B e f o r e :
SIR DENIS HENRY
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Perwaiz Hassan
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(Transcript of the Handed Down Judgment of
Smith Bernal Reporting Limited, 190 Fleet Street
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Mr. A. Trollope Q.C. for the Applicant
Ms.T.Ayling for the Crown
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HTML VERSION OF JUDGMENT
AS APPROVED BY THE COURT
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Lord Justice Henry:
- This is the Judgment of the Court, to which all members have contributed. On 13th January 2000 at the Crown Court at Isleworth before His Honour Judge Crocker and jury the applicant was convicted of an offence under section 20 of the Misuse of Drugs Act, 1971, and on 28th January was sentenced to 11 years’ imprisonment. He renews his application for leave to appeal against sentence and conviction after refusal by Mr Justice Penry-Davey, sitting as the section 31 judge, who took the unusual step of giving full reasons for dismissing the application.
- The case concerned the smuggling of a large amount of cannabis resin (12,582.470 kilos) with a UK street value of £44,875,000) into Denmark in a motor fishing vessel called the Kvedarna, registered in Lithuania. The Crown’s case was that this was an international conspiracy. The vessel passed through the Suez Canal around 15th January 1999, and was in Fujairah Port in the United Arab Emirates for some time after 2nd February. At this time the applicant and his two friends, Michael McQuillan and Edward Hayward (who were convicted in Denmark for their part in this affair) were in Dubai (UAE) at the same time, and the Master and members of the crew went to Dubai and saw McQuillan and others to arrange for the refuelling and provisioning of the vessel.
- After leaving the UAE there was evidence to suggest that the vessel proceeded to the Macran coast of Pakistan where the 12 metric tonnes of cannabis were loaded onto the vessel. When the applicant’s premises were searched, he had the compass co-ordinates of the place of loading the cannabis marked on the chart. Certainly on 22nd April 1999 the vessel docked at Copenhagen. On that same day Danish police officers boarded the vessel and there arrested ten people. They also went to a summer-house at Gilleleje, and there arrested eight people. They were McQuillan, Hayward, Ragulis, Ciplyta, Akelsen, Jorgen Jensen, Bensen Jensen and Piotr Kosenko, the owner of the vessel. On 23rd April the applicant was arrested in London. His premises were searched, and various documents and other items were seized. Meanwhile Danish officers searched the Kvedarna, and discovered a concealment. New welding was found on the port side of the deck, and after cutting through an iron plate and the cement underneath, concealed under a further iron plate was the cannabis.
- The Crown’s case was that between 1st August 1998 and 24th April 1999 the applicant assisted in the United Kingdom with the arrangements to import that cannabis into Denmark. The case against him consisted of the documents found on his premises, his contact with other conspirators (McQuillan and Hayward and Bensen Jensen), the observation and telephonic evidence, and his presence in Dubai when that country was used as a meeting place for the conspirators with those responsible for sailing, equipping and provisioning the vessel. McQuillan admitted as much in relation to his role with the ship, albeit his account was that he believed that it was a tobacco smuggling operation.
- The defence case was essentially a denial - the applicant was not involved with Hayward or McQuillan or Jensen Bensen or anybody else in the business of smuggling cannabis into Denmark.
- The first ground of appeal is that:
“The learned Judge during the course of his summing-up failed to direct the jury adequately or at all as to the consequences of the Appellant’s acquittal on Counts 2 and 3 of the Indictment the relevance of any evidence as to deutschmarks seen in the possession of McQuillan and Hayward and the deutschmarks bank wrapper found at the Applicant’s address.”
- In Counts 2 and 3, the money laundering counts, it was alleged that the money taken to Copenhagen by McQuillan and Hayward represented the proceeds of drugs trafficking either by the applicant (count 2) or someone else (count 3). The Crown’s case was and remained throughout the trial that the money was to be used to finance the Danish drugs operation. It was part of the assistance provided by the applicant in the commission of the offence in Count 1.
- At the close of the prosecution case, Edmund Lawson QC (for the applicant at trial) submitted that there was no case to answer on Counts 2 and 3. He argued that there was no evidence that the deutschmarks smuggled out of the country by McQuillan were the proceeds of drug trafficking, or that this was an attempt to avoid prosecution or the consequences of a confiscation order. He submitted that in the context of this case the two counts were simply unnecessary. This argument found favour with the learned judge. He decided that as a “matter of practicalities” rather than as a matter of evidence, he would withdraw the two counts from the jury. The defence conceded the evidence of the money and the bank wrapper remained both relevant and admissible on the remaining count, count 1. That concession was realistic and right.
