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Logan's let out of France rorit haul
Page 10
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• by Chris Tindall Jeff Logan, the truck driver serving seven years in an appalling French jail for drug smuggling, has been released after serving less than hair Ns sentence.
Logan was arrested at Coquelles, near Calais in May 2000 when police discovered 117kg of cocaine in a load he had picked up in Holland. He denied smuggling but was found guilty and sentenced to seven years' imprisonment and fined £5.8m. This was later reduced to £5,000, which his family paid.
Logan's wife, Isobel, complained to the Foreign Office about the case and the conditions her husband was subjected to in the notorious rat-infested Maison d'Arret prison in Douai, northern France.
She says she received no help from either the Foreign Office or the British Consulate, and vows to take this further.
We are only just starting now, we are warming up to complain," she warns. "When this happened to [Jeff] I asked why hadn't anyone done more about this before. But the Foreign Office is unhelpful and families give up: they don't have the strength."
Logan's MEP, Professor Neil MacCormick, agrees that a huge problem in Europe exists and truck drivers find it almost impossible to prove their innocence when illegal substances are discovered in their loads. In the cases I have dealt with, families are extremely concerned that plausible cases of innocence have not been thoroughly investigated," he says.
The Logan family's solicitor, John Macadam, says life for the family will not be the same now. He adds: "But today is a day for quiet celebration.'