AN international amateur boxer’s hopes of making it big are hanging by a thread after he was jailed for his part in a drug ring.

Luke Atkin was earning up to £200 a week by storing heroin and crack cocaine in his garden for drug dealers, York Crown Court heard.

Simon Ostler, prosecuting, said the 23-year-old also had 28 ampoules (containers) of testosterone hidden in his kitchen when police raided his home in Harington Avenue, Tang Hall.

Atkin pleaded guilty to possessing testosterone for his own use and possessing 19.56g heroin of 26 per cent purity and 23.4g of crack cocaine of 13 per cent purity, both with intent to supply.

He was jailed for two years.

Judge Shaun Spencer QC told Atkin: “I accept it was done for weekly payment.

It was however a role in drug trafficking and it is a helpful role to those higher up in the chain because it removes from them the risk of being caught in possession of controlled drugs.”

For Atkin, Adam Birkby said his client had only had the drugs for two weeks, and was paid £100 or £200 a week for keeping them.

He was not a dealer himself. The barrister said: “He is a talented boxer, competing at England and international welterweight level.

“It is his desire to put this behind him and to go on and form a professional career as a boxer.”

Robert Smith, of the British Boxing Board of Control, said it took drug offences very seriously.

He said Atkin could not be considered for a boxing licence until after he finishes the two-year sentence including the period spent on prison licence after his release and the board would need to consider police, probation, court and other reports about him before deciding whether to grant him one or not.


A promising career...

Atkin started boxing when he was 11 and at the same age fought for the North of England squad against Cyprus.

At 12, he won the Yorkshire and Humberside Schoolboy championship and the North East Counties Schoolboy championships both in the 42kg category.

He was to win further schoolboy championships in the years that followed. In 2003 he won a gold medal for an England team in Holland.

But in 2006, he was jailed for five years after he and two other men all masked, broke into a Huntington house armed with CS gas, screwdrivers and a knife and subjected the family there to a terrifying ordeal.


‘I could turn his life around’

A FORMER boxing mate, now turned professional coach, says he is prepared to give Atkin a chance to earn an honest living through boxing after he finishes his sentence – if he keeps away from drugs, sticks to full sporting discipline and stays out of trouble.

“If he messes it up once, it would be over,” said York-based professional boxing coach Glen Banks. “But I could be the man to change his life. It is up to him. If he wants me to change his life round, I would be willing because there is nothing he couldn’t do.”

The two men were both welterweight members of the St Paul’s gym in Hull when in their teens and competed at international level.