A MINI-MOTO cocaine courier serving four years behind bars has been ordered to pay back more than £2,000 in ill-gotten drug money.

William Anthony Greenwood was jailed for four-and-a-half years in August after police stumbled across the 49-year-old making a drug delivery to a house on Fair View, West Rainton, near Durham City, on January 16 this year.

Police in a marked patrol car spotted Greenwood driving an off-road motorbike pulling onto a driveway and started to pursue him.

But when Greenwood realised the police car was approaching, he was seen to throw a bag into a nearby garden.

The package was later recovered and found to contain, along with some scales, a white powder, which tests confirmed was 50.3 grammes of cocaine with an estimated street value of £2,515.

Greenwood initially said he thought it might have been gold, but later admitted possessing a class A drug with intent to supply.

He was pressured into delivering the drugs to help repay his own son’s drug debts, Durham Crown Court was told earlier this year – a claim rejected by the judge, Christopher Prince.

Today (Monday, December 15), the same court hosted a hearing under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, by which the authorities seek to claw back money made through criminal means.

The Crown’s case was that Greenwood, formerly a self-employed motor mechanic of Wear Street, Chilton Moor, ner Houghton-le-Spring, on Wearside, had benefitted to the tune of £2,515 and had assets of the same value.

Jane Foley, for Greenwood, said this was accepted and the money would come from his wife.

Judge Prince gave Greenwood six months to make the repayment, with the threat of an extra two months in prison if he failed to do so.

Greenwood, who was brought into court for the hearing, was returned to custody at its conclusion.

An initial suggestion that Greenwood had benefitted to the tune of £102,200 and had assets of £99,685 had been made in error, Ms Foley said.