A FORMER soldier was jailed for two years today after police seized a haul of cannabis worth up to £170,000 on the streets.
Part of the 60 kilo consignment, recovered after a surveillance operation, was found in a suitcase that was so heavy officers struggled to lift it.
They also found evidence that Darren Ormiston enjoyed a "high spending lifestyle", the High Court i
n Edinburgh heard.
A judge told the Army veteran, who saw active service in Iraq, that "a quite significant quantity of the drug" was involved.
Lord Brailsford said: "It is clear you accept you were acting wrongly and that you have faced up quite properly to the offence you have committed and realise you must be punished for it."
The judge told Ormiston that he would have jailed him for three years for the crime, but for his guilty plea.
Ormiston, 31, earlier admitted being concerned in the supply of cannabis resin, which was a Class C drug at the time, in the city between 1 June and 31 July last year.
Prosecutors have also served papers on him to seize any profits under proceeds of crime legislation.
Advocate depute Derek Ogg QC said following intelligence, undercover officers from Strathclyde police were authorised to carry out surveillance on Ormiston.
On 31 July they saw a BMW X5 owned by Ormiston outside a flat in Little John Road, in the Greenbank area of Edinburgh, where he lived with a girlfriend.
Ormiston, of Ravensheugh Crescent, Musselburgh, was seen leaving with a designer bag and speaking to a car driver before going to a garage.
He later drove off and was followed to a vacant flat in Tytler Gardens, in the Abbeyhill area, which he had keys to and was supposedly painting for the owner.
The former fitness instructor was seen dragging a heavily weighted suitcase and was helped by another man to lift the case into the close.
Police later went to the Little John Road flat and during a search of a garage Ormiston was asked if there were any drugs and he said they were in a box and were his. Officers found 52 bars of cannabis.
A further 200 bars of the drug were found during a search of the flat at Tytler Gardens, with 160 of them stored in the suitcase.
Mr Ogg said: "Such was the weight of the suitcase that the officers were barely able to lift it."
Police also found £25,000 in cash at the flat in Little John Road as well as receipts and tickets "suggestive of a high spending lifestyle", said Mr Ogg.
The prosecutor said first offender Ormiston, who left the Army in 2003, told police during an interview that he was a self-employed builder earning on average £500 a week.
He would not comment on where he had received the cannabis from or how much was paid for it.
Mr Ogg said: "The large amount of cannabis resin recovered combined with the recovery of a substantial amount of cash and pieces of paper with monetary notations all indicate dealing in the sale of cannabis resin."
Defence solicitor advocate Richard Goddard said the father-of-two regretted the impact his imprisonment would have on his children and partner.
