Accused: ‘I was conned’

Press, 7 May 1981, Page 8

Accused: ‘I was conned’

NZPA . Lancaster A Londoner alleged to have carried packets of heroin to Britain for the “Mr Asia” ring said yesterday he drew a line at the drug. Anyone who tried to unload it on his children would hot live, Christopher Blackman, aged 37, said. At the Lancaster Castle trial he denied membership of the drugs conspiracy because, he said, he had been “conned.” ■ Blackman, of Regents Park, maintained that when he flew to Singapore he thought he would be returning with jewellery and semiprecious stones, and did not think he would be doing anything illegal. Out there, his personal safety was threatened unless he carried packets of Thai sticks (cannabis) back to London, but at no time did he carry heroin. He was to be paid £2OOO (about SNZ47BO) plus air fares for the trip, on which he carried six or seven tightly compressed packets of Thai sticks. Each packet contained two to three thousand “sticks” that were thinner than a match, he said. According to the Crown, Blackman knew all along he was to carry drugs and brought the heroin to two admitted conspirators, Leila Barclay and Frederick Russell. Blackman told the Court in sworn evidence that Mrs Barclay suggested he go to Singapore after a “motherly

chat” that followed a fight with his girl-friend. He flew there in August. 1979, after Mrs Barclay and Russell paid the fare and gave him £5OO (about 5NZ1200) to spend. He travelled to Bangkok for a few days, then returned to Singapore for the flight to London. 7 “If Martin Johnstone (the slain New Zealand drugs buyer) was in Bangkok at the same time as you, that was pure coincidence, was it?” the prosecution counsel, Mr Charles Mantell, Q.C. asked. — “I’ve never met Martin Johnstone,” Blackman replied. “And if Andrew Maher (Johnstone’s admitted killer) was in Singapore at the same time as you, that was pure coincidence, was it?” —“l’ve never met Andrew Maher.” Mr Mantell then asked whether the man Blackman dealt with in Singapore, whom he knew as Peter, was in fact a New Zealander, Peter Fulcher, the alleged co-conspirator now on remand on a heroin charge in Sydney. — “I don’t know who he was, he was a Dutchman,” Blackman said. He agreed that until Peter showed him the Thai sticks he still thought that the journey was lawful. “A bit of a barney” followed with Peter and a Canadian woman companion because Blackman thought he had been conned. “There were a few fists flying around,” he said.

“Peter and his companion were threatening me. They got very heavy and started threatening me with what would happen if I didn’t take the Thai sticks back. “They said life wouldn’t be worth living when I got back to London. They said Singapore wasn’t London, people sometiiries just disappeared.” • Mr .Mantell asked Blackman why, from the ipoment he saw the supposed sticks in a-Singapore hotel room, if not before; he was not a conspirator.- . . - “Because I’d been conned,” the defendant replied. Then the trial judge, Mrs -Justice Heilbron, asked Blackman why he did not throw the sticks away while travelling to Singapore airport. “Because of what would happen in London, because I just wanted to get it over with,” he replied. According to his statement, Blackman said he knew the drugs were not Thai sticks, which could be bought in London’s West End for £6 or £7 (about SNZI416).

Blackman denied he had said that, and said that he did not know the price of a Thai stick. “What do you know about the price of heroin?” Mr Mantell asked. “I don’t know anything about the price of heroin,” he replied. “Anyone who tried to unload heroin on my three children wouldn’t live. “I draw the line at certain things like heroin. People who beat up their wives, too, they go against my grain.” The defendant said he did not know what were the contents of a sealed and packaged bottle which he accepted as security in lieu of a £5OO payment from Russell. . Forensic tests had shown that it contained a substance that was part cocaine and part amphetamine. After Blackman continued to answer that he did not know what was in it, Mr Mantell asked: “Well, you didn’t think if you rubbed it a genie would come out, did you?” ' 7 . .