CPS News Brief

2 jailed in "biggest ever" drugs operation

Two men have been jailed over what is believed to be one of the biggest ever conspiracies to smuggle cannabis into the UK.

Steven McDonald, aged 32, from Chatham in Kent, and John Wright, 66, from Hounslow, were part of a crime group behind the importation of in excess of 28 tonnes of cannabis over a seven year period – enough to provide two joints for every person in Britain.

They were caught after Border Force officers at Harwich port intercepted a consignment of around 300 kilos of herbal cannabis that had been shipped from the Netherlands disguised as flooring tiles on 24 April 2014.

The following day investigators from the National Crime Agency and Metropolitan Police Service, through the joint Organised Crime Partnership team, watched as the load was delivered to an address in Whetstone, north London.

It was signed for by McDonald, who then loaded it into a van and drove it to a row of garages in Wembley, Wright following behind.

As the pair began to open the consignment officers moved in to arrest them. Another 150 kilos of cannabis was found in another garage in the same row.

Searches of McDonald and Wright’s home addresses led to the recovery of drug dealing ledgers and evidence of bank transfers and trips to the Netherlands made by the pair. Wright had travelled there at least 20 times a year since 2008 and even had access to a rented apartment in the Dutch town of Lisse.

NCA and MPS officers began to investigate the companies used by McDonald and Wright as cover for drug smuggling.

Working with Dutch police, investigators uncovered evidence of around a hundred other importations from three different Dutch addresses to the same two companies operated by McDonald and Wright.

One such shipment was apparently stolen at gunpoint by a rival criminal group, leading to both the Dutch and UK ends of the network having to change the names of companies and locations used as fronts for the deals.

The two men admitted conspiring to import class B drugs at a hearing at Luton Crown Court on 16 October 2014. Today (Friday 13 March) a judge at the same court sentenced Wright to nine years and four months in prison and McDonald to eight years. Both will also be banned from travelling outside the UK for ten years after their release.

Detective Inspector Steve Miles, from the joint NCA/MPS Organised Crime Partnership, said:

 “These men were involved in drug smuggling on a truly industrial scale over a number of years. The potential street value of the cannabis imported as part of this conspiracy would have been in excess of £80 million.

“Using their contacts with criminal networks in the Netherlands they were able to set up elaborate fronts to cover their activities.

“But through our close work with the Dutch authorities and Border Force we were able to unpick that, and disrupt and then dismantle a very significant organised crime group responsible for bringing thousands of kilos of illegal drugs into the UK.”

Anthony Hill, a specialist organised crime lawyer at the Crown Prosecution Service, said:

“It is clear from the scale of the operation that has been thwarted that these men believed they could operate with impunity. The brazen assurance with which they carried out their crimes has led to their downfall and they have paid with their freedom. Their conviction and sentencing shows that organised crime such as this will not go unnoticed or unpunished.

“Such a vast quantity of drugs brings untold misery to communities across the country, breeding further crime and anti-social behaviour.”

Charlotte Mann, Border Force Assistant Director at Harwich, said:

“This was a sophisticated, large scale drug smuggling operation and I am delighted that, as a result of the initial Border Force detection at Harwich, our law enforcement colleagues have been able to bring these serious offenders to justice.”

NCA and MPS investigators continue to hunt a third man suspected of being involved in the conspiracy.

The man is believed to have used a fraudulently obtained British passport in the name of Mark Gamble to rent the garages used to unload the cannabis in Wembley and another location in West Hampstead used as a delivery address.

DI Steve Miles said:

“We are today releasing a photo of the man known as Marc Gamble who we wish to speak to in connection with this investigation.

“We know this identity has been used to rent a number of properties in the north London area, and I would urge anyone with information about him, his whereabouts or his true identity to contact the NCA on 0370 4967622.”

The OCP, formerly the Middle Market Drugs Partnership, brings together officers from the National Crime Agency and Metropolitan Police Service to protect the communities of London from the harms inflicted by drug dealing.

No further action against one individual for conspiracy to commit misconduct in public office

Gregor McGill, a senior lawyer at the Crown Prosecution Service, said:

“The CPS has decided that no further action will be taken regarding a journalist whose full file was submitted to the CPS on 24 February 2015. After careful consideration it has been decided that there is insufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction for the charge of conspiracy to commit misconduct in public office.

“This decision was taken in accordance with the Code for Crown Prosecutors and the Director’s Guidelines on Assessing the Public Interest in Cases Affecting the Media.

“Any decision by the CPS does not imply any finding concerning guilt or criminal conduct; the CPS makes decisions only according to the test set out in the Code for Crown Prosecutors and it is applied in all decisions on whether or not to prosecute.”

For editors:

The CPS's function is not to decide whether a person is guilty of a criminal offence, but to make fair, independent and objective assessments about whether it is appropriate to present charges for the criminal court to consider. The CPS assessment of any case is not in any sense a finding of, or implication of, any guilt or criminal conduct. It is not a finding of fact, which can only be made by a court, but rather an assessment of what it might be possible to prove to a court, in accordance with the Code for Crown Prosecutors.

This assessment is based on the evidence available arising out of the police investigation and not on the evidence that is likely to be gathered by the defence, and likely to be used to test the prosecution evidence. The CPS charging decision is therefore necessarily an assessment on the basis of the evidence that is available to the CPS at the time the decision is made.

