Nurse tells court he became cocaine drug lord to feed his five kids

A well respected mental health nurse and dad-of-five was jailed after he was convicted of being a top ranking drug kingpin in Liverpool.

Alan and his brother John Tobin supplied dangerous gun-wielding gangs across the country with hundreds of kilos of drugs from cocaine to heroine.

The drug barrens finally met their comeuppance when police targeted a van containing 186kg of 90% pure cocaine while it travelled up the M6

Part of their crew included a cage fighter nicknamed “The Bear” who was the “enforcer” for the brother’s drug empire

The defence put forward by Alan’s lawyers was that the 52-year-old only became involved in crime as a way to support his five children, reports the Liverpool Echo.

According to his lawyer, Julian Nutter, after working in numerous jobs growing up Alan developed a passion for mental health 1987 and worked as a mental health nurse up until the day he was arrested for drugs.

His defence put forward the argument that there was “another side” to Alan, of Regency Park, Widnes, who “had worked hard all his life, honestly”.

Nutter said: “Well, what happened was over the years, he had a number of relationships. He’s ended up with five children, who he continues to support and that support took a large amount of his income, being a mental health nurse.

“He made the big mistake of deciding to supplement that income with small scale drug dealing and became drawn in to become involved on the scale that you’ve heard about today.”

Prosecutors told the court that the Tobins ran a “criminally sophisticated, highly profitable and well-organised business” between 2016 and 2020, often using modified vehicles to move drugs and cash.

John, 40, formerly of Manor Road, Prescot, played a key role in the transportation of the £20m stash of cocaine from Kent to Warrington in the summer of 2018.

After detectives stopped the van on Thursday, August 2 John’s DNA was discovered on bubble wrap used to secured the drugs

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The prosecution told the court less than a week before on July 28, John travelled from Kent to Brussels, via Eurostar, and while he couldn’t be directly linked to the importation, he had been “very close to the original source”.

The judge jailed Alan for 20 years and John, who also has a young family, for 19 years and eight months.

Judge Garrett Byrne, today told the pair: “It was a business on a national scale which netted you vast sums of money, which fuelled your lavish lifestyles.

“These types of drugs cause devastation to individuals and to society generally, and we witness this in court, in this court certainly, on an almost daily basis.

“Those who are unfortunate enough to become addicted to these drugs ruin their own lives and those of their families.”