Harry Potter star Miriam Margoyles unwittingly rented clifftop cottage to drug gang who smuggled £17m of cocaine and heroin
HARRY Potter star Miriam Margoyles unwittingly rented her cottage to a gang who used it to smuggle £17m of cocaine and heroin into the UK, a court heard yesterday.
The Professor Pomona Sprout actress, 78, uses the £600,000 clifftop property near Dover as a holiday home.
But crooks got Dutch helicopter pilots to secretly fly in an estimated 500kg of drugs before moving them to the North East and Scotland.
While the wholesale value was around £17.25m, it’s street value was said to be much higher.
Ringleader Lance Kennedy, 32, was among 12 jailed at Liverpool crown court.
Jurors heard the gang communicated via encrypted phones also dropped off by the helicopters. They also used cars with hidden compartments.
Six flights were traced to ex-sofa firm boss Kennedy including a trip to Margoyles’ Gun Emplacement Cottage on April 13, 2016, when 160kgs of Class A drugs were delivered.
The home — said to be the nearest mainland UK property to France — was built in 1910 as part of the defences put in place before WW1. The actress has owned it for more than 40 years.
A second cottage was also said to have been rented by the smugglers, who allegedly had links to a man on Teesside. He is awaiting trial.
COURT CRACKDOWN
Another man, Steven Maddocks, 32, was employed to count and launder the money.
He was in possession of £30,000 when arrested.
Jailing them, Judge Sophie McKone said they had “cynically reaped the rewards” of the operation which caused suffering to countless people, adding “You did all this out of greed. It is selfishness beyond contemplation.”
Kennedy and fellow dealer Robert Stewart 38, had fled to Thailand and were arrested trying to enter the Ukraine from Moldova.
Kennedy, of no fixed address, was sentenced to 18 years, four months.
Stewart was locked up for 13 years and eight months.
Maddocks, of the Wirral, Merseyside, received four years.
Nine others were also jailed.
Two Dutch pilots are already serving 18 years.
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