Postscript 1: Barret-Jolley - a life of crime



Christopher Barret-Jolley
convicted drug smuggler, arms trader and all round scumbag

Currently serving a 20 year sentence
for importing Cocaine into the UK

Phoenix Aviation was the comany that flew live exports out of Coventry Airport, and Phoenix was owned by pilot Christopher Barrett-Jolley.

For over 30 years Barrett-Jolley was involved in flying arms to developing countries (see below) but it was drug smuggling that was his final downfall. In December 2002, after a trial lasting 50 days at Basildon Crown Court, he was convicted of plotting to smuggle £22 million worth of cocaine into the UK! Along with his brother-in-law and co-pilot, