Taxi Driver Online

Taxi firm float cash found in drug money, court is told


THE former boss of a Plymouth taxi firm has denied being the money man behind a gang running heroin into Plymouth. Leslie Palmer, ex-boss of Silverline Taxis, is facing trial at Plymouth Crown Court after pleading not guilty to transferring criminal property – money-laundering – in 2009.

The jury heard yesterday that Leslie Palmer’s son Jonathan was stopped by police on September 3, 2009, with three mobile phones and £20,000 cash in his car. Four days later, Leslie Palmer, aged 67, of Saltash Road, Keyham, claimed to police it was not drug money but the ‘float’ from Silverline Taxis and his lettings business, which his son had taken from his home safe. The cash was returned to him on September 23, but police had secretly recorded the serial numbers of the notes.

When another car was stopped on the way from Plymouth to Manchester on October 17, 362 of the notes totalling nearly £5,000 were among £37,500 cash found inside. Judge Francis Gilbert QC told the jury of seven men and five women that four people had been due to stand trial yesterday charged with conspiring to transfer criminal property, but Blake Donnellan, Dean Martin and Jonathan Palmer had all pleaded guilty, leaving Leslie Palmer the sole defendant.

Plymothians Paul Griffin and Gemma Jefferis also previously pleaded guilty to the same charge, while Mancunians Daniel Agombar and Craig McCann admitted conspiracy to supply heroin and Lee Briggs, also from Manchester, admitted transferring criminal property. Prosecutor Simon Laws said the case against Leslie Palmer could be summed up in three words: money and drugs. He said drugs were sent down from Manchester to Plymouth, with money travelling the opposite way, and Palmer was involved in the money side.

Mr Laws told the court there was a clear conspiracy to move drugs to Plymouth and money back to Manchester, and that Leslie Palmer was part of the plot. He said Jonathan Palmer was stopped on September 3, 2009, on an overpass over the A38 at Eggbuckland, just yards away from Dean Martin’s house. He said Martin’s role was to collect money and transfer it up the line to Manchester, and it was “blindingly obvious” that the £20,000 found in Jonathan Palmer’s car was drugs money.

Mr Laws said that faced with the loss of its cash, the drug gang went on the offensive. “Leslie Palmer went into a police station as bold as brass and said: ‘It’s mine from my businesses’,” he said. “This was difficult for the police to deal with. “There are no drugs to point to and no picture of how it fits together.” Mr Laws asked the jury: “Who keeps £20,000 in a safe? “What kind of business needs £20,000 as a float? “The other explanation is it’s drugs money.”

Mr Laws said £20,000 of the drug gang’s money was now “missing in action”, adding: “You may think the drugs world is a place where people have a great incentive to pay their debts on time.” He said that on September 8, Gemma Jefferis paid £15,000 cash into Daniel Agombar’s bank account, the money eventually finding its way via Lee Briggs to Blake Donnellan.

Next day, Agombar and another “foot soldier” called Craig McCann were sent to Brixton near Plymouth with heroin with a street value of £25,000, but were caught red-handed by police. In their blue Vauxhall Corsa was a laptop belonging to Blake Donnellan and letters written to him in jail. Mr Laws said that just one hour after the £20,000 was released to Leslie Palmer, there was a flurry of phone calls between Jonathan Palmer, Peter Griffin and Dean Martin.

Mr Laws claimed this was Jonathan Palmer letting the gang know their money had been recovered. Three weeks later, Griffin and Jefferis, supervised by Martin, were stopped by police on the M5. In a bag in their car was £37,500, of which nearly £5,000 was made up of notes seized by police from Jonathan Palmer. Martin’s fingerprints were on the bag.

Detailed evidence was given by Det Con Neil Albrechtsen, the case officer of Operation Greaves targeting the drug gang. He described how the £20,000 was counted and all the serial numbers photographed, enabling police to prove the notes found in the second seizure were from the same batch as the first.

Cross-examined by defence barrister Nigel Hall, he agreed that two searches of Leslie Palmer’s then home, ‘Sungates’ in Mannamead Road, failed to reveal anything incriminating. He also agreed that on arrest, Leslie Palmer told police: “I’ve nothing to worry about at all; I’ve done nothing wrong.”

The trial continues.

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IDFIMH

Mmmmmmm

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Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.

Believe me, don't get Mercury X2

He didn't do it, court told.

http://www.thisisplymouth.co.uk/Taxi-bo ... story.html

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IDFIMH

Mmmm I'd like to see the outcome.

_________________
Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.

Believe me, don't get Mercury X2

Court told him he did!

http://www.thisisplymouth.co.uk/gang-fl ... story.html

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Chris The Fish

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gdlyi5mc ... re=related

They got him then?? I bet they didn't think they'd get a tug from the Police with £37K in a carrier bag.

_________________
Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.

Believe me, don't get Mercury X2

6 years out in 3
Is Sliverline still running????

I think the interesting part is that he thought he had a result getting his money back from the police.

