A painter and decorator who was caught storing heroin worth nearly £200,000 has been jailed for three years.

Police discovered the drugs in a safe during a search of Scott Milne’s home in Edinburgh last year.

The High Court in the city was told the 3kg heroin recovered was three times higher in purity than normally found at street level and was potentially worth up to £198,000 if the quality was weakened by being mixed with other substances.

Officers also found £67,000 in cash during the search of the 47-year-old’s one-bedroom flat on 10 November 2022.

Last month, Milne admitted being concerned in the supply of the drug.

On Monday, defence counsel Kenneth Cloggie said his client had a long-standing gambling addiction but then replaced it with a cocaine habit.

He said Milne started to use the drug in 2015 and went from occasional weekend use to using it at his work.

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Mr Cloggie said: “It is clear he has struggled with addictions his whole life.”

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The judge, Lord Weir, told Milne: “The quantity of controlled drugs involved is, on any view, significant.”

He said Milne’s sentence was on the basis that his role was confined to storing drugs on a single day.

Lord Weir said a prison term was the only “practical outcome” in the case and told Milne that if he had been convicted after a trial, he would have faced a 54-month sentence.

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