Owner-driver held in France
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• A Doncaster owner-driver is being held on remand in a French jail on suspicion of smuggling more than 500kg of cannabis.
Subcontractor Arthur Shipley was returning from Barcelona for Wakefield-based Cresta Freight Services when he was arrested at the French border in Carcassonne on Thursday 11 December. It was not until the following Monday that Shipley's wife discovered from the British Consulate that he was in prison: she is now trying to arrange legal representation.
"We are trying every angle to prove his innocence," she says. "We have been married for 15 years and I know how violently opposed to drugs he is." Shipley has not been formally charged but under French law he can be held for up to a year. Cresta Freight says three or four of its subcontractors working in Spain have been arrested on suspicion of drug smuggling in the past year. "We had to pay £4,500 to release the cargo," it says. 'The French still won't release the trailer which is on weekly rental."