Airport drugs haul had street value of £250k

Jamie Malcolm Ferbrache, 27, and Daniel Mark Gauvain, 28, deny the importation, while Luke Arron Blondel, 37, who was working as an Aurigny baggage handler at the time, admits it and is awaiting sentence.

Mr Gauvain chose not to give evidence.

Mr Ferbrache had the cannabis in his suitcase when he and Mr Gauvain returned to the island after a trip to Manchester.

Blondel removed the drugs from the suitcase in the aircraft hold whilst unloading baggage and CCTV showed him putting it in the baggage truck.

It is the prosecution case that the three men were acting together.

In his closing statement, Crown Advocate Chris Dunford, prosecuting, said the chances of Mr Gauvain putting drugs in Mr Ferbrache’s suitcase without his knowledge were so unlikely that they could be dismissed.

He asked the court to consider why each of the men had paid for excess baggage when it was accepted that what each of them left Guernsey with could have fitted into single bags.

‘It’s because they knew that they would be bringing the drugs back in one of the cases,’ he said.

When his suitcase was searched on leaving Guernsey, Mr Gauvain was carrying an Adidas rucksack that appeared to be empty. The drugs which Blondel removed from the aircraft hold were in an Adidas rucksack.

‘If the rucksack that Mr Gauvain took to Manchester was not the same one that the drugs were found in, what happened to the original rucksack?' said Advocate Dunford.

‘If someone else did this, how could they have co-ordinated things with Mr Blondel who collected it on landing?’

Advocate Dunford urged the court not to look at points in isolation but to consider the accumulative weight of the evidence.

When giving evidence, Mr Ferbrache accepted that the drugs were in his suitcase but said he had not known how they had got there. While in Manchester he had taken cocaine, crack cocaine, and heroin and his memory of what had happened was very poor.

Police medical examiner Dr Michael McCarthy told the court that Mr Ferbrache had been showing no signs of withdrawal when he examined him in custody.

For Mr Ferbrache, Advocate Liam Roffey said his client had taken the very unusual step of naming his supplier in court which supported his claim that he had taken the drugs.

A single fingerprint of his client’s, which was found on the fifth of 17 layers of packaging around the cannabis, proved he had touched the plastic bag but not that he had wrapped the drug or even touched it, said counsel.

For Mr Gauvain, Advocate Phoebe Cobb the prosecution had not proved its case against her client to the requisite standard.

Mr Ferbrache’s evidence had included so many inconsistencies that it should be dismissed in its entirety rather than the court selecting negative bits to use against her client.

Her client’s fingerprints were not found on any of the packaging and the only thing against him was speculation.

The case continues.