Family threats made faux ‘golfer’ import drugs in car boot

Sunday 10 December 2017

A Scottish man who was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment after posing as a golfer in order to import over £150,000 of cannabis in a car says that he only did so because of threats to his family from a London-based criminal family.

Dundee-born James Edmund Church (59) was sentenced by Bailiff William Bailhache in the Royal Court on Friday.

Church was stopped by Customs officers as he disembarked the Condor Liberation from Poole in August in a Volvo V60 Saloon.

When questioned, he said that he was due to spend the week playing golf with friends and would be staying at the Highlands Hotel, St Brelade. Officers later opened his car boot, where they found a set of golf clubs, a grey metal tool case and a brown holdall.

The holdall was later swabbed, and found to contain traces of cocaine, which aroused suspicions. Church said this was because he used the drug recreationally.

Crown Advocate Emma Hollywood, prosecuting, told the Court that, upon further inspection of the boot area, officers found a hidden compartment. Inside was a plastic bag concealing a plastic box sealed with duct tape. More than 90 bars of cannabis lay within.

Drug expert reports suggested that these quantities could reach up to £170,000 on the street.

Later examination of the defendant’s iPhone found a message relating to ‘gear’ – one person said that they did not want any, another said they did. The iPhone didn’t contain any Jersey contacts, aside from details for the hotel.

Upon his arrest, Church immediately indicated that he was guilty. He was subsequently remanded in custody for 99 days – the equivalent of four months and 26 days’ imprisonment.

According to defending Advocate George Pearce, Church was “merely a foot soldier in this operation, and a reluctant one at that.”

He said that the offence had arisen from an unusual set of circumstances leading back to a failed car sale. Church – himself a former salesman who was unemployed due to a “debilitating” health condition which means he has to walk with a cane – had been due to sell a vehicle on behalf of a third party.

That vehicle was stolen from his driveway, and Church was subsequently left in debt. That debt, it turned out, was owed to a London-based family of criminals who apparently later issued threats relating to his children.

He therefore went about the drug trafficking, Advocate Pearce argued, in a bid to stop the threats and clear his debt.

The Court heard that Church was a “hardworking and dedicated father who places the needs of his children above his own” and that he was “ashamed” of his actions. He said that Church was well-supported by his family who had written letters in his favour. His daughter and her husband both attended Court.

Church was said to be ready to accept “any sentence the Court deems fit” and would welcome the opportunity to better himself in prison through an Open University course.

He was subsequently handed two years’ imprisonment. The drugs are to be destroyed.