May 30, 2015

Stafford Businessman cleared of £1 million cocaine conspiracy

Sheppards Solicitors have successfully challenged police assertions that a local businessman was involved in a 4 year conspiracy between 2009 and 2013 to supply cocaine in Stafford area.

The businessman who was originally arrested in early 2013 was initially subject to a lengthy delay in clearing his name whilst the police made their enquiries and decided whether they had sufficient evidence to charge. He was eventually charged some 14 months after his first arrest and throughout this time was subject to stringent conditions restraining his assets.

Once the Crown Prosecution Service made the decision to charge him (and two others) with the drugs conspiracy and also a charge of possessing criminal property, we were able to obtain the police evidence and carefully scrutinise the various allegations and assertions.

Not only were the police asserting the businessmen had been involved in a four-year drugs conspiracy, they also asserted that during the course of the conspiracy, in excess of £1 million had been transferred through various bank accounts. The assertion was that such high amounts of money transfers were consistent with the illicit dealing in cocaine.

The police alleged that the three people charged, close friends over many years, plotted together to obtain and supply cocaine illegally using a property in the Stafford area to cut and prepare drugs.

The businessmen requested the services of Sheppards Solicitors at the beginning of the case when he was first arrested. As a specialist provider of criminal defence services, we deployed a highly experienced solicitor to the police station to advise and represent the businessmen during the course of his first interviews and thereafter during subsequent interviews.

Even at the interview stage, we challenged the police assertions regarding a number of aspects of the case, particularly the assertions made in relation to the alleged illegal money transfers.
Once charged with the offences, the case was quickly transferred to the Crown Court due to their serious nature. Mark Nicholls was instructed to conduct the proceedings in the Crown Court.

Following a detailed assessment of all of the evidence which included careful consideration of many thousands of pages of mobile phone telephone evidence, we made repeated and strenuous representations to the Crown Prosecution Service regarding the state of their case and the evidence against our client. There were many hearings before the Crown Court in which the prosecution maintained their case was strong, however none of the representations we had made had been properly considered.

Two weeks before the start of the trial date the prosecution contacted Sheppards solicitors and advised that a decision had been made on further review that there was insufficient evidence to link our client to any wrongdoing. Accordingly, a final hearing took place before the Crown Court and the client was formally acquitted of all allegations and wrongdoing.

Understandably, the client was extremely happy with the result meaning that he did not have to go through the trial process. However, we remained extremely confident that should the trial process have been necessary the jury would have properly acquitted him.