HOLIDAY DRUGS PAIR LOCKED UP

TWO county men have been jailed after flouting tough anti-drug laws in
Cyprus.

Welder Michael Quarrington, 30, from Corby, was jailed for 70 days at a
court in Ayia Napa after admitting importing and possessing nearly 17 grams
of the drug. He was told he could have been sentenced to the maximum penalty
of life.

His friend Adam Colgate, 36, an unemployed father-of-eight from Corby,
received 35 days in jail for bringing four grams of cannabis and two ecstasy
pills into the country.

Both men were arrested 12 hours after arriving in Cyprus for a fortnight's
holiday in Ayia Napa and remanded for more than a week before being
sentenced.

Quarrinton's father, also called Michael Quarrinton, 54, of Whitworth
Avenue, Corby, said: "We are telephoning the British Consulate in Cyprus
regularly to make sure Michael is all right.

"While as a parent I have every concern and sympathy for Michael, I have to
say I thoroughly disapprove of what he has done.

"Anyone who breaks the law in another country must be expected to pay the
consequences."

Quarrinton, a former pupil of the Queen Elizabeth School in Corby, is due
for release on September 8.

The pair were among 14 Britons, most in their 20s and 30s, who have been
arrested for drugs offences on the island in recent weeks.

Most involve cannabis, which remains a Class B drug in Cyprus.

George Economou, the police chief in charge of drugs enforcement in Ayia
Napa, said that people working in pubs and clubs often served as unpaid
informers because they wanted the area clean of drugs.

Even chambermaids were shown how to recognise various drugs, he added,
saying: "They inform us if they see something in an ashtray or when they are
cleaning."

Last summer, when Britons were being arrested for drugs offences at the rate
of one every three days, the British High Commission in Nicosia made a video
to tell holidaymakers of the drugs policy. Fewer Britons have been caught
this year with ecstasy.

A spokesman for the High Commission, said: "While cannabis laws have been
relaxed in the UK, this is not the case in Cyprus."