport drugs help to “spread misery". But he accepted Rowe had a realistic prospect of rehabilitation, and suspended a two-year jail term for two years.

Rowe must complete 120 hours of unpaid work.