A UKP7M CANNABIS FIASCO

Natasha Campbell and Kelly-Anne Page looked strangely out of place, weighed
down by heat and fear in the dank squalor of a Jamaican jail cell.

It may have been that theirs were the only white faces among 50 or so being
held prisoner in the fetid bowels of Montego Bay's criminal courthouse.
But, more likely, it was their attitude, the noise they made, their
repeated and indignant insistence that they had been set up, that they had
been wrongly targeted in Jamaica's biggest single round up of drug mules -
19 Britons who were to have smuggled UKP6.9million worth of cannabis into
London.

The arrest of the Britons as they prepared to board a package holiday
flight home to Gatwick Airport has astonished Jamaicans. They are no
strangers to stories of drug exploits and trafficking scams, but the sheer
scale and audacity - some might say stupidity - of this caper has left them
shaking their heads in wonder.

Nineteen adults with four children, 37 almost-identical suitcases and
1,722lb of high-grade cannabis, all hidden behind the bland respectability
of an all-inclusive vacation at a luxury hotel and spa resort - this was
not your normal smuggling operation. This was special.

Yesterday, Campbell, 26, one of 13 Londoners involved in the case, and
Page, from Birmingham, were still smarting after being dealt with by
Resident Magistrate Valerie Stephens, a stern woman with a clear contempt
for people accused of drug offences, and they were contemplating their
individual fates. For while both of these women claimed they were innocent,
only one of them pleaded not guilty.

Sitting quietly with them, looking distressed but choosing not to be so
demonstrative, were three women of Jamaican origin, Carina Bogle, 19, and
Yvonne Roberts, 42, both from London, and Doreen Whitton, 46, from Birmingham.

All except Page and Whitton had pleaded guilty and been sentenced to a year
in prison and fines totalling UKP6,300 each. Compared with sentencing in
the UK, they had been let off lightly - but they could have been jailed for
up to five years if they had pleaded not guilty and been convicted.

"That's why we said we did it, but we didn't - we were set up," insisted
Campbell. "This is a nightmare for us. We came on holiday and now we're
being kept in terrible conditions. We're living on bread and water,
sleeping on concrete bunks and surviving in dirty, crowded cells. But we're
innocent.

"Our suitcases were taken to the airport for us the night before we left.
When we went for our flight the next day, I did open my suitcase and my
clothes were on top exactly as I had packed them, so I closed it. But later
there were some English guys with a list and they called out our names."

The Jamaican police will not confirm their identity, but the four are
thought to have been officers from Scotland Yard and Customs and Excise.
When they opened up the suitcases in the presence of the holidaymakers, 18
were found to be carrying amounts of cannabis ranging from 88lb to 106lb.
Another had 48lb.

"My four-year-old daughter was there when they arrested us," said Campbell.
"They put me behind bars and then dumped her on the concrete floor outside
my cell. She was screaming, but I couldn't hold her. And Kelly-Anne's boy
[four] and daughter [two] were taken from her. Please let people know we
didn't have anything to do with this."

The women were allowed to sit on a bench in the holding cell, separated by
only a few feet from a baying mass of male prisoners, about 50 crammed into
two tiny barred rooms, jostling for space and complaining about their
treatment. But from them there seemed little sympathy for the women's
predicament and even less belief in their claims.

Jamaicans are used to hardluck stories and fed up with drug crime, so the
arrival of foreigners to fan the flames of criminality will not be welcome.

So far this year, there have been 937 murders on an island with a
population of just 2.7 million. Police have arrested 4,500 on possession of
drugs charges since January, including just under 300 foreigners.

At the beginning of this year, Phil Sinkinson, the UK's Deputy High
Commissioner in Jamaica, raised eyebrows when he claimed that up to one in
10 passengers on flights from Jamaica to Britain was attempting to smuggle
drugs. But narcotics police believe the figure could rise to 80 per cent
aboard some flights.

Given the risks involved, the rewards are low. Inspector Rashford Kerr,
head of Montego Bay's Narcotics Division, reckons "swallowers", flight
passengers who have been found to ingest as many as 99 cocaine pellets, are
paid just UKP4,000 to UKP5,000 for risking their lives and liberty. The
figure for smuggling cannabis of the order the Britons are charged with is
even less - perhaps UKP2,000 to UKP3,000.

"If anyone in the UK is considering doing this, my message to them is
don't," he said. "Our record of interception is getting better because of
the co-operation between ourselves and British officers. The people who
really benefit from this are not the mules, the desperate people with
financial problems or terminal illnesses who need the money.

"It is the big guys who let the little people take all the risks and then
sit back and enjoy the benefits. Well, we're doing everything in our power
to get the big guys."

