Gambler escapes jail after being caught with £42,000 stashed in car

Friday 30 September 2016

A man with a bad gambling addiction escaped prison today after being paid £1,500 to stash £42,000 in cash in his Mercedes and take it back to the UK from Jersey on the ferry.

Carl James Turney (29) from Chichester, was pulled over by Customs back in May on an overnight trip from the Island and caught with seven packages hidden in the back left passenger door.

Turney, a self-employed electrician, and father-of-two, admitted that he'd been approached by a man in the UK who knew that he frequently visited the Island with his wife and two young children and had been offered £1,000 if he collected some cash for him and another £500 to cover the cost of his travel and accommodation. He later told Police he'd planned to give the money to his dad who he worked for and who'd bailed him out with his gambling debts.

The court heard that Turney was approached by another man when he arrived at the hotel here, who got into the car and directed him to a rugby pitch. It was there they hid the packages in the car door.

Defence Advocate Jane Grace told the court Turney "had no knowledge of what the money was going to be used for, didn't know the details, merely suspected that it was connected with the proceeds of crime."

"It was tempting to him because of the considerable financial strain that he was under, caused by his gambling addiction that had cost him over £400,000 in the last ten years."

The Court also heard that he'd told Customs Officers he was more afraid of the man in the UK, than what was going to happen to him.

Advocate Grace told the Court that Turney had no previous convictions that linked him to organised crime, that this was the first time he'd undertaken this sort of activity and urged the Court to consider an alternative to a custodial sentence so that he could return to the support of his family and make a start in sorting out his life and his gambling problems.

In sentencing the Judge told Turney that drug trafficking causes real damage to the people of this Island and to think of the fact that he has two children of his own and of the damage he has done in helping the drug traffickers launder the proceeds in this particular case.

He said this case represents "a considerable amount of money and a considerable amount of drug trafficking" and that in normal circumstances there is no doubt this would result in a significant prison sentence, in excess of two years.

He said because of the exceptional circumstances surrounding the case, Turney's medical and psychological conditions, he was sentencing him to two year's imprisonment, suspended for two years.