EARL ESCAPES JAIL AFTER JURY ATTACKS DRUGS STING

THE 10th Earl of Hardwicke and his former business partner walked free
from court yesterday, despite being convicted of cocaine dealing,
after a jury condemned undercover journalistic tactics used to ensnare
them.

The Tory peer and his colleague Stefan Thwaites, both 29, were given
suspended sentences by judge Timothy Pontius after the jury of eight
women and three men passed him a note stating: "Had we been allowed to
take the extreme provocation into account we would undoubtedly have
reached a different verdict."

The two were arrested after Mazher Mahmood, an undercover reporter
from the News of the World, posed as a wealthy Arab businessman to
tempt them into supplying him with drugs. Hardwicke was found guilty
at Blackfriars Crown Court, central London, of one count of being
concerned in the supply of 2.44 grams of cocaine to Mahmood on Sept 2
last year. They also convicted him of supplying 1.49 grams of the
class A drug to the journalist a day later.

Thwaites, who used to help him run a south London scooter franchise,
was found guilty of supplying the 2.44 grams. Hardwicke was sentenced
to two years suspended and Thwaites to 15 months, also suspended,
after the judge said he took the jury's statement as a "plea" for
leniency. The court was told that Hardwicke had a previous
drugs-related caution after being arrested in 1997 with a small
quantity of heroin and five 'wraps' of 'crack' cocaine.

The two had been secretly filmed ordering cocaine after being lured to
The Savoy hotel by Mahmood and another undercover reporter on the
pretext that they were interested in ordering scooters. The following
day Hardwicke supplied Mahmood with cocaine worth pounds 120 after
showing him round the House of Lords.

Hardwicke and Thwaites said they intended to appeal against the
convictions on the basis that the prosecution was an abuse of the
court's process.