A man who posted cocaine and cannabis worth £31,000 to the island incriminated himself when he rang police to report his car had been firebombed.

This week Paul Joseph Rowan, 34, was beginning a jail term of 10 years and eight months after sentencing at the Court of General Gaol Delivery.

The court heard that a package containing cocaine with a street value of £5,460 and cannabis worth £19,698 was intercepted at the Post Office sorting office on March 13 2020.

A man who went to the Post Office to collect the parcel was arrested and subsequently jailed.

Their mobile phone was seized and went on to receive a number of calls from two different UK numbers.

Rowan was subsequently incriminated when he used one of the same mobile numbers to contact Merseyside police to report that his car had been set alight.

On July 14 the same year another parcel was intercepted at the sorting office which contained a further £6,350 worth of cocaine concealed inside a gift-wrapped book.

Rowan, of Darwall Road, Garston, Liverpool, was arrested on a warrant in November last year and brought back to the island to face charges.

He pleaded guilty to two counts of importing cocaine and one of importing cannabis to the island.

A basis of plea was accepted that he had owed £4,000 to Liverpool drug dealers and had been pressured with threats of violence into posting the drugs to the island.

The court heard he had sent the two parcels but when refused to send another, his car was firebombed, which ironically led to his arrest.

Rowan’s defence advocate Jim Travers said his client had been the muggins with ‘all the risk on his shoulders’.

He pointed out that the offences had taken place nearly four years ago and Rowan was now full of remorse, a devoted father to two daughters and had been working for his father’s company.

Deemster Graeme Cook accepted he had become a ‘productive family man’ and had been pressured through drug debts into posting the parcels.

He jailed Rowan for five years and six months for the first production of cocaine offence and five years and two months for the second, making a total of 10 years and eight months.

He will serve two thirds of that sentence before he is automatically released on licence but will be able to apply for parole at the halfway point.