A man was jailed for more than seven years yesterday after police found a cache of drugs and a stolen rifle.

Officers found a consignment of heroin worth almost £100,000 along with the gun, which was fitted with a laser sight and silencer, after searching houses frequented by Peter Lawlor.

A judge told Lawlor at the High Court in Edinburgh: "The combination of a serious drugs offence and serious firearms offences is very worrying."

Lord Menzies pointed out that the repeat drug trafficker had been assessed as posing a high risk of re-offending and of harm.

The judge told him: "It is my duty to impose a significant custodial sentence."

Lord Menzies jailed him for a total of seven years and three months.

Lawlor, 28, attended boarding school in England before gaining admission to Edinburgh University, but fell into "bad company", his defence counsel said.

He was not present at the homes in North Kessock, near Inverness, when police carried out searches, but they traced him days later to a house in the city's Dell Road.

He was taken to a police station in Inverness and after a search two handwritten notes were recovered.

Advocate depute Vinit Khurana earlier told the High Court in Edinburgh: "One note appears to be instructions written by the accused to himself on how to disappear or evade the police."

Lawlor, of North Sea Court, Aberdeen, admitted being concerned in the supply of heroin between November 17 and December 1 last year in North Kessock and at a pub in Academy Street, Inverness.

He also pled guilty to illegally possessing a self-loading rifle and ammunition between December 13 in 2006 and November 29 last year.

Mr Khurana said: "The accused accepts that he was involved in the division, packaging, sale and distribution of a large quantity of diamorphine (heroin)."

The prosecutor said: "He accepts that he had possession of a firearm and ammunition over a long period of time.

"His DNA was on the weapon."

Lawlor was previously jailed for four years for a drugs offence at the High Court in 2001.

Defence counsel Dale Hughes said: "He does come from a good background."

Mr Hughes said Lawlor recently lost his father and his mother is also ill.

He said Lawlor was heavily addicted to heroin at the time and was also getting the prescribed substitute methadone.