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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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Row over drugs-in-lorry fine Ian Burrell BBC Tuesday 19 Dec 2000 A British lorry driver who was cleared of smuggling by a French court has been fined £500,000 for having the drugs in his trailer. David Benny, from Bedford, was allowed to return to the UK after judges in Dunkirk cleared him of smuggling cannabis. But an application by French customs to fine him half a million pounds for unknowingly transporting goods into the country was later granted. The organisation Fair Trials Abroad has launched an appeal against the ruling, which it calls a "flagrant" breach of European human rights legislation. Mr Benny was driving a sealed trailer from Belgium into France when he was stopped by customs officers acting on a tip-off. They discovered 128kg of cannabis resin and 265kg of herbal cannabis in his lorry. Mr Benny spent fourteen months on remand before he was cleared by the Dunkirk court and allowed to go home. But he is now at the centre of a major legal battle, following the success of the French customs application to fine him for transporting the goods. Fair Trials Abroad has described the court's ruling as "unprecedented and outrageous". Director Stephen Jakobi said it would be challenged as a flagrant breach of the European Convention on Human Rights.
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