Pilot cleared but four jailed over drugs flights
17.11.07
Pilot Philip Barton, from Wigan, was cleared of drug smuggling charges after flying a passenger carrying £1.2m worth of cocaine into Blackpool Airport. Four other men were convicted and jailed for a total of 57 years.
Mr. Barton, 26, was acquitted by a jury at Liverpool Crown Court yesterday and discharged from the dock after a six-week trial. He was in court facing charges after 18 kilos of the drug were found in a plane which he landed at Blackpool Airport on February 24 last year.
Special Branch officers swooped after the flight from Flers, a small airfield in Northern France, touched down in Lancashire. Mr. Barton denied knowing about drugs and said that he had been duped, along with two other pilots, into believing he was flying a German architect into the UK.
The court heard that drugs had been flown in on two flights, the first of which, in November 2005, went undetected. It was only by chance the second consignment on Mr. Barton's flight was discovered; the firm that had hired out the plane become concerned when it was delayed and alerted the authorities.
Both planes had been flown from isolated air fields in Northern France to North West airfields where there were no customs or immigration officers. All the pilots were acquitted, but the four members of the gang who organised the illicit importation were jailed for a total of 57 years.
Judge Mark Brown expressed his concern at 'the ease with which light aircraft can fly to and from this country with passengers on board without immigration or customs knowing anything about it. It seems to me this trial should be a lesson to the authorities.'
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