Seven years' jail for drug driver
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• An eight-man drugs smuggling gang, including the truck driver who imported the narcotics, have all been jailed for their parts in a £2m smuggling conspiracy.
Lorry driver Keith Forrester of Lesley Park, Frith was sentenced to seven years for conspiring to import drugs at the end of a five-week trial at Canterbury Crown Court.
But the man on trial with him, John Henry Wisby from Sheppey, who had been accused of being the "central organiser" of the plot, was cleared.
Seven other men admitted their parts in the operation, some as organisers and some as couriers. They were: Billy Stevens, of Beulah Grove, Croydon; Stephen King, of Pikefish Lane, Paddock Wood; David Wright, of Raeburn Road, Sidcup; Louis Payne, of Wrotham Road, Meopham; Michael Malone, of Jerome Road, Aylesford; Nigel Ellis, of Tadema Road, London; and his son Marc, of Downway, North°It.
Prosecuting counsel David Fisher told the jury that cannabis, amphetamines and ecstasy were brought into the country hidden in Forrester's truck, while Stevens and King hired vehicles which were used by King overseas.
The first two smuggling missions took place on 1 October 1996 and 17 June last year. On the first occasion customs found 287kg of resin and 155kg of herbal cannabis with a combined street value of £1,650,000 hidden on Forrester's lorry.
On Nigel Ellis's vehicle they discovered 162,000 amphetamine pills weighing 57kg and 10,000 ecstasy tablets weighing 3.55kg with a value of 4713,000.
In all there were nine drug-related trips using trucks driven by Forrester or Ellis and shadowed by King and Malone, although some may have been test runs. Customs kept the men under observation and bugged their phone calls until the arrests in 1997.
When they searched the defendants' homes they recovered £1,700 from Malone's address and £20,000 from Payne's. Traces of cannabis were found on the banknotes.
Forrester claimed in his defence that he had nothing to do with importing cannabis. He said he was self-employed working on a contract for Versa-Pak at Erith and also imported tobacco and beer from the Continent which he sold to family and friends.