A drugs mule who exploited children to smuggle almost £2 million of heroin into Kent has been jailed.

Michael Sloane, 42, was caught with 20kg of the class A drug in his VW Transporter van at Dover’s Eastern Docks.

Now, the wind-turbine engineer has been jailed for six years and four months after using three children and a woman as decoys.

When Border Force officials quizzed Sloane on where he had been in Europe, he claimed they were returning from a Christmas market in Cologne, west Germany.

They had stayed at a Holiday Inn in the city but did not have a receipt or invoice, he explained.

He added gifts from the market were not inside the van because they had fallen from the bottom of a pram during their travels.

A subsequent dog-search revealed a hidden compartment which, when prized open with a crowbar, unearthed multiple coloured wrapped blocks and a mobile phone.

“Two of the blocks were pierced and a brown powder was seen within them, which when tested reacted positively to the presence of heroin,” Judge Mark Weekes said.

Officers removed eight light-coloured blocks, another with “500” written on and t23 yellow wrapped parcels from the concealment.

The haul made a total of 32 blocks with a street value of just under £2m, the court heard.

An investigation revealed the concealment was intended to be opened electronically with jump leads.

The five-inch thick, hinged purpose-built compartment had not existed when the vehicle was sold to Sloane, the court was told.

Jailing Sloane, Judge Weekes said he involved “the exploitation of children to divert suspicion”,

Paul Lazurus, mitigating, described Sloane as his family’s “sole breadwinner” who acted “out of character”, during the December 2019 incident.

“He is not a career criminal by any means – this was out of character,” he said.

Sloane, of Ormskirk, Lancashire, pleaded guilty at an early opportunity to the fraudulent evasion of a prohibition by bringing into or taking out of the UK a controlled drug.

NCA branch commander Mark Howes said: "This was a cynical attempt to bring dangerous class A drugs into the UK, which saw Sloane use his partner and young children as cover for his drug smuggling exploits.

"I’ve no doubt that the concealment in the van was built specifically for the purpose of smuggling, and that Sloan thought that travelling with his family would make it less likely they would be stopped.

"Heroin is closely linked to county lines type exploitation and violence, which is why we are working closely with partners like Border Force to target those trying to bring it in."

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