A MAN from Rickmansworth is accused of being a member of a gang which smuggled £4 million worth of cannabis into Britain.

Phillip Harvey, 39, of Oakhill Road, Rickmansworth, is alleged to have been involved in a plot to supply a tonne of cannabis which police seized at a garden centre in Dartford, Kent.

The members of the gang deny conspiracy to supply between July 1, 1996, and May 30, last year.

The plot was sunk when a former expert diver and seaman was approached by one of the gang, little knowing he was a police informer.

As a result a police officer, known only as Michael, was hired as the skipper of a boat to be used to bring more than a tonne of cannabis resin from Morocco.

At Southwark Crown Court this week a jury heard that 1.078 tonnes of cannabis was shipped from the Mediterranean to a customs warehouse.

The gang then took the drugs to a garden centre just off the M25 in Kent from where they intended to distribute it to dealers, however, police moved in and thwarted the operation.

Philip Tough, 38, of Kenton and Janice East, 42, of Hawley House Garden Centre in Dartford are also accused.

Prosecuting, Mr Andrew Bright said three other members of the team had already pleaded guilty to their part in the conspiracy, while two men alleged to have bankrolled the operation are still on the run.

The men who have pleaded guilty are Harold Richardson, 50, of Eynsford, Kent; Thomas McDermott, 52, of Bayswater; and Patrick Carpenter, 50, of Paddington.

Mr Bright said: "What was going on here was importation of an amount of cannabis that would make people very rich from the proceeds.

"This is really a smuggling case, but they are not charged with smuggling because they have to have the intention of passing it on; of supplying."

The prosecutor alleged Tough was on the middle management level of the gang, East was involved with Richardson and had agreed that an outhouse at her legitimate garden centre could be used, while Harvey was brought in as a driver for the gang.

Mr Bright said a former professional diver, a man called Chris, met McDermott in a London pub and was quizzed about recall buoys.

He said the equipment could be left under water to mark a spot for divers and electronically triggered from the surface to release the buoy.

Mr Bright explained the recall buoy would have been a valuable piece of equipment for the gang should a coastguard or customs ship intercept an importation.

He said: "The last thing you want to do is throw the drugs overboard without being able to get them back."

Chris tipped off police, but continued to have meetings with the gang.

He was told the special electronic wizardry was a "belt and braces insurance" if a customs ship intercepted the gang.

And it was alleged that Tough told Michael this importation would be the first of many.

The undercover officer, Michael, joined the plot posing as an experienced boat skipper from Stonehaven, Cumbria.

Mr Bright said in subsequent meetings Michael was able to convince the gang of his seafaring experience and his willingness to join an underworld enterprise.

He said, later Michael met one of the enterprise's bankers in a Spanish hotel to discuss a rendezvous off the Moroccan coast to collect the drugs, purchased for £800,000 wholesale.

The court was told the two attempts to collect the consignment failed.

On the third occasion the collection was successful and, on May 22 last year, the drugs were loaded on to Michael's boat, which landed in Workington, Cumbria.

The trial continues.

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