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Cost of drugs: 11 years
Page 24
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• Lancashire haulage contractor Ronald Hennessy has been found guilty of drug smuggling at Preston Crown Court, and sentenced to 11 years imprisonment. The driver of one of his tankers, Colin Gowan, who admitted drug smuggling charges, has been jailed for six years. Gowan's son Warren, who acted as driver's mate to his father on one trip, was given nine months' youth custody.
Hennessy, sole proprietor of Hennessy Transport, had denied two counts of illegally importing cannabis resin.
6 •
Prosecuting, Peter Birkett QC said that all three were charged with importing 5674 of cannabis resin concealed in a specially constructed compartment in the cargo tank of one of Henriessey's road tankers. Hennessy and Coln Gowan were also charged with a previous similar offence.
Hennessey's son Stephen was a director of Tankhaul, and in October 1989 the company subcontracted Hennessy to take a load of benzyl cyanide to Spain.
The tanker was crewed by Gowan and his son and returned to the UK via Portsmouth. It was kept under surveillance by Customs and police officers and was followed to Tankhaufs yard at Ince, near Wigan, where it was searched.
Blocks of cannabis with a street value of about 22m were found in a secret compartment together with the residue from a previous consignment. Part of that haul had been discovered by two schoolgirls in a hay barn on a farm where Hennessy kept three ponies. Former Hennessy driver Harold Lamb said that he had turned down an approach from Hennessy to bring in what he understood were drugs.
Denying all knowledge of the cannabis, Hennessy claimed that he had the secret compartment constructed so that the vehicle could be run on red diesel.
Describing it as a major crime, Judge Michael Lever QC said Hennessy had designed the secret compartment and had been totally in charge of the operation, importing drugs on a massive scale. He was a hard, shrewd and ruthless man, the hallmark of whose character was greed. It might be that the various businesses with which he was connected were ostensibly run by others, but Hennessy was plainly the driving force.
It had been an operation that needed planning and carrying out with care. Coln Gowan was by a long way subordinate to Hennessy, but he had been his lieutenant. He accepted that Warren Gowan had merely been a pawn in the game.