- In his summing-up the learned judge did not attempt to explain the provisions of Section 49 of the Drug Trafficking Act 1994 to the jury. He believed it would confuse them. He simply directed them that they should find the applicant Not Guilty of Counts 2 and 3. The evidence of the deutschmarks remained as he put it “part of the case.” He summed-up as follows:
“Finally a word about deutschmarks. Customs have got wide ranging powers. They can open people’s suitcases for a start, as you now know if you didn’t know before, without you knowing it. Also if they see someone going through Customs with a large amount of money they have the power to require them to account for it and they have even the power to confiscate it unless somebody gives a very good reason for taking that money out of the country. I am paraphrasing it. It is not technically illegal to take money out of the country. It is simply that you may have to account for what you are doing. As I said, as far as counts 2 and 3 are concerned, you are not concerned with them any more. The money of course is part of the case and part of the evidence for you to consider but, as I say, it is not illegal to take money out of the country even in large quantities.”
- Mr Trollope QC submitted on behalf of the applicant that Mr. Edmund Lawson QC at trial was wrong to concede the admissibility of the evidence as to the deutschmarks and the bank wrapper on Count 1. The prosecution must have failed to satisfy the judge that there was sufficient evidence the money was the proceeds of drug trafficking or was being removed to evade prosecution or confiscation; accordingly the evidence became irrelevant and inadmissible. The judge should have directed the jury to ignore the evidence of the money or identified for them the ways in which the evidence was relevant to Count 1.
- The consequences of the judge’s failure to direct this jury in this way was, Mr Trollope contended, that the jury were left at liberty to draw any inference or conclusion they chose as to the purpose or origins of the money. Miss Ayling (for the Crown) submitted that the prosecution did not have to prove the specific purpose for which the money was being smuggled out of the country. The case against the applicant on Count 1 was one of assisting in the commission of an offence. He was said to be part of an international organisation providing amongst other things financial assistance. McQuillan and Hayward made a detour to see the applicant the night before they left for Copenhagen to see the applicant. McQuillan left the UK with a substantial quantity of deutschmarks (DM200,000) and a deutschmark bank wrapper was found at Hassan’s address. McQuillan still had the money over 10 days later as he awaited delivery of the drugs in Denmark. The clear inference of this coupled with other evidence of contact between the parties was that Hassan provided the money that was used to pay some of the expenses of the drugs smuggling operation.
- Mr Trollope argued that this was evidence of a potentially highly damaging link between the Applicant and McQuillan and Hayward. We entirely agree. In our judgment, the evidence was for that very reason admissible. Mr Lawson QC had no option but to concede the evidence remained very much part of the trial. It was highly probative and the relevance obvious. The jury did not need detailed directions on its significance. Had they received the further directions demanded by Mr Trollope the only effect would have been to highlight the links between the alleged co-conspirators.
- The learned judge quite rightly decided the money laundering counts added nothing to the facts of this case. He did his best to simplify the jury’s task by withdrawing the counts. As far as the lack of directions are concerned, we ask ourselves what would the judge have said had he explained to the jury why he was withdrawing Counts 2 and 3 from them. He would have told them that he wished to simplify their task. In our judgment, such a direction would not have assisted the applicant in any significant way.
- This ground is unarguable, and we proceed to the second ground, which related to 6th to 24th February 1999 when the applicant was in Dubai.
- The issue is whether “the judge made a number of errors in his summing-up either by mis-stating the prosecution case or evidence or that of the defendant”. Mr Trollope QC (who did not appear below) founds this ground of appeal on a sentence of the judge’s summing-up which attracted no attention at trial. In it he said that the vessel was “in or around” Dubai in late-January - early-February. In fact, of course, the vessel was in Fujairah. It was the discussions about the vessel that were in Dubai as well as in Fujairah. But those discussions and their venue were not in issue at trial - the evidence of the provisioning company Trubell was agreed and read. We are told by Ms Ayling that there was evidence that McQuillan and possibly Hayward as well had twice visited Trubell Marketing in Fujairah. The judge was summarising what the jury knew. He said (page 12F):
“You know that the Kvedarna … was in or around Dubai in late January - early February. We know that from the Trubell evidence (which was read to you). It all seemed a bit strange to people in Trubell because cash was being given even before estimates were being given. Mr McQuillan has told you he was the Englishman who was dealing with Trubell - Ayman. At one stage Mr Ayman was introduced to Mr McQuillan (although he wasn’t using that name) as boss, who Mr McQuillan says was a friend of his. He was certainly an Englishman. We know from the stamps that Mr Hassan was also in Dubai for the first three weeks in February. You know from the fax that the co-ordinates can be transposed onto the chart which was found at Mr Hassan’s house.”
