SENTENCING STATEMENTS
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HMA v Martin Hanlon
Oct 14, 2025
On Sentencing Lord Harrower made the following remarks in court:
"Martin Hanlon, on 15 September 2025 at Glasgow High Court you tendered a plea of guilty under section 76 procedure to an indictment containing a single charge of being concerned in the supply of a class A drug, in contravention of section 4(3)(b) of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.
On 27 September 2024, while travelling in a Vauxhall Insignia motorcar, you were stopped by police officers on the A702 near Biggar. While searching the boot of the vehicle the officers discovered two cardboard boxes containing a total of 12 blocks of cocaine powder. It is agreed that the cocaine had a purity of between 75% and 77%, and that the drugs had a total weight of just under 11kg with a total street value of £600,000.
You are now 37 years’ old and until recently, your criminal record, which is short, was restricted to non-analogous offences dealt with at JP summary level. However, on 6 June 2025. you were sentenced at the Crown Court in Carlisle to 86 months’ imprisonment in relation to an offence of possession of class A drugs with intent to supply committed on 13 August 2024. The sentence was backdated to 21 December 2024 when you were remanded in custody in connection with that offence. The earliest date of release is 2 November 2027.
In short, it would appear that, within little more than a month, and having had no record of any previous involvement in drugs offences of any kind, you committed two very serious crimes involving the supply of significant quantities of cocaine. Mr McConnachie’s explanation for this state of affairs, with which the Crown has taken no issue, is that you saw it as the only way to pay off a substantial amount of debt that you had incurred following the collapse of a business venture. Not having been arrested immediately after committing the earlier offence, you returned to Scotland where, still in debt, you carried out the offence with which this court is now concerned.
The nature of the index offence, and of course the potential maximum street value of the drugs involved, mean that the only appropriate disposal in your case must be a substantial custodial one. In fixing the duration of sentence, I propose to follow the approach set out in a case that will be familiar to your legal advisers, that of HM Advocate v Sweeney [2025] HCJAC 5, 2025 JC 184.
The background report prepared for this sentencing hearing is in fairly positive terms. You have had a history of regular employment. You have been assessed as presenting a medium risk of further offending. Mr McConnachie has drawn my attention to further matters pertaining to your personal and family circumstances. I also take into account that your own part in the drug trafficking operation was that of courier only, and that the libel in the charge is restricted to a single day. In these circumstances, the sentence I would have imposed but for the factors to be addressed presently would have been six years’ imprisonment.
I must also take into account the timing of your plea. You first appeared on petition in connection with the present offence on 30 September 2024. The Crown was not approached until 13 May 2025, with a plea ultimately being tendered on 14 July 2025. Mr McConnachie sought to explain that delay as having been caused by the need to investigate the possibility of bringing about a global resolution of both sets of proceedings. In that regard, he mentioned that you did not enter a plea of guilty in the English case until 4 April 2025. Ultimately, I am not persuaded that any complexity associated with the proceedings should have occasioned anything like such a lengthy period of delay. But I am prepared to accept that your plea will have had some utilitarian benefit. In a case such as this, where the main witnesses would have been police officers, I would have been prepared to reduce the sentence to one of 54 months.
Finally, and in accordance with the Scottish Sentencing Council’s guidelines on the sentencing process (paragraphs 29-34), and the principles and purposes of sentencing (para 1), a further adjustment is required to ensure that the total sentence to be served by you is fair and proportionate. The sentence which I shall impose will therefore be one of 36 months to be served consecutively to the period of imprisonment to which you are already subject.
14 October 2025