A MAN who was addicted to prescription drugs has avoided jail after illegally importing 3,000 tablets into the UK.

Daniel Ballantyne, of Andover Close, Bicester, admitted one count of fraudulently evading a prohibition by ordering the drugs from India over the internet, as well as two counts of possessing Class C drugs.

He pleaded guilty at Oxford Crown Court to importing 1,000 diazepam tablets, 1,000 alprazolam tablets, 500 lorazepam tablets and 500 nitrazepam tablets. Police also found a mixture of the four drugs totalling 392 further tablets at his home.

Prosecutor Isabel Delamere said a package bearing the name David Price and headed for Ballantyne’s address was seized by customs, who passed it on to Thames Valley Police, on May 4, 2013.

She told Judge Zoe Smith that officers searched the 35-year-old’s home on July 3, 2013, and then again on August 7, 2013, and found smaller quantities of the Class C drugs on both occasions.

The barrister said he had been taking them to help him cope with his addictions to alcohol and Class A drugs, but when his doctor stopped prescribing them Ballantyne contacted a doctor in India.

She added that he had already been prosecuted for the same offence in February 2013.

Claire Fraser, defending, said: “He desperately wants to get off drugs, but he seems to get off one type of drugs and get onto something less serious.”

On Thursday Judge Smith sentenced him to a 17-week prison sentence, suspended for two years, with supervision for 12 months and a £100 victims’ surcharge.