MARKS' FORMER WIFE TELLS HER INCREDIBLE STORY

HOWARD Marks' ex-wife last night revealed how she fell out of love
with the world's most notorious marijuana smuggler when he went straight.

Speaking for the first time since she split with the 61-year-old Welsh
criminal mastermind, Judy Marks claimed her former husband's love of
the spotlight as a celebrity ex-con drove them to divorce rather than
the extreme highs and lows of their life on the run.

The Bridgend man - who penned his autobiography Mr Nice - seduced her
when she was a 16-year-old schoolgirl. The couple ended up juggling a
multi-million pound trafficking empire with marriage and children.

"I fell for Howard because of his wonderful blue eyes and the sensual
way he would roll a joint," said Judy, 51, from her sea-front
apartment in Majorca.

"I was 16, the Beatles' All You Need Is Love was on the stereo and I
thought he had a very powerful presence," she said of the Oxford
University-educated charmer from Kenfig Hill, whom she met at a party
in Brighton in 1972.

Judy, the daughter of a respectable middle-class couple from
Hertfordshire, was already a wild child-in-waiting, with a baby from a
previous boyfriend - which she had been forced to give up for adoption
- - and a taste for marijuana and LSD.

By the time she was 19, she was living with Howard - a fugitive with
43 aliases - and spent the next seven years fleeing the long arm of
the law with him.

They'd go from plush pads in London's Regent's Park to a grim
UKP4-a-week bedsit in Liverpool, before travelling the country's back
roads in a camper van, Howard continuing to operate his international
smuggling network from phone-boxes.

Then a lucrative UKP80,000 drug deal saw them swap campsites for five
star hotels and first class flights to exotic locations.

"I was young, in love and having great fun," said Judy. "It never
dawned on me how deeply I was involved too."

It wasn't until she found herself in the middle of one of his deals
with shadowy IRA bosses over UKP750,000 of Thai cannabis that it began
to hit home.

"This guy was banging on our door with all these boxes shouting,
'Colour television delivery' and wanting to leave them in our living
room.

"I thought, 'Colour TVs? Yeah, right!'."

In 1980, Howard was arrested after the discovery of 15 tons of
Columbian marijuana and placed on remand in Brixton Prison for two
years.

It came as a relief for Judy who, now five months' pregnant with their
second baby, Francesca, was feeling the stress of forever having to
look over her shoulder.

While he was inside, the couple got married - Howard being allowed out
long enough to attend the nuptials where their first daughter Amber
was bridesmaid.

Meanwhile, the prison guards who had ridden en route with Howard in a
smart cadillac to the ceremony, kept a close watch from the back of
the church.

"They were very nice actually," laughed Judy, "they even let him come
to the reception in Knightsbridge. For three hours he was allowed to
forget his situation. They even had a glass or two of champagne with
us - it was very surreal."

But, despite eventually being acquitted of the charges and promising
not to smuggle again, Howard was soon back to his old ways and, now
with three small children in tow - son Patrick completing the trio -
the family hit the road again.

But things had changed for Judy.

"It wasn't like it was at the beginning, a load of hippie students
sitting round getting stoned," she said.

And a trip to stay with Howard's business partner in the States -
where she discovered a huge cache of "serious" guns under the bed -
served as a rude awakening.

The worst was yet to come in 1988 when Spanish police, acting on
behalf of the American authorities, raided their sprawling Majorcan
villa and threw them both behind bars.

Judy served 18 months in prisons in both Spain and the US while Howard
spent seven years of a 25-year sentence in American jails, including
the fearsome Terra Haute maximum security penitentiary in Indiana.

"Being dragged from my kids like that was absolutely devastating,
especially given everything they went through as a result," said Judy.

"I'm devastated about what they suffered, that's why when I see Howard
on TV these days saying he's got no regrets I get very upset."

Ironically, after everything they weathered, it was her husband's
transition from public enemy number one into best-selling author,
after-dinner raconteur and affable grandaddy of dope after his release
in 1995 that finally broke their relationship.

"Everything changed after Howard wrote that book," said Judy, who
claims stardom seemed more important to him than his family.

Now Judy, who split from Howard in 2003 but only officially divorced
him a month ago, has written her own tell-all autobiography, Mr Nice
And Mrs Marks.

"Oh, Howard read the book a few weeks ago," said Judy, "he was
surprised I didn't go to town on him more. We still get on OK."

And like her ex, she's now got the writing bug too.

"I know there's a proper novel in me somewhere," she
added.

"Probably one about drug smugglers, I'd guess."

Reefer Madness

DURING the mid 1980s, Howard Marks had 43 aliases, 89 phone lines, and
25 companies trading throughout the world.

Bars, recording studios, offshore banks - all were money-laundering
vehicles serving the core activity - dope dealing.

Marks began to deal during a postgraduate philosophy course at Oxford
and was soon moving huge quantities of hashish into Europe and America
in the equipment of touring rock bands.

At the height of his career, he was smuggling consignments of up to 30
tons from Pakistan and Thailand to America and Canada and had contact
with organisations as diverse as the CIA, MI6, the IRA, and the Mafia.

After many years and a world-wide operation by the Drug Enforcement
Agency, he was busted and sentenced to 25 years in prison at the
United States Federal Penitentiary, Terre Haute, Indiana, the site of
America's only Federal Death Row.

He was released on parole in April 1995 after serving seven years of
his sentence.

During 1997, Howard performed his first live shows, which discussed
his life as a marijuana smuggler and his views on drug use and
legalisation.

The shows received excellent reviews and his now legendary one-man
comedy show, An Audience with Mr Nice, continues to sell-out at venues
throughout Britain and Europe.

He continues to campaign for the legalisation of recreational
drugs.

Mr Nice And Mrs Marks - Adventures With Howard Judy Marks, May 11
2006, Paperback