THE convictions of three British men for a plot to smuggle five tons of cocaine from Colombia were not based on illegally intercepted email evidence, top judges have ruled.
Barnsley man Robert Rich, 46, of Burton Road, and accomplices Russell Knaggs, 44, and Phillip Hadley, 58, are serving sentences totalling 52 years after they were convicted of the conspiracy in 2012.
The trio were said to have conspired with others, including a Colombian serving time in a UK jail.
The case reached court again last December amid accusations that vital evidence was the result of illegal email monitoring by law enforcers in America.
It revolved around a Yahoo account, which members of the gang had used to secretly communicate with each other through draft emails.
Lawyers at the Court of Appeal questioned how prosecutors got their hands on such a vast array of messages between the gang.
But this week, returning to the London court to reject their appeals, three top judges said they were satisfied the evidence had been lawfully gathered.
Yahoo explained the material came from automatically saved snapshots of messages, which stayed on its server, said Lady Justice Sharp.
“In our view, there is no proper basis for the suggestion that the Yahoo email evidence adduced at trial was the product of unlawful monitoring or unlawful snapshotting of any sort,” she said.
“The consistent evidence of the Yahoo witnesses was that the evidence was not the product of such conduct and the evidence... provides a clear explanation of why that was so.”
The court was told Rich was the ‘man on the ground’ in South America, while also being responsible for meeting contacts, and for contact with serving prisoner Knaggs, of Marsh Gate, Conisbrough, who played an “organisational” role in the failed smuggling plot from his cell at Lowdham Grange Prison in Nottinghamshire.
Hadley, of Humberston Fitties, near Cleethorpes, was to provide money and to arrange contacts, including travel to South America.
Another man also serving time in Lowdham Grange, 57-year-old Colombian prisoner Jesus Anibal Ruiz-Henao, was to use his connections to source the drugs.
All four were convicted of conspiracy to import cocaine at two trials at Birmingham Crown Court in 2012.
Knaggs was jailed for 20 years, Hadley for 18 years, Ruiz-Henao for 16 years and Rich for 14 years.
They appealed on the basis that evidence relating to the Yahoo emails known as “the slimjim account” had been wrongly put before jurors.
Further evidence gathered in Holland was also wrongly included in the trial, they claimed.
Giving judgment, Lady Justice Sharp, who heard the appeals with Mr Justice Sweeney and Mr Justice Bryan, rejected the men’s complaints.
The trial judges were “entitled to admit” the disputed material, she said, and it was far from the only evidence against the men.
The prosecution cases against them were “overwhelming”, she added.
The appeals of Knaggs, Hadley and Rich were dismissed, and an application by Ruiz-Henao for permission to appeal was refused.
