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Its give and take in foreign jails
Page 7
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FAMILY AND friends of a Yorkshire operator jailed in France for allegedly smuggling £500,000 worth of cannabis have launched a campaign for his release.
Paul Watson, (below), owner of Leeds-based Principal Logistics, flew to Spain to pick up a tractor from one of his former employees and drive it back to the UK.
While he was there he was asked if he could take a loaded trailer with him and was told that another driver would meet him en route to San Sebastian. Watson eventually agreed to take the trailer all the way to Gent in Belgunn. However, he was stopped by French Customs on the Al in Lille on 25 September and a tonne of cannabis was found in his load of pottery.
Watson, who protests his innocence. is being held on remand in prison at Arras. He can be held for up to two years without a charge and faces up to 10 years in jail if found guilty.
Watson's partner, Sarah Wilson, says he agreed to take the load because it had all the correct paperwork and indicated that the second carrier was Austrian logistics giant LKW Walter; a firm he had dealt with for over eight years.
"After Paul was arrested he was questioned without a legal representative,"she reports. "Then when he appeared before magistrates it appears all his answers were translated incorrectly by the inter preter. There are 800 men in the prison and only three are English. Since his arrest we have been forced to close down his business, making four people redundant. I have only seen him once and he was in a dreadful state and has lost a lot of weight."
A spokeswoman for the Foreign Office confirms that Paul Watson is on remand. The British consulate has visited him and is in contact with his family.
• As CM went to press reports were coming in of UK driver Tim Andrews' imminent release from jail in Greece.
Andrews vvas jailed in June after 14 stowaw ays were found on board his truck at Patras (CM 17 July). He protested his innocence but changed his plea after his Greek lawyer told him this would secure a small line and deportation.