So, what really happened to the 19? Are these unlucky holidaymakers caught
up in the workings of a shady drugs syndicate that used them as unknowing
pawns? Or are they as guilty as most of them are pleading as they come
before the court in dribs and drabs this week?

When they arrived in Jamaica three weeks ago, the contrast with their
current living conditions could hardly have been greater. They checked into
Sunset Beach Hotel and Spa, a complex with its own half-mile beach, three
swimming pools, six bars, three restaurants and 425 rooms overlooking
turquoise waters and lush hillsides.

But from the start, they caused concern among hotel staff. "There was some
dispute over their allocation of rooms as they checked in," said Simon
Azan, the hotel operations manager. "Later in their holiday, I had to ask
one to calm down when he bullied a member of my staff, claiming a cleaner
had stolen a pair of his swimming shorts that had about $8 in the pocket.
He was very aggressive.

"Later still, one of the men became violent at the pool bar and wanted to
fight one of the barmen. There are certain urban characteristics among some
young Jamaican men here, and these people seemed keen to adopt them. We did
not get complaints from other guests, but this is a respectable family
hotel and it was borderline as to whether we asked some of them to leave."

If they were acting as a gang, then they were a fairly disparate group.
They said yesterday that they didn't all know each other, something that Mr
Azan said he had noticed.

Of the remaining 14, Michael Christian, 40, a bus driver from north London,
Khalif Irskine Green, 29, a health care assistant from north London, Nathan
Gordon, 30, a sales assistant from Queen's Park, and two men from the West
Midlands, either pleaded guilty and received similar sentences to the
women's or asked for an adjournment in order to engage lawyers.

Nine others - including Londoners Eric Wright, 48, a filmmaker from
Willesden; Sapphire Johnson, 29, unemployed, from Clapton; Joseph Salmon,
25, a student, also from Clapton; Angella George, 41, unemployed, from
Blackheath; Laurence Edet, 32, unemployed; Anthony Smith, 22, unemployed,
from Hounslow, and Christopher Phaul, 38, unemployed, from Wembley - have
yet to be dealt with.

They were arrested at 8.30pm last Tuesday as they prepared to board an Air
2000 flight to London from Sangster International Airport in Montego Bay.

Inspector Kerr, head of the district's Narcotics Division, has no doubt
about their guilt.

"There is a certain profile or certain characteristics we look for when
people come to Jamaica, and our British colleagues look for similar things
in passengers leaving the UK to come here," he said. "I can't tell you
precisely what it was in their case, but they came to our attention.

"I can say that suspicions were aroused when all 19 arrived with 37 very
large suitcases all of the same toughened plastic kind, bearing the maker's
label, Eminent. There was a high degree of organisation here - organisation
at the UK end and here. Whoever is behind this recruited 19 people, paid
for 19 holidays and bought a huge amount of ganja. The cost of the
operation must have been very high indeed."

Yesterday, in the cells, Kelly-Anne Page was having none of it. "I am
pleading not guilty because I am not guilty," she said. "I know some of the
others are pleading guilty because they have been advised to by their
lawyers. But why should I? I didn't know anything about this cannabis. I
looked in my suitcase, but my daughter's clothes were over the stuff. Now
they've taken her away - I miss her terribly."

Asked three times why they all had similar suitcases, none of the group had
a clear explanation. Page said: "We had our own when we arrived, then when
we went to the airport, these were there."

The police, however, said the group arrived with the cases. As for the
women's claims to have checked their luggage but missed the drugs, in the
police's lock-up yesterday, the sickly-sweet smell of the drug was
overpowering even with the cases closed.

When asked who paid for the holidays - estimated at about UKP1,000 a head,
Campbell replied: "A friend of ours won the holidays in a competition but
couldn't make it, so he said we could have them."

Could this man have been behind the scam? "No," she said. "No, I'm sure."

Outside the courtroom, relatives of the two women had arrived to take the
children home. (Both families asked that the Standard not name the three
youngsters and a 13-year-old sent home after the arrests.) They had been
held at a place of safety called Blossom Gardens, a children's refuge with
a high reputation for its care regime.

Linda Mitchell, Page's mother, was in a state of some distress. "Kelly had
nothing to do with this, but I wish she had pleaded guilty like the
others," she said. "Now she could end up with a much tougher sentence. Her
children have been very upset, wanting to know where their mummy is."

Whether any more of the 19 will plead guilty and fight their corner -
probably in hearings next month - remains to be seen. In the meantime, the
rest have plenty of time to contemplate their futures in Kingston's
infamously hard prisons for men and women.

In the miserable surroundings of their hot and crowded cells, they may
remember how much they enjoyed their free holiday at Sunset Beach but they
will inevitably ask themselves over and over again: was it really worth it?