Children's nurse caught in £200k drug raid jailed

Kiran Farooq was arrested in the Finnieston area of Glasgow in December 2023

A children's nurse who admitted being involved in supplying cocaine and ecstasy has been jailed for four years.

Kiran Farooq, 34, was arrested after police followed her to a car park in the Finnieston area of Glasgow on 30 December 2023.

Officers went on to seize hauls of cocaine, ecstasy and cash worth £200,000 from a nearby flat she had the keys for.

During sentencing, Lord Mulholland told Farooq she had shamed herself, her family and her profession.

The court was told how Farooq - who had been a nurse at the city's Royal Hospital for Children - was spotted by police briefly going into a car, leaving then entering her own vehicle.

Prosecutor Mark Mohammed KC said: "They suspected they had observed a drugs transaction."

She was followed to a secure car park at the flats in the city's Lancefield Quay.

Farooq was stopped and got out of her car. She then dropped the keys for a property there.

Officers initially seized almost £12,000 inside a small carrier bag in the car.

Police, at first, looked through the letterbox of the flat and spotted an open bag which appeared to contain drugs.

Mr Mohammed said: "Cocaine and MDMA (ecstasy) were recovered along with a quantity of cash and drug dealing paraphernalia."

This included a consignment of cocaine that had a purity of up to 77%.

Police found thousands of ecstasy pills as well as the drug in crystal form.

There was also a haul of a substance used to bulk out narcotics to maximise profits for dealers, along with a number of sets of scales and part of a kitchen blender.

A further £26,000 of cash in mixed notes was seized.

Farooq, of the city's Yorkhill, had also been accused of being involved in the supply of other drugs including ketamine, cannabis and bromazolam.

Prosecutors accepted her not guilty pleas to those charges.

'No small-time operation'

The court heard how Farooq had been "open and frank" about what she had done and how she got involved.

She also had her own issues with substance misuse.

Farooq's lawyer Laura Anne Radcliffe said the nurse had previously worked on a neo-natal unit.

Lord Mulholland said: "Mothers would have been horrified at someone using drugs working in a unit with young babies."

The hearing was told Farooq has yet to be struck off, but that this will happen in due course.

Sentencing her, the judge said: "This was no small-time operation. From your account in the (pre-sentencing) social work report, you knew what you were doing and had been involved in drug trafficking for some time.

"You shamed yourself, your family and the nursing profession.

"Drug trafficking is not something a professional nurse dedicated to helping others should be doing."

He cut her sentence from six years due to her guilty plea.