- So the uncontroversial evidence at trial was that the Kverdana was in Fujairah Port in February, and some of the discussions with Trubell relating to her took place in Dubai. Evidence was read to the jury of Mr Ayman, the sales manager for Trubell Marketing at their Fujairah office. Faxes had been received from the Kverdana requiring materials including fuel and charts for England. After language difficulties with the captain, an Englishman called saying he was a friend of the owner of the vessel. Mr Ayman arranged to meet him for payment to be made and for this purpose Ayman travelled to a hotel in Dubai. In all there were three meetings with the Englishman (the role that McQuillan claimed) at the hotel in Dubai, two of which were with the captain of the Kverdana. There was also a meeting with the Englishman’s boss, another white male. McQuillan admitted in evidence that he had dealt with Trubell for the supplying of the vessel. He admitted that the mobile phone with the UAE SIM card had been given by him in Dubai for use there. This telephone was found in Mr Hassan’s possession at the time of his arrest. McQuillan said he had left it at that address by mistake with all the other documents relating to the importation. In all these circumstances it is unsurprising that the judge’s concentration on Dubai went unremarked. That was where the applicant, McQuillan and Hayward were. That was where the arrangements relating to the ship took place. There is nothing in this ground of appeal. It was never the Crown’s case that the vessel had been docked in Dubai. What mattered was that meetings were held in Dubai.
- Before we leave this point, complaint is made of the summing-up of the reason given by the applicant for his presence in Dubai at this time. The judge recounted the applicant’s evidence:
“I went to Dubai on 6th February. My children had told me that it was my wife’s birthday, she would be away for four months in Pakistan, the children wanted her here but her father was sick so she suggested that we met in Dubai, but I did not see McQuillan and Hayward in Dubai.”
- It is said that the applicant went into greater detail as to his reasons for being in Dubai, and that the judge was obliged to rehearse that detail. That part of the evidence is to be found at p 106. The omitted points were that the applicant had 3 restaurants for sale there, she had an infected ear, and some friends of hers would be there. The additional detail adds nothing. This is a point without substance.
- Next we come to the documents found at the applicant’s home linking the applicant to the vessel. It was the Crown’s case that the documents relating to the vessel were in the applicant’s hands as a party assisting the importation into Denmark. He not only had the plan of the importation, but also details of the vessel and its arrival at Fujairah. Given the friendship between the applicant and McQuillan and Hayward it is inconceivable that they did not meet in Dubai over those days in February 1999. Against that background we look at the detail.
- The Crown’s case was that the presence of the applicant, McQuillan and Hayward in Dubai related to the importation of the cannabis into Denmark.
- When the Customs Officers searched the Applicant’s home they found a large quantity of significant documentation. Exhibits 80 to 83 were documents relating to the vessel ‘Kvedarna’ and its charter. Exhibit 76 was a document relating to the vessel moving through the Suez Canal. Exhibit 34 consisted of a new sea chart of the Pakistan coast, and paperwork relating to shipping co-ordinates and channel frequencies. The evidence was that these co-ordinates related to the Macran coast of Pakistan where, on the prosecution case, the cannabis was transferred at sea onboard the ‘Kvedarna’.
- The importance of the charter documents increased when considered with the fact that the charter of the ‘Kverdana’ was a time charter and the Applicant, on his own evidence, specialised in this field.
- The documents were found in different parts of his flat. Some were in coloured folders and some, for example the chart of the Macran coast, were found in the drawer of a table. In evidence the Applicant said he had no knowledge of any of these documents except for some which were unrelated to the ‘Kverdana’ which were to do with his ship chartering business. However most of them, including the charter documents for the ‘Kverdana’, the navigation co-ordinates and the chart of the Macram coast, he had no knowledge of. His evidence was they must have been left there by either Mr Hayward or Mr McQuillan on one of their many visits to his home. This was confirmed by Mr McQuillan when he gave evidence.
