Tory group researcher faces court over drugs

Martin Thomas, 38, was charged by detectives investigating suspicious packages sent to North Yorkshire Council’s County Hall headquarters in Northallerton.

He had been employed by the council as a research and communications officer for the ruling Conservative group but was suspended following his arrest and later resigned.

Officers from the UK Border Agency arrested Thomas at his home in Northallerton in March. It came after receiving a tip-off that drugs were being smuggled into Yorkshire from abroad.

He was charged on Tuesday after answering bail at Northallerton police station and is due to appear before magistrates on Friday next week.

The investigation is understood to have involved analysis of a number of parcels that were delivered to a private address, as well as those sent to County Hall.

Said to have euphoric and sedative effects, GBL, or gamma-butyrolactone, became an increasingly popular drug on the party scene in the late 2000s.

But supplying the drug, which is usually sold as an odourless liquid in small bottles or capsules, was made illegal in 2009 after the Government came under growing pressure to ban so-called “legal highs”.

A common solvent used in paint strippers and stain removers, it is controlled under the Misuse of Drugs Act as a class C substance such as tranquillisers, ketamine and some painkillers.

It was linked to 21 deaths in 2009, and a coroner at one of the inquests warned that people who experimented with the drug were “playing Russian roulette” with their lives.

A spokesman for the UK Border Agency said: “We can confirm that a 38-year-old man was charged with importing a controlled substance at Northallerton Police Station.”