Man with 4,000 sex pills jailed
Astonished police armed with a warrant discovered a box containing more than 4,400 tablets of the sex aid drug at an address in Golden Hill Lane, Leyland, while searching for stolen goods.
Eventually Michael Beckett confessed to purchasing the drugs from the internet and said he planned to sell them to customers personally.
Police estimated the haul to be worth up to £22,000 but the court heard the defendant claimed he had paid no more than £2,500 and hoped to double his money.
The drug must have a European licence and those in the defendant’s possession did not, the judge was told.
Beckett, 24, who was from Leyland but has also been living in Ingol, Preston, admitted four charges relating to the Viagra tablets and proposing to sell them without proper authorisation.
He also pleaded guilty to possession of 24 Ecstasy tablets found on him at the same time and separate offences of possession of heroin and crack cocaine, criminal damage and threatening behaviour.
Beckett was also in breach of a suspended sentence.
He was jailed for a total of 85 weeks, which included 10 weeks for the Viagra offences.
On his behalf, Daniel King said Beckett simply did not know he was committing an offence regarding the Viagra.
He knew a local pub which sold similar matter through vending machines but he now realised that was properly regulated.
Sentencing Beckett, Judge Robert Brown said he accepted the defendant was in ignorance of the need for a licence for the Viagra.
However, the judge said he had decided the series of offences must result in an immediate prison term.
