£6K COKE & PILLS PAIR DODGE JAIL

Scots beauticians pressured by 'friends' on coach trip to smuggle illegal haúl into festival

- KENNY PARKER

TWO beauticians who tried to smuggle drugs worth £6500 into a dance festival have been spared jail after a judge found they were "pressured" into acting as mules by people on their coach.

Erin Hobdell, 21, was caught with 42 knotted plastic bags containing cocaine and ecstasy tablets hidden in her waistband while Kira McNicol, 23, had 143 ecstasy tablets secreted inside her body.

The pair had travelled 230 miles from their homes in Scotland to attend Creamfields festival in Cheshire in 2022 with a group of their friends. When questioned, the pair claimed they were persuaded to take the drugs into the event by the rest of the coach party and insisted they were not planning to sell them.

At Chester Crown Court, Hobdell of Crookston, Glasgow, pleaded guilty to ' possessing with intent to supply class A drugs cocaine and MDMA (ecstasy) and class B drug ketamine and was sentenced to 21 months in prison, suspended for 18 months.