A DOCTOR has been jailed for importing and selling drugs, throwing away a promising career in medicine.

Tim Kerr, 28, worked with university friend Adrian Tickridge-Day, 27, on the joint enterprise which netted them thousands of pounds.

They bought cocaine, ecstasy (MDMA) and ketamine on the so-called ‘dark web’ and had shipments sent to Day’s address in Chester.

Customs officers intercepted a package containing 220 ecstasy tablets on March 29, 2016, and quickly traced it to Day.

The men were stopped at Manchester Airport in April that year as they returned from a ski resort festival in Austria and Day was arrested after he was found with £2,000 in cash and two mobile phones.

A search of his Chester home revealed a stash of class A and B drugs and paraphernalia such as snap bags and digital scales.

Phone records later linked Kerr – who was working as a doctor at a hospital in Newcastle – to the drugs enterprise.

Day was sentenced to four years and eight months in prison last year while Kerr was handed the same sentence at Chester Crown Court today (Friday, June 22).

Both men had no previous convictions and pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy to supply A drugs, one of conspiracy to supply class B drugs and one of importing drugs.

Mandy Nepal, prosecuting, told the court the pair had a “large customer base” and were “selling abroad as well as in this country”.

Adam Antoszkiw, defending, said Kerr had endured a troubled childhood after his father died when he was 11 years old. He threw himself into his studies and went on to become a qualified doctor.

It was at university that he developed addiction issues and became involved with drugs.

“He is not blasé about these offences,” Mr Antoszkiw said. “He has had a very long time to come to terms with what is going to happen today.”

Sentencing, Judge Patrick Thompson said he accepted the issues Kerr had faced growing up and the impact this had on him and his family.

“Unfortunately, at university you got yourself involved in drugs which led you to abuse the gifts you were given and you started purchasing drugs on the dark web," the judge said.

“It’s a tragedy for you because I’m afraid your career has been thrown away.”

Dressed smartly in a suit and tie, Kerr, of Bank Avenue, Mitcham, London, showed no emotion as he was taken down.

He will serve half of his sentence in custody and half on licence.

* After the hearing, Detective Constable Tom Philpotts, of Chester CID, said: “Kerr, alongside his accomplice Tickridge-Day, worked together to import drugs and sell them in Chester but also across the UK and abroad.

“To think Kerr was studying to be in the medical profession as a doctor and would know the dangers and risks associated with taking the drugs he was supplying he still chose to continue to profit from selling them. After admitting their guilt due to the strong evidence put against them they will now serve time in prison for their crimes."