POLICE began to suspect that guns and drugs seized following tip-offs from two Liverpool drug smugglers had been deliberately planted for them to find, a court heard yesterday.
POLICE began to suspect that guns and drugs seized following tip-offs from two Liverpool drug smugglers had been deliberately planted for them to find, a court heard yesterday.
But a Customs officer blamed the lack of arrests following information provided by John Haase and Paul Bennett on the cost of surveillance and the more pressing need to get weapons off the streets.
The pair are accused of arranging for caches of guns and drugs to be planted around the country so they could tip off the authorities and win credit from a judge.
They were freed just 11 months into an 18-year sentence for drug smuggling after customs officials vouched for the quality of the information they leaked, Southwark Crown Court was told yesterday.
Prosecutors allege the pair arranged the hauls so they could pretend they were linked to other criminals.
No one was ever arrested in relation to the gun or drugs seizures, which sometimes included up to 80 firearms.
The court has heard that some of the firearms were buried in Formby Squirrel Reserve while some drugs were discovered at the Pitz sporting complex in Everton.
But when police kept watch over the caches, no one ever turned up to collect them.
Police began to feel suspicious of the hauls but Customs officers – to whom Haase and Bennett gave the tip-offs – explained the lack of arrests to the judge who sentenced them. Gibson Grenfell, QC, prosecuting, said: “Cook [a Customs officer] explains the absence of arrests by saying that, although the defendants Haase and Bennett gave names, the main priority was to take weapons off the streets and there were operational difficulties about doing surveillance.
“As you will hear in evidence, surveillance was undertaken, particularly in relation to some of the earlier seizures that proved fruitless.”
He directed the jury to the comments of some police officers who had begun to feel the finds were being planted.
Haase, 59, and Bennett, 44, both of no fixed abode, Haase’s wife Deborah, 37, of Teynham Avenue, Knowsley village, and Sharon Knowles, 36, of Wadeson Road, Walton, all deny conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.
Deborah Haase also denies charges of possessing illegal ammunition and illegal firearms.
