The former manager of a Black Country care home has been struck off the social workers’ register after smuggling £25,000-worth of cannabis into the UK.

Gleneise Williams-Chang, who had worked for Wolverhampton Council for about 30 years, was caught trying to smuggle six kilograms of the drug through Manchester Airport in September 2008.

The stash was found when Border Agency officers took a closer look at a consignment of beer and wine imported from Montego Bay in Jamaica.

After drilling into the pallet supports, officers discovered the concealed drugs packed into an empty space in the wood.

Williams-Chang, who used to run Bilston’s Holloway House for adults with learning disabilities, was at Manchester Crown Court last summer over the smuggling plot.

She was found guilty of being knowingly concerned in the fraudulent evasion of the prohibition of controlled drugs.

His Honour Judge Martin Steiger jailed the mother-of-one for 13 months, saying: “This was a significant importation that attracts a significant custodial sentence.”

Now 55-year-old Williams-Chang, of Kingswood Gardens, Penn, Wolverhampton, has been removed from the General Social Care Council (GSCC) register after its conduct committee ruled that her crime amounted to misconduct.

The ruling also took into account that she failed to tell the care council and her employers at Wolverhampton City Council of the legal proceedings against her and her eventual conviction.

Williams-Chang attended part of the conduct committee hearing before breaking down and forcing an adjournment when Judge Steiger’s comments were read out.

But, in written evidence before the panel, she said she failed to disclose the conviction because “she did not trust her managers”.

The committee later resumed its deliberations, without Williams-Chang, whose previous record with the GSCC was “unblemished,” at which point it came to its ruling to strike her from the register.