Our Criminal Litigation Department were instructed between 2012 and 2014 to defend a client accused of Conspiracy to Import Contraband. The street value of the prohibited articles were estimated to be in the region of £6million.
Our client was charged with conspiracy to import 50kg of cocaine, 112kg of cannabis and 200,000 cigarettes all concealed within a consignment of fresh fruit and vegetables. Being found guilty of conspiracy to import contraband, especially class A drugs like cocaine, can lead to life imprisonment.
This case involved a lengthy and covert investigation by the Crown Prosecution Service now known as the National Crime Agency, who followed our client and other defendants’ over a period of time tracking their movements and communication right up until their arrest at our client’s warehouse. Our criminal litigation team carefully analysed over 3000 pages of exhibit evidence and over 250 hours of raw CCTV footage in order to prove our client’s innocence.
This case was successfully defended at trial over a period of 17 weeks by our in-house Solicitor Advocate, Mr Jonathan Starck, together with renowned QC Mr Oliver Blunt before a jury of 12.
Our criminal litigation team managed to secure a unanimous acquittal for our client through detailed analysis of the prosecution evidence using a number of experts to help undermine the prosecutions case against our client together with character appeals from upstanding members of the community including a politician and a senior Sikh chaplain. Our client exercised his right to not give evidence live at trial but instead relied upon written answers to the police interview questions that were given at the time of his arrest following a full consultation with our Mr Jonathan Starck.
