A LEADING member of a drugs cartel who fled to Spain when police were closing in on the gang was behind bars last night.

Stewart Burns, 39, was jailed for three years for his part in a plot to bring huge amounts of cannabis to the North-East.

The former motor dealer is the last person to be sentenced as a result of the long-running undercover Operation Skyhawk.

Thirteen other men from County Durham, Tyneside, Leeds and the north-west were jailed for a total of almost 80 years.

Many of the others - including gang lynchpin, Timothy Lister, 42, from Consett - were also involved in cocaine trafficking.

Lister got 16 years for directing the "industrial scale" operation to move the high-purity powder in and out of the region.

During a trial, he portrayed himself as a man of limited means, but he used his waste management company to create "a front".

Burns was said to have been a successful property developer and car dealer before the recession ruined his business empire.

His barrister told Teesside Crown Court yesterday that he had lost everything before getting involved in the drugs trade.

Tony Davis, mitigating, said the dad-of-one, formerly of Wheatley Grange Farm, Tow Law, suffered "a financial meltdown".

Prosecutor Paul Cleasby told the court that Burns was the "main target" of police looking to break up the cannabis organisation.

Evidence showed he had been involved in up to four £100,000 shipments, and his BMW X5 was seen at the scene of one deal meeting.

Mr Cleasby said: "The mobile phone traffic gave a very clear picture that it was Mr Burns directing operations on this occasion.

"Although he was present, he was very much at arm's length during the course of the incidents, leaving the risk to others."

He left the country and was often visited by his wife, said Mr Cleasby, and she was once stopped at an airport taking cash to him.

Mr Davis said Burns went to work as a timeshare salesman, but returned to the UK when a European arrest warrant was issued for him.

He described as "a perfect storm" the situation when Burns's businesses began to fail and the bank moved in to take his farm as well.

"It is not excusable, but it is easy to see why he became attracted to the prospect of easy money to try to support his interests.

"It proved absolutely futile, and a three-month period marked his involvement [in the drugs operation]," Mr Davis told the court.

Judge Howard Crowson told Burns, who now lives in Winlaton, Gateshead: "I'm satisfied you had a guiding hand in your area."