Two members of the ‘Freshwater Five’ – all of whom maintain they are not guilty of a £53m cocaine smuggling plot – will have their convictions considered by the Court of Appeal next week.
Lawyers acting for Jonathan Beere and Daniel Payne will present judges with fresh expert evidence they say disproves the prosecution’s case.
It is said the men conspired to use a fishing boat to collect drugs from a containership in the English Channel and later deposited them in Freshwater Bay off the Isle of Wight.
Law charity APPEAL says it has uncovered new evidence based on radar data from a law enforcement vessel, which it claims the Crown failed to hand over at trial.
Emily Bolton, Director of APPEAL and solicitor for the ‘Freshwater Five’, said:
“This will be the first time a court has had an opportunity to consider this new radar data, which undermines the prosecution case on several fronts.
“Had the jury been told about this evidence it is highly unlikely these men, who have always protested their innocence, would have been convicted.
“We are hopeful that the Court of Appeal will recognise this by quashing the convictions.
“After years of wrongful imprisonment, all five men deserve to finally be reunited with their families.”
The ‘Freshwater Five’ were sentenced to a total of 104 years’ imprisonment at Kingston Crown Court in 2011 after being convicted by an 11-1 majority jury verdict.
Scaffolding business owner Jonathan Beere, fishing boat skipper Jamie Green and crewmember Zoran Dresic were each handed down 24 years’ imprisonment, while fishermen Daniel Payne and Scott Birtwistle received 18 and 14-year sentences respectively.
At trial, The Crown alleged that in the early hours of May 30, 2010 Jamie Green’s fishing boat, the Galwad-Y-Mor, manoeuvred in the wake of the MSC Oriane in order to collect 250kg of cocaine jettisoned from the containership, which had travelled to the English Channel from Brazil.
No evidence was put forward showing that drugs had been present on either vessel, but holdalls of cocaine strung along a rope found floating in Freshwater Bay were recovered by Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) officers the following day.
In 2018, the Crown Prosecution Service disclosed radar data from a Border Agency vessel which had been monitoring the MSC Oriane and Galwad-Y-Mor.
The failure to analyse or disclose the ECDIS is described as a “major failing” by Joel Bennathan QC and Annabel Timan in court submissions made as part of the appeal application on behalf of Beere and Payne.
They say the Galwad-Y-Mor never got sufficiently close to the path travelled by the MSC Oriane to permit the transfer of drugs.
It is also claimed another small vessel travelled to Freshwater Bay, where the drugs were recovered, shortly after the Galwad had sailed nearby. This alternative suspect vessel was not known about at trial.
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