ELDERLY TRIPPERS 'LOADED DRUGS ON COACH'

A group of pensioners became unwitting accomplices in a tour
operator's attempt to smuggle pounds 3.3 million worth of amphetamines
into Britain, a court was told yesterday.

Alan Akers offered Age Concern and other pensioners' groups free seats
on a Christmas shopping trip to Calais, claiming that his party had
pulled out at the last minute.

But while the elderly day-trippers thought that they were helping Mr
Akers to load the coach with boxes of "Lieberwurst" sausages, they
were actually loading 270lb of aluminum sulphate with a street value
of pounds 3.3 million, Southwark Crown Court was told.

The alleged offence was uncovered when Customs selected the coach for
a search on its arrival back in Britain and discovered the drugs.

Miranda Moore, for the prosecution, said that Mr Akers, 53, a coach
driver of Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, tried to fill the vehicle with
pensioners to divert attention from his smuggling operation. He denies
a charge of being knowingly concerned in the importation of controlled
drugs.

The passengers on the trip from Dover, on December 20, 1997, recalled
that a mysterious man in a black woolly hat travelled out with them
but did not make the return trip, Ms Moore said. "Nobody knew who he
was. He was described by all the people on the trip as 'the man in the
black woolly hat who kept himself to himself'. They went shopping and
some of the passengers helped the man in the woolly hat load what they
thought were eight boxes of sausages on to the coach."

Customs officers took an interest in the coach because Mr Akers had
only seven passengers travelling in the 49-seat vehicle.

The court was told that Mr Akers told police when he was arrested that
a man had booked the Calais trip, then backed out but had still met
him at South Mimms service station and paid him.