A drug dealer from Hawick has been sent to prison for four-and-a-half years .
Forty-two-year-old Alexander Higgins was due to stand trial by jury on a charge of being concerned in the supply of heroin over a 10-month period at a house in Ramsay Road, Hawick.
But he changed his plea to guilty before the trial started at Jedburgh Sheriff Court on Monday.
Sheriff Derrick McIntyre imposed a five-year jail term, reducing it by six months because of Higgins’ admission to the crime which happened between March 2011 and January 2012.
Higgins’ brother, Joseph, who is 45, of Havelock Street, Hawick, had his not-guilty plea to being concerned in the supply of heroin accepted by the Crown.
But Joseph Higgins was fined a total of £1,000 – £750 for possession of heroin and another £250 for making racist remarks to a doctor at Hawick police station on January 12, 2012.