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07/10/2008
Grandmother Jailed For Cocaine Smuggling
A 77-year-old grandmother has been jailed today for smuggling cocaine worth almost £1 million in her mobility vehicle.
Ambrozine Heron, 77, and her 49-year-old daughter Paulette Chambers, both of Smethwick, West Midlands, were both sentenced yesterday at Canterbury Crown Court for smuggling 16 kilos of cocaine, with an estimated street value of £800,000 into the UK.
Customs Officers intercepted them arriving at the Port of Dover in March this year. The drugs were found hidden in Heron's specially-adapted Nissan Pathfinder.
Heron and Chambers received 13 and 14 years respectively.
The court heard Heron was a "willing participant" in the operation. She suffers from a range of illnesses including asthma, diabetes and hypertension.
Judge Adele Williams, issuing the sentences, said: "I have no doubt that your role in the car was to add some respectability to the journey in respect of your age and your ill-health.
"The vehicle in which you were travelling was the mobility vehicle which you, Ambrozine Heron, were entitled to."
She added: "You Heron, in all the evidence before me, were a willing participant in this importation."
The court heard that on Friday 21 March 2008, HMRC officers stopped a Nissan Pathfinder car, registered to Heron, at Dover's Eastern Docks. Officers searched the car and found two large shopping bags in between the second and third row of seats. Each bag contained approximately twenty tins of fruit concealing cocaine. Heron and Chambers were jointly arrested and formally charged with attempting to import a controlled drug.
The same or similar journeys to France were made 14 times in the six months leading up to their arrest.
Financial reports on the pair also found they had placed £90,000 in cash in Chambers' bank account since the first journey.
(JM)
Ambrozine Heron, 77, and her 49-year-old daughter Paulette Chambers, both of Smethwick, West Midlands, were both sentenced yesterday at Canterbury Crown Court for smuggling 16 kilos of cocaine, with an estimated street value of £800,000 into the UK.
Customs Officers intercepted them arriving at the Port of Dover in March this year. The drugs were found hidden in Heron's specially-adapted Nissan Pathfinder.
Heron and Chambers received 13 and 14 years respectively.
The court heard Heron was a "willing participant" in the operation. She suffers from a range of illnesses including asthma, diabetes and hypertension.
Judge Adele Williams, issuing the sentences, said: "I have no doubt that your role in the car was to add some respectability to the journey in respect of your age and your ill-health.
"The vehicle in which you were travelling was the mobility vehicle which you, Ambrozine Heron, were entitled to."
She added: "You Heron, in all the evidence before me, were a willing participant in this importation."
The court heard that on Friday 21 March 2008, HMRC officers stopped a Nissan Pathfinder car, registered to Heron, at Dover's Eastern Docks. Officers searched the car and found two large shopping bags in between the second and third row of seats. Each bag contained approximately twenty tins of fruit concealing cocaine. Heron and Chambers were jointly arrested and formally charged with attempting to import a controlled drug.
The same or similar journeys to France were made 14 times in the six months leading up to their arrest.
Financial reports on the pair also found they had placed £90,000 in cash in Chambers' bank account since the first journey.
(JM)
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