- The Judge summarised the Applicant’s evidence at page 27 of the summing up:
“The ‘Kverdana’ documents are not mine. I do do business and there had indeed been a chartering company which Hayward and McQuillan had. The pink file relates to Gold Five, ships for sale, shipments of rice and helping one of my customers get their money back. The blue file, uniform time charter, “I have not seen these before, they are not out of place, however. Maybe Hayward or McQuillan left them. Page 75 relating to the ‘Kverdana’ found in the desk drawer of my study but none of them are my documents. I didn’t know they were there. Anyway, they're rubbish. Why should I file rubbish? The fax from the drawer in the dressing table (the co-ordinates) I had not seen that before or any other connected document”.
- That passage is described as a purported summary by Mr Trollope and as such he submits it was totally inadequate.
- We do not agree. The Section 31 Judge, Mr Justice Penry-Davey, in his judgment at paragraph 19 referring to this complaint, said:
“Again in my judgment, the Judge was using a form of shorthand. He did not remind the jury of the detail of the evidence, but Mr Trollope’s submission is that what he said was misleading. In my judgment he set out the essence of the defence. It was a case that had not taken a long period of time. The Applicant had given evidence and not long before the summing up was taking place. It was, in my judgment, appropriate for the Judge to deal with it in the way that he did. Again there is nothing in the way that he dealt with it so as to provide a basis for saying that the conviction is unsafe”.
- We entirely agree with that comment. The thrust of the Applicant’s evidence before the jury was that the incriminating documents were not his and he had no knowledge that they were in his home. They had been left there by Hayward and McQuillan. Those assertions and other evidence the applicant gave on the topic were fairly summarised by the Judge in the passage we have referred to. The argument that the Judge did not deal sufficiently with this aspect of the case is quite untenable.
- We turn to the next ground of appeal. This involved the issue of the relationship between the applicant and a Denmark-based conspirator, Bensen Jensen, who was one of those arrested at the summer-house, and who has since been convicted and sentenced in Denmark. The evidence showed that the applicant returned from Dubai to England on the morning of 24th February. Bensen Jensen had stayed at the Cumberland Hotel on the night of the 23rd, and the suggestion is that they met on the 24th. The next day, the 25th, a card issued to Bensen Jensen was used to make two relevant telephone calls - first a 13-second call to the applicant’s home, followed 12 minutes later by another call, this time to a public call-box in Seymour Place, which was close to the applicant’s home, lasting nearly ten minutes. This was early on in the individual surveillance of the applicant, and the Crown did not call eye-witness evidence that the applicant took that call. The timing, origin, destination and duration of that call were not specifically challenged in the evidence. But the applicant denied that he had talked on the telephone to Bensen Jensen on this or any other occasion (save for an occasion in the summer of 1998 on the first and only occasion when - according to the applicant - he met Bensen Jensen).
- The Schedule showed that over the period 25th February to 11th April the Bensen Jensen card paid for 15 answered calls to a phone described as “Hassan Mobile” with a number ending in 300. This phone was known as Grover 1 at the trial. The Crown’s case was that the phone was found in the applicant’s pocket on his arrest. His case was that the mobile was not in his pocket (or personal possession) then but was in his family flat. The judge summed up both possibilities. Additionally, Bensen Jensen was arrested with a piece of paper with the Grover 1 number on it.
- The applicant denied responsibility for the mobile. He said he did not have one nor use one. He had called Bensen Jensen’s pager from an Edgware Road call-box on 11th April, but could not remember what (if anything) happened (there is no record on the Schedule of that call being completed). In relation to the other calls, in response to questions as to what he had said, he denied saying anything. He said that McQuillan had given the mobile to his (the applicant’s) son because it was broken and his son had mended it and taken it over. McQuillan’s explanation was that it was used communally. If that is right, who would be dealing with the call other than the applicant?
- But the applicant held to his defence that he had not spoken over the telephone to Bensen Jensen in those calls, though he did not dispute the information in the Schedule. The defence was: “We don’t know what was said and we don’t know who had the mobile phone, and we don’t know who had Bensen Jensen’s card”. (Summing up, page 15B)
- The factual case the judge summed up from pages 12 to 36. At the very end of his summary of the applicant’s evidence to the jury (page 31B), the judge is recorded as having said: “A number of the calls from Bensen Jensen card [sic] and Grover 1 were received by me”.
- That is a puzzling sentence. First, the suggestion that calls from Grover 1 were received by the applicant simply makes no sense, either in the abstract or in the light of the evidence given. Equally, it would not reflect the evidence to say either that a number of calls from [the] Bensen Jensen card were received by the applicant or were not received by the applicant. Mrs Justice Hallett suggested that this sentence was not properly transcribed. The case for that is as follows;
i) the sentence makes no sense as it stands;
ii) the sentence does not reflect the evidence given by the applicant, namely that he had telephoned a pager on the Bensen Jensen number in order to see if McQuillan and Hayward were coming on 11 April, but that apart he had never spoken to Bensen Jensen on the telephone, and indeed the mobile was broken at the time;
iii) there could be no doubt about the evidence - “I did not speak on the telephone” – he said and repeated on a number of occasions that he had not spoken on the telephone to Bensen Jensen except on that one occasion;
iv) if any such thing had been said, counsel could not have missed such an error, indeed, nor could the jury.
- We have considered this anxiously, and are driven to the conclusion that that sentence cannot accurately reflect what the judge said. As Ms Ayling said:
“If the learned judge had said [that] it would have been contrary to everything else that had been said in the summing-up and in the evidence.”
We are reinforced in this conclusion by Mr. Trollope’s recognition that “there is a corruption of the transcript here” – see transcript for 15th October 2001 at page 7 D-H. Any such corruption would inevitably be noticed.
- We note that in this 40-page transcript the notation “inaudible” occurs ten times. In all the circumstances, we are satisfied that that sentence can be safely ignored. The circumstantial evidence points to a garbled transcript. This was a clear case, and we are not persuaded that this sentence endangers the conviction. Mr. Trollope refers to it as a “brief but crucial misdirection”, but we are not satisfied that those words were said, for the reasons given above.
- Mr. Trollope then sought to persuade us by particular examples of his general complaint, namely that the judge had inadequately summarised the evidence in his summing up. He conceded that he could not contend that the defence had not been put. The judge did not go into great detail in summarising the evidence. He set out the essence of the defence, which was plain and straightforward. In cases such as this, the judge is in a good position to judge how much detail the jury require. The applicant had given evidence not long before the summing up. Like Mr. Justice Penry-Davey, in our judgment there is nothing in the way he summed the case up that would provide any basis for finding that the conviction was unsafe. As long as the defence is put as it certainly was here, this court will be slow to intervene on matters of detail and emphasis. The amount of detail is very much a matter for the trial judge. In our judgment, for those reasons, this is not a proper case in which to give leave to appeal against conviction. It cannot be said that this summing up endangers this conviction, which is based on strong circumstantial evidence.
- We come now to the application for leave to appeal against sentence. We are asked to take into account certain new material which has only recently come into the hands of the applicant, that is to say the Court Record of Judgments for the Danish Eastern High Court relating to the pleas, trial, verdicts and sentences of nine of those accused of taking part in this smuggling operation. These sentences were pronounced by the Danish court 10 months after the applicant had been convicted and sentenced to 11 years imprisonment in England for his part in the conspiracy.
- We have entertained submissions based on that document, but, as will be see, it is of limited assistance. First, the Danish judgment simply recites the court’s conclusions, and does not give either the court’s reasons or a summary of the evidence on which those reasons were based. Second, they were not trying the issue as to whether the applicant was an organiser or merely a subordinate. Third, no argument based on comparison of sentences is available to the applicant, because the authorites make clear that this court must ignore as irrelevant any lower statutory maximum for the offence in Denmark that there is here: see Faulkner and Thomas [1976] 63 Cr. App. R 295 and 296. “With great respect to the learned judge the view of this Court is that the maximum sentence under the corresponding law of the country into which the drugs are imported is no guide at all. It is quite an irrelevant consideration. What the sentencing court has to consider is all the circumstances of the offence and have regard to what the maximum sentence under the law of this country in relation to the breaches of which the appellants were found guilty”. The same applied to a disparity in severity of sentence based on grounds other than the disparate statutory maximum: see Lillie [1995] 16 Cr. App. R. (S) 539 where the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Taylor approved the decision that the disparity between the sentences passed by the appellant’s accomplices [abroad] and on himself [tried here] afforded no assistance. The criteria are those normally applied here. To the same affect, see Maguire [1997] 1 Cr. App. R. (S) 130 and Wagenaar and Prond [1997] 1 Cr. App. R. (S) 178. It will be observed that 6 years was the maximum sentence for this offence in Denmark, though we are not told whether this is still the case. But for the reasons set out in those authorities, it does not matter.
