Drug dealer from affluent Yorkshire village imported ecstasy from the Netherlands to Heathrow Airport

Daniel Richard Arthur's address was given to York Crown Court as Langwith Stray, a private track close to fishing lakes and farms in the village of Heslington, near York.

The former businessman ran his own engineering and building company.

He has now been sent to prison for five years and 10 months after pleading guilty to importation, offering to supply and attempting to possess the Class A controlled drug MDMA - more commonly known as ecstasy - in 2017 and 2018.

Arthur was involved in ordering large amounts of MDMA tablets from the Netherlands. Border Force intercepted two shipments at Heathrow Airport in 2018. Around 250 tablets were seized in the first and 102 tablets in the second.

Detectives in York were able to trace the packages to Arthur’s home address where further MDMA tablets were recovered.

He was arrested and a complex investigation was launched to secure the charges against him.

Throughout this time, Arthur refused to provide the access code to his phone which delayed the gathering of crucial evidence.

Digital forensic experts had to work around this hurdle to obtain records of the defendant, and this proved pivotal in securing the charges against him.

Detective Constable Darren May from North Yorkshire Police, who led the investigation, said: “The outcome at court is very satisfying and demonstrates the collaborative efforts between the Border Force and North Yorkshire Police to take action against Class A drug dealers such as Daniel Arthur.

“He maintained that he was supplying the drugs to an immediate group of friends and work colleagues, and not to the wider public.

“The court did not accept Arthur’s version of events as the evidence overwhelmingly showed that he was a commercial dealer of ecstasy.

“Drugs wreck lives and taking ecstasy can have fatal consequences, sometimes following the consumption of just one pill.

“We will not stand by and allow this to happen.”

In 2010 Arthur received a suspended sentence for being among a group of men who grew cannabis commercially at a farm in Easingwold and a property in Stockton-on-the-Forest.