“I’ve worked hard all my life”

Tuesday 23 October 2018

A woman accused of being a cannabis dealer, and laundering criminal cash, has strenuously denied any involvement in drugs during her second day in the witness box during her Royal Court trial.

Joanne Marie Jones (49) is being cross-examined by the prosecution who are arguing that her multiple businesses were simply ‘fronts’ for her drugs trafficking – allegations which she continues to deny.

The trial into whether Miss Jones concealed and spent money allegedly earned through drugs trafficking by transferring it into UK bank accounts, and buying property and six investment bonds worth just under £300,000 has entered its second week.

Miss Jones maintains that she has nothing to do with drugs throughout her testimony at the trial. She defended her record when facing questions from her own lawyer Advocate Haines last week.

Pictured: Joanne Jones maintains that she accrued her assets of over £1million by doing odd jobs and running beach concessions.

During the cross-examination of Miss Jones, Crown Advocate David Hopwood attempted to challenge the explanations she’d given for her finances, and point out where she had nothing to back-up her version of how she accrued in excess of £1million in assets.

Advocate Hopwood claimed that Miss Jones exaggerated her earnings from deckchair concessions at St. Brelade’s Bay in order to hide the extra cash he says is the proceeds from drugs trafficking. 

He also read her transcriptions of phone calls and text messages to Miss Jones which used what he thought to be codes referring to either criminal cash or drugs. During one phone call, a relative of Miss Jones spoke about the “money, er... tomatoes from the greenhouse.” Miss Jones said that “my family know not to talk about my case” and that her relative was “trying to do code” but that she was referring to the rent money from Miss Jones’s lodger.

Earlier on in the trial, Miss Jones told the Court that the reason so much of the £84,000 of cash found in her attic was in £50 and £20 notes was because she gave change to other business owners on or around St. Brelade’s Bay in exchange for these bigger notes.

Pictured: Miss Jones said that the reason she had so many £20 and £50 notes was because she used to give change to other business owners in St. Brelade's.

Grilling her about this explanation as well as her mentioning late on in her evidence that she earned these bigger denominations from organising stag and hen do's at the beach, Advocate Hopwood asked why she had failed to mention that in her Police interviews. Miss Jones responded: “It just popped into my head.”

Advocate Hopwood followed up: “Because you’re embellishing your story as you go along and these £20 and £50 notes are from drugs dealing?” Miss Jones denied both allegations.

The Crown Advocate took Miss Jones to text messages from her business partner detailing how much money they had taken at the deckchair concession on a day she wasn’t at the beach in order to suggest that the business wasn’t as much of a “goldmine” as she had previously claimed.

When taking Miss Jones through her financial transactions, Advocate Hopwood constantly asked the defendant whether she had any receipts or documentation to back up her explanations for various funds coming into her bank account.

Pictured: Miss Jones was taken through her accounts at length and asked to provide explanations for various transactions.

When Miss Jones said that she didn’t, Advocate Hopwood said: “Are you expecting us to accept this extraordinary tale of luck and good fortune based on nothing but your own say-so?”

At this point Miss Jones vowed: “I will never buy or sell anything else ever again without getting a receipt” – she also added that she didn’t realise she would have to provide all of that documentation. 

Throughout the cross-examination, Miss Jones maintained that she had accrued her wealth through hard work and being “good at buying and selling things”. She spoke at length about her extensive charity work and fundraising for Hospice after her mother died of cancer in 2008 and consistently denied having made any of her money from supplying drugs.

When asked in cross-examination about her numerous assets, Miss Jones said: “I’ve worked hard all my life”, to which Advocate Hopwood replied: “You have, Miss Jones, but not in a legitimate economy.” 

So far the trial has heard from prosecution witnesses including Police officers, a convicted drugs dealer, the property solicitor who helped Miss Jones buy a flat in Jersey and an accountant who had been tasked with analysing the Welsh woman’s accounts.

The case continues.