Sentencing due for failed heroin plot family

Members of a notorious criminal family will be sentenced later over a failed plot to smuggle more than £6 million of heroin into Britain.

Brothers Ian and Jason Fitzgibbon, and their mother, Christine, were caught after authorities seized 126lb (57kg) of the class A drug in Turkey and followed the trail back to Liverpool.

Police hid listening devices in the family's home, where they, "convicted themselves by their own words, in their own house."

When the detached house in Edale Road was raided, officers found £137,000 in cash stuffed under the floorboards.

Jason, 40, of Crofton Mansions, Crofton Estate, North Sudley Road, Liverpool, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to import heroin and Ian, 39, of Heigham Gardens, St Helens, admitted conspiracy to supply heroin at earlier court hearings.

Christine, 60, of Edale Road pleaded guilty to money laundering.

The brothers - both fathers-of-three - will be sentenced at Manchester Crown Court today, along with their mother and several criminal associates.