34 MILLION POUND COCAINE CASE INQUIRY

The attorney general, John Morris, yesterday announced an inquiry into a
pounds 50m drug prosecution in which customs and excise officials broke the
law and lied about it under oath.

The move follows a letter last week to the attorney general from Mr Justice
Turner, a high court judge who branded the prosecution of five men for a
pounds 34m cocaine smuggling operation a 'debacle', and refused to allow
them to be tried a third time.

The first trial had been aborted, and their convictions in a second trial
were overturned by the appeal court, which ordered a retrial.

Brian Doran and Kenneth Togher - described at their trial as 'two of
Britain's biggest gangsters' - and three other men were jailed for 25 years
in 1997 after customs seized a boat from the Caribbean with pounds 34m
worth of cocaine. But the appeal court held that the trial judge had misled
the jury in his summing up.

Mr Justice Turner's decision at Bristol crown court on July 6 followed a
successful application by defence lawyers to have the third trial stopped
as an abuse of process. Since the convictions, it had emerged that customs
officers had bugged Togher's hotel room without getting permission from the
hotel or their superiors, and lied about it in court.

In his judgment, sent to the attorney general, the judge said the outcome
might be seen as 'a scandalous result'. A crime had undoubtedly been
committed which was 'socially corrosive and destructive', and it would go
unpunished.

The inquiry will look into the conduct not only of customs officials but of
all the prosecuting counsel in both trials. Michael Corkery QC, Andrew
Munday QC, and Jonathan Ashley-Norman, the prosecution team in the first
trial, refused to act further for customs following evidence during the
trial by an investigator which differed from a statement by Mr Corkery in
opening the case.

Officials said prosecutors had been told the correct facts but the
prosecution team said they had not. A defence lawyer said yesterday they
had acted responsibly in stepping down.

The prosecution team for the second trial was led by Michael Parroy QC,
with Michael Brompton and a second junior.

A spokesman for the attorney general said Judge Butler, a retired judge,
who will chair the inquiry, would also want to interview Judge John Foley,
the judge in the second trial. Judge Foley had said he was satisfied that
authorisation had been granted for the bugging.

Mr Justice Turner said in his judgment that the prosecution's failure to
follow the necessary legal requirements in their evidence-gathering
techniques had led to the debacle. The failures struck at the rule of law.
It could be seen that they were not just at operational level, but extended
into supervisory and directional positions.

Because of the hierarchical nature of the failures, he said, he would refer
the case to the attorney general to consider what action to take to ensure
there was no repetition.

Judge Butler will report to the attorney general and to customs and excise,
and will look at bugging at three hotels and whether it was authorised, the
non-disclosure of material about the bugging and the use of public interest
immunity certificates to justify keeping it secret.

He will also hear evidence on what was said at the trial and by counsel in
open court on these issues, and the circumstances which led to the decision
to abort the first trial.

Judge Butler carried out a previous inquiry for the attorney general into
the crown prosecution service's alleged failure to prosecute in cases of
police malpractice.