Note - December 27th 2023. - I’ve never gotten around to finishing or even proofing the below, but I’m certain what I did have time to piece together demonstrates the systematic corruption and blatant hypocrisy of the legal proceedings.

The Arrest - July 15th 2021

8am July 15th, eyes half closed wondering why the hell the postman is banging on the door so loud, nudging my then partner Jade to answer it, assuming it’ll no doubt be the millionth boohoo delivery of the month. The relief of not having to be the one to head downstairs and take care of the banging was short lived, the moment the door opened ‘MERSEYSIDE POLICE’ is announced. At this point I’m not concerned, more annoyed that my sleep was about to be interrupted further than anything else, through the pandemic and the media tidal wave that came our way we’d gotten used to regular police visits and I assumed this was another COVID related call.

The police enter the bedroom and it quickly becomes apparent it’s a dosen of the search team and not just a couple of officers here to ask questions. Still though, I had nothing to hide and with a tone of confidence I asked ‘what is it this time?’ “We’re here to execute an arrest warrant on behalf of Jersey Police”. My confidence turns to a mixture of confusion and dread, I hadn’t spoken to anyone from Jersey in over 3 years, what the f*** is going on?! The police knew nothing, or so they claimed, tasked to execute the arrest and search warrant, then hand me over to Jersey Police once they arrived off the plane. They searched the house inside and out, a separate team hit the gym simultaneously and searched it top to bottom, both searches unsurprisingly proved fruitless, they’d come 7 years too late if they’d hoped to find anything shady.

Just as I had gained some sense of normality back in my life after 6 months of campaigning and intense press, back on the rollercoaster we go. I had absolutely no idea what was ahead of me. Was it a mistake? Had my name been thrown into a conversation that it shouldn’t have been? Could it be something from years back? My head was a mess. The police were decent with us, as they had been in the dosens of encounters we’d had over the last 12 months.

Into the police van we went, my restless mind generating a million and one questions, like an annoying kid in the back seat ‘What’s this about? What’s the charge? What does the warrant say? Surely one of you knows something?’ they remained staunch in their position of knowing nothing, Jersey Police will tell you when they get here, they said. It was 10am by the time I arrived at the station to be processed, Jersey Police did not arrive until the following day to fly me to the island.

Historic Charge

We landed on Jersey’s tarmac and made a quick dart out of the plane’s rear exit, skipped all security and headed to a moody looking side room in the customs area, presumably where they usually bring people in for the targeted searches. It was there I met the lead investigating officer Rob Davison, I was quick to ask him why I was there, and that I hadn’t spoken to anyone from Jersey in years. He informed me that my arrest was in relation to an offence in the spring of 2018 with Jersey local Anthony Dryden involving 3.1kg of cannabis, an old friend of mine that I’d helped out source some cannabis on 3 occasions in May of 2018, I’d thought nothing of it for years. The evidence had been stumbled upon by chance whilst investigating Tony for a separate offence in 2019 unrelated to me. Tony had been arrested in the summer of 2019 for a cannabis importation from Poland into Jersey and as a result had his mobile seized, his mobile had been sent off to be analysed by the cyber unit had retrieved messages between him and I a year earlier on the messaging app ‘Signal’. Rob told me that although Anthony had deleted the messages from his device, his cloud had already stored a backup and they’d retrieved his messages from there, ‘just bad luck’ he said.  I was read the official charges, charge 1 importation of cannabis and charge 2 removal of criminal property, the second charge relates to my co-accused mailing cash off the island in the post. The officers were unable, or potentially unwilling, to explain why it had taken them years to act on this, instead they hurried me out of the airport and into the car, destination Jersey Police HQ.

Magistrates July 16th 2021 - Bail

After the second sleepless night in a police station, I headed for Jersey Magistrates court for our case to be officially ‘committed’, it was here I made my first bail application. Magistrate Harris heard our case, the duty lawyer gave a long spiel about how old this charge was, and of the extensive community and charity work I’d done in the time since and that I should be granted bail as I did not pose a flight risk or risk to the public. The prosecution then had their turn, they were surprisingly favourable at this point, they informed the Magistrate that given that this case was from many years ago they had no concern of me interfering with the investigation if I were to be given bail. The Magistrate agreed to grant me bail, on the condition that I surrender my passport, remain on the island, attend the police station each morning at 10am and return to court the following Monday to have an electronic GPS tag fitted as there was no one available to do it that same day. Over the weekend I was out on bail, after various recommendations, I contacted Crown Advocate Julian Gallop, the most prestigious lawyer on the island, representing Baker & Partners who take on the majority of the high-profile cases in Jersey, including that of Curtis Warren. Julian agreed to take my case on, providing I was happy with his astronomical fees. At this point, I felt super confident everything was going to work out, that is until I returned to court Monday morning.

Magistrates July 19th 2021 - Bail Revoked

We entered court that morning to find a different Magistrate sitting, ‘Bridget Shaw’, though that shouldn’t have made any difference to our position as we were only there to have my tag fitted. My lawyer insisted we’d be in and out of court within 2 minutes, just a formality he says, then we’ll head to the office and start putting our plan together.

