A budding accountant's career lies in tatters after he received nine years imprisonment for helping smuggle £150,000 worth of cocaine from the Caribbean, which he planned to convert into lucrative 'crack'.
Francois Roberts, 33, of Tideslea Path, Plumstead, South East London "obliterated" his future, Croydon Crown Court was told after booking the smugglers' hotel room and downloading a 'cocaine handbook' with instructions on how to convert the drug.
He pleaded guilty three days before his trial was due to start to being knowingly concerned in the importation of 1.5 kilos of cocaine, which contained 823 gms at 100% purity, at Gatwick Airport on March 23, last year.
"He has got his whole career ahead of him as an accountant, having nearly completed his qualifications," Mr. Roger Carne, defending, told the court. "Through his involvement in this matter he has set back everything and it has completely obliterated all that he has achieved."
Prosecutor Mr. Christopher Kerr told the court a second man - who later received six years imprisonment - was caught trying to smuggle the cocaine through Gatwick Airport and paperwork on him proved Roberts booked the London Olympus Hotel, Stratford, East London for him.
Customs men eventually captured Roberts on June 20 and on his laptop were found instructions he had downloaded on how to mix cocaine with hydrochloric acid and produce 'crack'.
He had also ordered the acid along with test tubes and other chemical equipment and had transferred £10,000 to the island of St. Vincent. "The prosecution say that was for the importation," added Mr. Kerr.
The first-time offender, a regular churchgoer, with three 'A' levels, who had reached Level Three Accountancy initially claimed his wife had ordered the equipment and the money transfer was for a car import deal.
"He will pick up the reigns of his accountancy career, complete his course and make people proud of him again," said Mr. Carne. "He has learned his lesson at a very high price."
Sentencing Roberts Judge Stephen Waller told him: "Who would think a young accountancy student would be involved in this way?
"You are an intelligent man. You must have known what you were doing and that it would lead to people becoming addicted to cocaine and crack. You were involved knowingly and deliberately."
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