John McKinnon’s hire van was full of marijuana plants that had been confiscated in a police raid — but police had forgotten to remove the plants before returning the van.

Scottish police recently hired a van for a drugs raid in the Glasgow area. Following the raid, the van was returned to the hire company — with a substantial amount of cannabis still in the back.

To make matters worse, the hire company concerned didn’t check inside the van before hiring out again, to unsuspecting father-of-two John McKinnon, who then drove it from Coatbridge back to Glasgow, before he opened up the back and realised that he had a problem.

According to the Daily Record, the van had been hired by Lanarkshire police for used by plain-clothes officers.

The hire van’s unfortunate driver told the paper:

“there was a strong smell of cannabis in the cabin, but it was only when I got back to the office and opened up the back that I realised what was in it.”

I guess the moral of the story is that some van hire companies don’t check their vehicles very carefully when they are off-hired — plus you never know who has hired a vehicle before you, nor what they might have used it for.

A spokeswoman for Police Scotland said that “enquiries are at an early stage to establish the circumstances and it would be inappropriate to comment further”.