CPS prosecutors must also keep every case under review, so that they take account of any change in circumstances that occurs as the case develops, including what becomes known of the defence case. If appropriate, the CPS may change the charges or stop a case.

CPS decision to stop private prosecutions of doctors charged with abortion offences

In February 2012 Drs Sivaraman and Rajmohan were the subject of an undercover operation organised by The Daily Telegraph at various abortion clinics in England. The evidence obtained was passed to the police and, after an investigation, considered by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). It was concluded that in each case there was sufficient evidence of an abortion offence, although this was a finely balanced decision, but that it was not in the public interest to prosecute. On 5 September 2013 and, in more detail, on 7 October 2013 the CPS issued public statements explaining the decision making in these cases.

A person called Ms Hubert has now commenced private prosecutions against both doctors arising from the same undercover operation. She alleges that each doctor conspired with person(s) unknown to commit an offence contrary to section 59 of Offences Against the Person Act 1861, that is to procure or supply a poison or other noxious thing knowing that it was intended to be unlawfully used with intent to procure a miscarriage. Each defendant has asked the CPS to intervene and stop these prosecutions, as is their right under section 6(2) of the Prosecution of Offences Act 1985. We are bound to consider the case according to the test set out in the Code for Crown Prosecutors, which, if not met, means we have no choice but to stop the case. In each case, in accordance with our legal guidance, the parties, including the private prosecutor have been asked to supply a complete set of papers relied on by them.

The evidence relied on by the private prosecutor in each case consists of a single unsigned and undated witness statement from Aisling Hubert. It seeks to produce other evidence in the case as exhibits, including extracts of the covert footage taken during each consultation and medical reports from three expert witnesses. It does not include any of the witness statements obtained during the original investigation, most notably those of the undercover journalist and the pregnant woman, known as E, who were present at the consultations.

Ms Hubert appears to have no personal knowledge of the events in question and so gives no admissible evidence about them. The only potentially admissible evidence is that contained in the extracts from the covert footage produced as exhibits. However, these are heavily edited and reduced in length. It may be argued that, the manner in which they have been edited means that they do not provide a fair and balanced representation of events at each consultation. Moreover, no witness who was actually present in the footage forms part of the private prosecutor’s case, witnesses who could perhaps be asked questions to put these extracts in their proper context during any trial. In these circumstances a judge is likely to exclude these extracts as evidence under section 78 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. When considering the evidential stage of the Code for Crown Prosecutors, prosecutors must consider the admissibility of evidence.

Therefore, no admissible evidence has been served to support any offence and, applying our legal guidance, there is insufficient evidence put forward by the private prosecutor. Their case has no realistic prospect of conviction and these prosecutions should be taken over and stopped.

However, in order to give this case the fairest possible consideration, we have decided to consider the charge selected by the private prosecutor against all available evidence known to exist. This includes all the original case papers considered by the CPS in 2013, the full versions of the covert footage and the extra information Ms Hubert supplied.

Section 59 of the 1861 Act makes it an offence unlawfully "to supply or procure any poison or other noxious thing, or any instrument or thing whatsoever, knowing that the same is intended to be unlawfully used or employed with intent to procure the miscarriage of any woman". It essentially criminalises the obtaining or supplying of a tool [here, as alleged, poison] which is intended for use to carry out a miscarriage unlawfully. This is not supported by the evidence. The evidence does not show that they supplied or procured poison, nor that they conspired with any other person to do so or even attempted to do so.

However, we widened our consideration and looked to see if there could be a prosecution for any abortion offence on the evidence known to exist. Having done so, we have come to the same conclusion as was met in 2013. As far as section 58 of the 1861 Act is concerned, “unlawfully using poison, instruments or other means with intent to procure a miscarriage”, there is just sufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction but the public interest factors against a prosecution outweigh those in favour for the reasons previously given.

In reaching this decision we have taken into account the three medical reports obtained and exhibited by the private prosecutor since we last considered this matter. These consist of two reports from consultants in Gynaecology and Obstetrics and one from a General Practitioner, who only saw the limited material supplied by the private prosecutor. On a number of important matters there is a divergence of opinion between them. Some of their evidence supports the previous decision, for example:

• The two consultants relied upon both agree that a doctor does not need to see, let alone examine, the pregnant woman before an abortion is authorised by signing form HSA/1. This was an important factor in the consideration of Dr Rajmohan's case which is, again, supported by the expert evidence.
  
  
• An important consideration to both stages of the Code test was the fact that there was, at the time, no professional guidance as to how doctors should go about the comparative risk assessments. One consultant agrees with this as a fact but argues it should make no difference to the assessment of the case. Another suggests there was guidance from the Department of Health but only to the effect that "doctors are expected to have enough evidence of the woman's circumstances to justify that they were able to form a good faith opinion that the ground for termination exists" or else they risk committing an offence. The third doctor believed the guidance derived from every doctor's general duty to take a full history from the patient and collect, organise and interpret the data obtained. Such divergence of opinion serves only to highlight the difficulty. In reality, specific guidance was not issued by Department of Health until May 2014.

Conclusion: In relation to the private prosecutions, we have concluded that they should be taken over by the CPS and stopped. On the current evidence before the court, there is in our judgement, insufficient evidence to form a realistic prospect of conviction. Taking into account all the other evidence we are aware of, whilst there is sufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction, this is truly very finely balanced indeed. However, the public interest considerations in not pursuing a prosecution outweigh those in favour, as concluded and set out in 2013.