Laura Stockdale’s client found not guilty of supply of wholesale quantities of cocaine

Laura Stockdale’s client EM stood trial with two other defendants for being concerned in the supply of Class A and B drugs at Lewes Crown Court. Various drugs, including a 1.01kg block of cocaine with street value of up to £24,000, had been found in a black suitcase in the back of a truck registered and insured to EM. The Crown alleged that EM was part of Albanian organised crime group (‘OCG’), and that, following the police’s arrest of another OCG member earlier that day, EM had been tasked with moving the drugs and cleaning up the flat in Hove where the drugs had been stored.

EM denied any knowledge of the drugs found in the black suitcase in his truck. At trial, his defence was that he ran a legitimate waste removal business and that he had been contacted earlier that day by a family friend to move some furniture, to which he had agreed. Following service of a written argument applying to exclude evidence of a police analyst relating to the movement of EM’s phones based on connecting cell mast towers in the call data records, which supported an alleged connection between EM and the fourth co-defendant who had pleaded guilty on the first day of trial, the Crown did not seek to rely on that evidence. 

EM was unanimously acquitted by the jury. The other two defendants were convicted.

Laura Stockdale was instructed by Stephanie Theivendrarajah at Bark & Co Solicitors.