Belgians release Brit driver
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Essex owner-driver Michael Wheeler, who was sentenced to serve three years in a Belgian jail in January for drug running, has been released.
His return to the UK on 26 April followed an appeal by his solicitors which vindicated claims by his sister Julie Marshall that he was arrested for being "in the wrong place at the wrong time" during a police shoot-out with a drugs gang last fiddler 1 CM14-20 Jan 1996).
Wheeler had been driving through Veurne in Belgium en route from Italy to Calais when a car driven by undercover police forced him to pull over. A car following Wheeler's lorry was also stopped—police and sniffer dogs failed to find drugs in Wheeler's trailer. But Danneke Neale of the Driver's Family Helpline says Marshall has not been acquitted of the crime by the Belgian authorities. He was told they had taken into account the amount of time he had already served," she says.
• Runcorn driver John Warburton, charged with conspiring to import cannabis after he was found in a South London garage raid by Customs last year (CM6-12 Aug 1998), has had his trial adjourned until 6July.