The prosecutor took the lead, he confirms that the tag is available to be fitted today, and that there are no further concerns to raise. I felt relieved as he took his seat, he’s the opposition and I expected him to, well, oppose, but he didn’t make any notable fuss. 

My lawyer highlighted that I had adhered to all my conditions over the weekend and that we’d appeared today to simply have the official instruction passed to have the tag fitted. We hadn’t been in there long, but Shaw called for a recession and disappeared into her chambers for what felt like the longest 20 minutes of my life.

Shaw returns and wastes no time getting to her decision, ‘I’m going to ignore the fact you were given bail on Friday; I’m not treating this as a continuation, I’m treating it as a fresh application and as such I’m denying you bail. I broke down, I had no idea how that had just happened, it’s unheard of to be given bail in such a way and have it revoked with no change in circumstances, heartbroken. I would later learn that Shaw had gotten herself in trouble intervening in cases where she had personal associations and was currently on some form of ‘probation’ for it, and had been releasing her wrath on every soul that walked into the court.

To add to this, my co-accused Anthony, who had additional charges including those we shared, was a prolific offender and had no mitigation to offer the court whatsoever, was granted bail.

Returning to Jersey Prison July 19th 2021

Well, I never thought I’d see this place again. Fortunately, and despite my mental state seriously declining at this point, Jersey prison is fairly decent place for what it is, it holds all of 120 prisoners and for the most part is laid back. It wasn’t until I arrived at HMP Liverpool months later that I experienced ‘real’ prison again.

July 26th Disclosure

The prosecution had sent over the disclosure bundle, essentially a few thousand pages of every piece of evidence, interview and statement they have regarding your case. Having read through it, it was clear they’d had every bit of evidence they needed for over 3 years, and not a strand of information to suggest why they’d done nothing with it in so long. I can only speculate, but for what most courts would consider a small amount of cannabis, I suspect they would never have pursued this case had I not put my head above the parapet late 2020.

Early 2021 the Jersey Evening Post published a 4-page article on my rehabilitation entitled ‘Prison Inmate to Community Hero’, despite the article specifically covering the positive Jersey Customs suddenly felt it was then worth pursuing this historic charge and initiated proceedings to obtain a European arrest warrant. I’m not keen on tinfoil hat theories, but it seems awfully convenient that this evidence had sat on a shelf for over 3 years and just 2 weeks after I feature in the local press, they decide it’s worth to act on, coincidence? You tell me.

The disclosure also included our text records, and in the May of 2018 an exchange between Tony and I showing I’d agreed to do him a temporary favour to sort this out, then when he asked for a fourth time I refused and reminded him I was long out of the game, but that I’d put him in touch with somebody I knew he could contact regarding it. My exact wording was ‘retired’, I provided Tony with a phone number and that was the last time I ever heard from him, all of this supported by the evidence the police had.

August 4th – House of Cards

This is where things really started to nose dive. The previous day we’d re-applied for bail, and the bundle of information we provided to both the court and the prosecutor included all the information and contact details surrounding 3 business details I had in motion that I needed to attend to.

ITV ran with an article stating that I had been arrested for drug importation and money laundering, no context given in way of dates or what the money laundering actually meant. My second charge, ‘removal of criminal property’ is simply for receiving money in my hand, for example if you sold a stolen iPhone to somebody, you’d be guilty of ‘handling stolen goods’ for selling the device, and for ‘removal of criminal property’ for taking money for it. Technically, removal of criminal property is a subsection of the Money Laundering Act, so essentially, you’ve become a money laundered, although to normal people like you and I, the term money laundering implies ‘washing money’ through legitimate enterprises, but that’s not what it means. ITV’s misleading article cost me three of the biggest commercial deals of my entire life, including a huge contract with JD Sports for my clothing line.

October

We’d received the refined and final bundle from the prosecutor that he intended to provide the court on sentencing day, which was riddled with inaccuracies and prejudice toward me as opposed to my local-born co-accused, though it is common for Jersey to persecute outsiders to greater extents.  

Sentencing works on a scale they called the ‘Campbell Guidelines’, for X number of drugs, you receive X months of time, the prosecutor, in his own words, states that the ‘strictly mathematical’ starting point this charge should be 3 years, before reductions are made for guilty pleas and mitigation, however despite his 20 years’ experience, he’d gotten his math wrong and added on an additional 6 months.

He'd also included a fourth charge, relating to an importation Tony went on to do 6 months after we last spoke in 2018. The customs expert, and the police expert, both submitted statements that I had no involvement in this importation whatsoever, but now this maverick prosecutor had decided he was going to go against the recommendations of both police and customs and attempt to prosecute me for a fourth importation I had no involvement in, or any awareness of.

In additional, he had requested consecutive sentences for the importation and the removal of criminal property, meaning I’d be given a sentence for each of them and have them added together. This isn’t how it works, when the charges relate to a transaction, it’s considered double jeopardy or double counting to add them together, so they run concurrently (side by side) and you serve whichever is the highest. We assumed this was simply an error though, and didn’t think we had anything to worry about with this as the law is black and white on this issue.

