A COUPLE have been charged with possession of half a kilo of class A cocaine.
A detective constable told Craigavon Magistrates Court that three kilos of a cutting agent were also found so if mixed, the seizure had a potential street value in excess of £200,000.
Standing in the dock on Wednesday were 36-year-old Lee Lavelle and Claire Poots (25).
Unemployed Lavelle, from Brooke Drive in Belfast and hairdresser Poots, from Fairhaven Park in Lisburn, are jointly charged with possessing class A cocaine and possessing the drugs with intent to supply on January 4 this year.
Officers found the drugs after they stopped a Peugot people carrier, a registered taxi, being driven by Lavelle on the Hillsborough Road, close to the A1 flyover at 7pm on Monday.
The couple were arrested and questioned by police and while they claimed to live with their parents at Brooke Park and Fairhaven Drive respectively, each set of parents told officers they only stayed there "infrequently."
It was the police view they lived together at an address on Dromara Drive in Lisburn as searches there uncovered utility bills in their names along with Lavelle's passport.
Also found at that address was £1,700 in cash as well as scales and a search of Poots' hairdressing salon on the Ballymacash Road uncovered three kilos of the commonly used cutting agent benzocaine.
Under cross-examination Detective Constable Butler agreed Poots had claimed the couple had "gone for a drive" down to Carlingford and had stopped at a filling station but she had remained in the car at all times and knew nothing about the cocaine.
Lavelle's defence solicitor Fergal McElhatton asked the officer if either item had been fingerprinted or forensically tested yet but DC Butler said they had not.
Lavelle's lawyer submitted that with no direct evidence linking Lavelle to the cocaine, given the fact that it was found in a public hire taxi after the busy festive period, the package could have been left there by a customer.
Mr McElhatton conceded that his "big problem" was that Lavelle was in breach of previous bail conditions.
District Judge Bernie Kelly remanded Lavelle into custody to appear again on Monday in Lisburn court via videolink.
Poots was released on her own bail of £750 along with a cash surety of £1,000 and barred from using or having a mobile phone, iPad or computer, from using any social media so she cannot contact Lavelle, ordered her to live with her father and observe a curfew.
