Accountant denies involvement

Press, 29 April 1981, Page 4

Accountant denies involvement

NZPA Lancaster Unsuspecting police checked over the London house used as a drugs syndicate's international message centre just two months before the ring was broken, it was alleged yesterday. The suburban home, later to be described by the "Mr Asia " trial prosecution as an "Aladdin's Cave" of evidence, was almost examined for fingerprints, the Court heard. However, after a quick ■look, local police at Finchley, North London, left. Other detectives were to call there to pick up three of the trial accused on October 31,1979. One of them, an accountant. Jack Barclay, said he called the police to the house on August 23. 1979. after he discovered it had been burgled. Barclay lived there with his mother, Leila, and her lover, Frederick Russell, who have both pleaded guilty to drugs conspiracy charges in the trial. The 27-year-old Londoner was making a statement from the dock on the seventy-second day of the trial, in which he denied any knowledge of the conspiracy. A month before the arrests, he qualified as a chartered accountant, and said he would never put that at risk for anyone. Barclay also hoped to marry a woman whose family would not allow it if he had been involved in the crimes alleged by the prosecution. Barclay was the fourth defendant to have his case called. He spoke after the defence for a Lancashire man. Keith “Billy” Kirby, concluded with an assertion by his solicitor that the police had shown an unreasonable attitude in denying access to legal advice. Then Barclay rose to make his statement, a course. he said he chose because he was frightened of making a fool of himself in the witness, box. His voice, shaking, Barclay told the Court that his small family disapproved of his mother's relationship with Russell, a man with whom he hardly talked. /JfW "J did'not know tWKwas a drugs business going on. As . far as I knew my mother’s relationship with / Martin Johnstone was something to do with his business,” Barclay understood the New Zealand drugs business was in pottery, ginseng cigarettes and bamboo furniture. Alleged to have taken messages for the syndicate, Barclay said that although he must have answered the telephone to Johnstone or . a

’ Lancashire man. Andrew Maher, about 20 times, .they always wanted to speak to his mother. Alexander Sinclair, the alleged top man of the syndicate, was known to Barclay as "some sort of big businessman" who loaned 110.000 ($NZ24.840) for his forklift truck business. "I did not do anything to hide the fact that I was collecting the money.” he said of his trip to a Swiss bank branch in London. The burglary was said to have been discovered when he returnedd home one evening with his girlfriend, a Malaysian, Yue Mun Chooi, while his mother was away. “I immediately telephoned the police. An officer came round and told me to leave everything as it was, “A C.I.D. officer came round the next day and a fingerprints . expert. After a quick. look round the. house they left and I never saw-or spoke to them again." According to the Crown, among the items found at the house when detectives involved in this inquiry checked in November. 1979. were small quantities of cocaine, a cocaine quality test kit, false passports and‘telephone address books. Barclay said that after his arrest he spent a sleepless night locked up at the Sheppherd's Bush police station where he felt “really scared.” After being taken to Chorley in Lancashire, he felt “degraded, frightened and very alone." , i lie described the plasticised paper siren suit he had to wear as “awful, it made me very sweaty and .cold at the same time.” , Barclay said he tried to. make detectives interviewing him understand they w T ere wrong to accuse him of being involved in drugs. “But they would not listen,” he said. , .Barclay’s counsel is to call about 10 witnesses .in his defence. The first of them, his girlfriend. Miss I Chooi, aged 26, said in all the time she !sew him, she never had the slightest suspicion he was involved in drugs. ■ “Do you think you ’would have been bound to know if he had been involved?" a prosecution counsel,. Mr Charles Mantell, asked, "Yes.” i , However, she said she did not know a group of people — alleged to have included Sinclair — whom Barclay had dinner with one evening. Miss Chooi said she had known , her boyfriend since 1976. and they hoped to marry one day.