- The sentences passed by the Danish court were as follows:
i) Niels – Jorgen Jensen was sentenced to 8 years imprisonment. It was said that he “was a party to the planning and completion of the smuggling operation as well as the planning of the receipt of the cannabis in Denmark by financing the costs incurred in connection with the smuggling operation as well as participating in strategy meetings, in addition to which he was in contact with … unidentified co-perpetrators who were meant to pick up/purchase cannabis … in addition to which he upon his arrest was found in possession of a major sum of money … approximately D.K.K 2.7 million intended for the smuggling operation.
ii) Jan Ib [Bensen] Jensen was sentenced to 6 years imprisonment on the basis that he “participated in the planning and completion of the smuggling operation, and in his capacity as liaison between, among others, Perwaiz Hassan … whereby he received and communicated messages associated with the smuggling operation, in addition to which he was instrumental in handing over an amount of U.S $68,000 in February ’99 from Hassan in Great Britain to a co-perpetrator in Lithuania for the purpose of financing the smuggling operation, in addition to which he was a party to planning the receipt of cannabis in Denmark by making a summer cottage available for meetings related to the smuggling operation”. [He pleaded not guilty to the $68,000 charge.]
iii) McQuillan was sentenced to 6 years imprisonment. He was convicted on the basis a) that he was a party to the planning and completion of the smuggling operation, b) that he acted as liaison by receiving and communicating messages relating to the smuggling operation to Hassan, c) that he participated in strategy meetings, d) that he travelled to the United Arab Emirates in connection with the loading of cannabis on the Kvedarna and e) that he left for Denmark in April 1999 to participate in planning the receipt of the cannabis, and f) that he was found in possession of D.E.M 200,000 to be used for the smuggling operation.
iv) Hayward was sentenced to 6 years on like grounds as a), b), d) and f), but not c) or e).
v) the owner of the Kvedarna (Kosenko) was sentenced to 6 years “as a party to the planning and completion of the smuggling operation and for making it possible to hide the cannabis in the special room. He was part of the planning to receive the cannabis.
vi) the captain of the Kvedarna (Pimachinas) was sentenced to 5 years as a party to the planning and completion of the smuggling operation, including loading the cannabis in the Arabian Sea, and transporting it to Denmark.
vii) the applicant asserts that Ragulis had a central role, but he was only sentenced to 6 years. He was convicted on the basis that he was “a party to the planning and completion of the smuggling operation, and was instrumental in strategy meetings and acted as a liaison between several of the co-accused by receiving and communicating messages about meetings to be held and money to be transferred in order to finance the smuggling operation as well as messages relating to the loading of cannabis in the Arabian Sea in February 1999, and he was also instrumental in the plans related to the receipt of the cannabis in Denmark”.
- It seems to us that the first step in the sentencing exercise is to consider the case as it was before the trial judge, and to consider what effect, if any, the new material has.
- The judge in his sentencing remarks made three points. First, that this was a very large commercial enterprise. Second, that the evidence showed clearly that the applicant was one of the organisers, and third that it was no coincidence that he and his 2 friends were in the UAE at the same time as the vessel. In our judgment there was ample material to justify those conclusions, and the further conclusion that the applicant had a responsible role in smuggling activities.
- The guideline case here is that of Ronchetti [1998] 2 Cr. App. R. (S) 100: “Following a trial, the importation of 100 kilogrammes [of cannabis] by persons playing more than a subordinate role, should attract a sentence of seven years to eight years. Ten years is the appropriate starting point, following a trial, for importations of 500 kilogrammes or more by such persons. Larger importations would attract a higher starting point, which should rise according to the role played, the weight involved and all other circumstances of the case, up to the statutory maximum of 14 years”.
- It seems to us clear that the applicant was playing “more than a subordinate role” in this massive importation of cannabis resin, and that the description of “organiser” appropriately reflected his role in this conspiracy. We are not impressed by the submission that Judge Crocker’s assessment of the applicant’s role is not borne out by the Danish material – in our judgment no significant new fact has emerged except for the suggestion as to the U.S. $68,000, which we will ignore as it formed no part of the British proceedings. Indeed the concentration of the Danish court on the role of the applicant makes it clear that that court regarded him as an organiser and not a subordinate.
- The trial judge had the advantage of seeing and hearing both the applicant and McQuillan give evidence. He was in the best position to judge whether the applicant was an organiser or merely a subordinate. It is clear that there was ample evidence on which he could reach that conclusion. The sentence passed was in accordance with the guidelines. There is no case for giving leave to appeal sentence in our judgment. Accordingly these applications are refused.