Only for it to be used as a main piece of evidence against him.

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IDFIMH

Good work by the Police though.

_________________
Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.

Believe me, don't get Mercury X2

Skippy de Judge (can't find that photo).

Silverline is still running.

AA was just bought by Silverline but I don't know if was a cash deal.

One of LP's other sons is the top man in the set up.

Don't think you're right in the sentencing, but maybe the real Judge would like to take your estimation into consideration.

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Chris The Fish

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gdlyi5mc ... re=related

Court may seize assets of drugs gang minicab pair


A minicab boss and his son may have their assets seized after they helped a £1million drugs gang hide their profits.

Leslie Palmer and his son Jonathan were part of a gang which flooded Plymouth and the South West with drugs including cocaine, amphetamines and ecstasy brought into the area by couriers from Manchester.

They ran the Silverline private-hire firm in Plymouth and helped move money around for the gang, which was led by infamous drug dealer Blake Donellan, who was jailed for 15 years in 2011.

The pair now face a five-day hearing at Exeter Crown Court in which assets including more than £1 million worth of property and a trust fund in the Isle of Man could be seized.

Leslie, aged 68, of Saltash Road, Plymouth, and Jonathan, aged 24, of Mannamead Road, Plymouth, were jailed for three and eight years respectively at Plymouth Crown Court on December 23 2011.

Jonathan admitted money laundering and his father was found guilty by a jury and is still trying to appeal the verdict, Exeter Crown Court was told.

Judge Francis Gilbert, QC, who has been appointed the Recorder of Exeter since hearing the original case in Plymouth, adjourned the case for a contested hearing under the Proceeds of Crime Act later this year.

The case has to be resolved within two years of the original hearing and is likely to take a week.

Mr Simon Laws, QC, prosecuting, said there were complicated issues including the status of an Isle of Man-based trust and property worth more than £1 million.

During the original case the jury heard how £20,000 cash was found by police in Jonathan Palmer's car after it was stopped close to a known drugs den.

His father went to Charles Cross police station within hours to demand the money back, signing a declaration that it was the float for his taxi business.

Detectives noted the serial numbers of the notes and within days a courier was intercepted at Exeter Service Station taking £37,500 cash North from Plymouth to Manchester.

An examination showed that 362 banknotes, amounting to almost £5,000 of the cash, came from the money which police had returned to Leslie Palmer.

Leslie Palmer has since changed his defence team and will be represented at both his appeal and the confiscation hearing by Martin Meeke, QC, while his son will be represented by Adam Morgan.

Blake Donellan, aged 28, of Downs View, Bude, was jailed for 15 years at the original hearing where henchman Dean Martin, aged 40, of Stonehouse was jailed for eight years.


Read more: http://www.thisisplymouth.co.uk/Court-s ... z2WGq7VyXg

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Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin

Top judges quash Plymouth minicab boss conviction

A BUSINESSMAN originally found guilty of money laundering for a heroin gang has had his conviction quashed by top judges.

Former minicab boss Leslie Palmer, 69, was jailed for three years by Judge Francis Gilbert QC at Plymouth Crown Court in December 2011, after he was convicted by a jury of conspiracy to convert criminal property.

He was jailed alongside his son, Jonathan, amid alleged links to a large drug running outfit.

But three of the country's most senior judges at London's Appeal Court upheld a challenge by Mr Palmer yesterday, ruling his conviction "unsafe". He will not face a retrial.

Mr Palmer confirmed to The Herald that he will be seeking compensation for the 16 months he spent in Dartmoor Prison.

Lord Justice Davis said prosecutors had claimed Mr Palmer, of Mannamead Road, Hartley, was connected to an operation running heroin from Manchester to Plymouth while sending money in the other direction to fund further drugs consignments.

The appeal judge said, however, that despite the "significant amount" of mobile phone evidence showing calls between the gang members, there was no such evidence to implicate Mr Palmer.

On appeal, Mr Palmer's lawyers argued he did not receive a fair trial as the judge failed to properly direct the jury on how to treat his historic previous convictions.

Lord Justice Davis, sitting with Mrs Justice Davies and Judge John Bevan QC, accepted that, while Judge Gilbert told the jury to "put aside" these irrelevant and stale convictions, he ought to have ordered them to consider Mr Palmer a "man of good character".

He said: "Given that we do conclude that it was an error in the summing up of the judge, we cannot be satisfied the conviction was safe. A good character direction is very important in cases involving allegations of dishonesty. There is little other direct evidence that this appellant was involved in the conspiracy and we think the jury might have been affected in the absence of a good character direction. This court concludes that the conviction must be quashed."

Mr Palmer said after the hearing: "I am relieved that the truth has come out and justice has been done. But it was not done before as the judge made a mistake the day the conviction was made. It changed my life and effected my family and business."


Read more: http://www.thisisplymouth.co.uk/Plymout ... z2acfC5SkM

_________________
Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin