It took the court just one hour to find Stuart Silvester not guilty of being knowingly concerned in Jersey’s largest heroin importation on 10 December 2004.
The seizure was the biggest haul of class A drugs ever recovered in Jersey, valued at between £1.4m and £2.2m, and was hidden in secret compartments in Mr Silvester’s car.
But he told the court that he had been convinced he was being paid £500 with travel expenses to drop off cash, not drugs.
During his two hours on the witness stand Mr Silvester also told the court about threats to him and his partner, delivered by his co-accused while they were at Rouge Bouillon police station and at La Moye prison.
Mr Silvester had been asked to take money to Jersey by an acquaintance called Darren Andrews and left his car in a pub car park so the money could be hidden in it.
He then picked it up and drove to Portsmouth to take the ferry to Jersey.
When he met Andrews the next day at the car park of the Apollo Hotel, police swooped and arrested him and the other co-accused, Andrews, Joao David Andrade and William Swinburne.
Mr Silvester told the court yesterday that he was shocked when the police told him later that night that they had found £2.5m worth of heroin in his car.
‘I was gobsmacked.
My world fell apart,’ he told defence Advocate David Cadin.
He added that Andrade and Andrews had threatened to kill his partner and child, and that he had spent the last year in the vulnerable prisoners’ unit at La Moye.
