Doctor in global drug ring guilty

Press, 24 February 1978, Page 5

Doctor in global drug ring guilty

NZPA-Reuter London A 31-year-old woman doctor has "been found guilty of conspiracy charges involving a drug ring said to have extended to four continents and to have controlled 60 per cent of the world’s supply of LSD. Dr Christine Bott is one of 31 people to have admitted or been convicted of drug offences in a manufacturing and distribution network that operated in Paris, Amsterdam, Sydney, New York, and Morocco, as well as suburban London and a remote Welsh village. Miss Bott, who throughout her five-week trial at Bristol, western England, carried with her a copy of “The Politics of Ecstasy” by the former LSD “guru”, Timothy Leary, will be sentenced later along with her lover, a chemist, Richard Hilary Kempt, aged 33, who pleaded guilty to LSD and cannabis charges. Sentences of from one year to eight years have already been given to 14 of those involved. The ring was cracked last March when 800 police swooped on 87 homes throughout Britain. The police said that after the raids LSD became so scarce that the street price shot up

1!to between SNZ9 and SNZI4 ■;a tablet, from about $l.BO. f Among the homes raided ; were two LSD “factories,” rone in a Victorian house slnear London and the other a ) Welsh manor house in Plas - Llysyn, which were linked by a high-speed motorway. : The police said that con- ■ signment boxes were hidden I along the motorway to con- • ceal drugs for pick up and ■ distribution through contacts ,in Europe, Australia, and i North America. 1 The factories were thought i to have produced about 60 million tablets. t The Moroccan link was ■ with cannabis. The police 1 told the jury they once ■ found SNZ 12,600 worth of ■ cannabis hidden in breakfast r cereal and SNZ36OO worth in i a packet of detergent. i Dr Bott, in denying her ’ guilt, had told the jury that > while she had lived off the 1 proceeds of LSD, never became involved in its manujifacture. -I But the prosecution said f she was the “banker” for I the operation. t> Dr Bott had told the jury, r which later convicted her by >|a majority verdict, that she ; believed LSD was medically r useful, and allegedly told al ;I policewoman: “It's fantastic.! >lYou ought to try it.”