Sentencing Day January 5th 2022

I still felt confident headed to court for sentencing, the best-case scenario was community service which seemed extremely like, the worst case somewhere in the region of 16 months, meaning I’d have been released in a matter of weeks as you only serve 50% of your sentence in prison. What’s the worst that could happen? Well…

Tony’s lawyer went first, with very little say as he’d not done anything with his life in the years since, she was quick to return to her seat to allow Julian to have his shot. Julian went to town, starting with the fact we were now almost 4 years since the offence happened, he reeled off all my awards, highlighted that I’d received references from barristers, politicians, doctors etc. for the purposes of character references for court, listed all the television work and mental health campaigning I’d done and stated I had the best mitigation he’d seen in his entire career. What more could we ask of this man, he asks, he’s completely transformed his life and is a symbol of rehabilitation, I ask the court today to the right thing and allow this man to return to his life on community service. He also made a strong point of highlighting that the law states the sentencing should be concurrent and not consecutive, which I’ll list further down.

The Judges, of which in Jersey there are 4 rather than one which is pretty intimidating, heard both sides of the argument, the lead bailiff highlighted that the prosecutor’s maths were wrong regarding my sentencing and that mathematically it should be less, which was a relief to see he’d noticed it as I had, although later would prove to be irrelevant. It seemed to be going well, we recessed for lunch before we’d return for the decision, the officers in the holding cells of the court said they were extremely impressed and expected me to get a good outcome.

We return an hour later; we’re asked to stand as the decision is read out. The first 60 seconds sounded extremely positive, until it was followed by ‘however’, the bailiff then proceeded to sentence both Tony & I to 2 years imprisonment for the cannabis, and 1 year imprisonment for removal of criminal property, to be served consecutively (added together), a total of 3 years imprisonment. I couldn’t believe it, not only did the Judge himself that the math was wrong, he decided to stick with it anyway, on top of which, going outside of the legal guidelines to apply double jeopardy and sentence us twice for the same offence. Having looked into this thoroughly in the weeks that followed with my lawyer, NEVER in the history of Jersey Law has this happened, we are the one and only case that has been given consecutive sentences for a singular transaction offence, make what you will of that.

Tony & I received identical sentences, despite the fact he had further charges extending a further 18 months, a more extensive criminal history and had no mitigation to offer vs the extensive 200 pages of mitigation we provided. The fourth charge, that I had nothing to do with, had also been allowed to stick, making it appear on paper that I was involved into the beginning of 2019, when I had no contact, involvement, or knowledge of any of it. I’ll be uploading my disclosure bundle in the coming weeks which includes the police and customs statements proving this.

The law is clear on the consecutive and concurrent sentencing, see below for how it has been treated in EVERY other case that has been heard in Jersey’s Royal Court.

Consecutive/Concurrent

Consecutive vs. Concurrent

AG V Safapour [2020] JRC003 (Crown Advocate Pedley)

If the money laundering offence were to be sentenced separately, it would naturally attract a concurrent rather than consecutive sentence because it was all part of one transaction.

In our judgement, a Valler uplift for count 10 is not appropriate. While the money laundering offence is separate from the drug trafficking, there would, in our view, be too great an element of double counting to make it propionate to sentence it separately or to increase the starting point on the drugs offence.

AG v Hole Rice and Rodriguez [2018] JRC 062A

10.77kg cannabis & 3,454 subutex imported and £115,000 cash exported. 3-year 6-month sentence, concurrent.

The Press Coverage

Credit to the Jersey Evening Post, their stand-in Editor in Chief attended court personally to report on my sentencing and he put together a balanced, honest and fair write up of the day in court. Their headline read ‘Reformed drug dealer who made headlines back in jail for years-old smuggling plot’, I couldn’t argue with that, it’s the truth, and the article goes on to mention the extension mitigation, the age of the case, my substantial character references. The article can be found here https://jerseyeveningpost.com/news/2022/01/06/reformed-drug-dealer-who-made-headlines-back-in-jail-for-years-old-smuggling-plot/

The Liverpool Echo however, from 500 miles away, ran the first UK mainland article on our sentencing with a dangerously misleading headline ‘Anti lockdown gym boss revealed to be ‘professional drug dealer’ followed by an article written in such a way to mislead, vilify and generally give the impression all of this had happened simultaneously to my positive works. It’s worth noting, I was never ‘anti-lockdown’, I was and remain pro-science, and stand with the World Health Organisation in that long-term lockdowns are not a sustainable answer and have a tremendously negative impact on both health and economy. Unfortunately, the Echo is owned by Mirror group, so the British press mimicked much of what the Echo had written, which is why I’ve had no choice but to write this blog to provide accuracy and context.

The Hypocrisy

To add insult to injury, the longer I’d spent in Jersey the more I’d heard of how the island had been campaigning to become a world leader in cannabis production and had been boasting in the press of how relaxed their rules are on cannabis related products. Covered in both these articles https://businesscann.com/jersey-continues-to-position-itself-as-regional-cannabis-leader-as-it-issues-5th-cultivation-licence/ & https://www.ft.com/content/f4c11c25-78aa-4dd7-bb4b-98af86454749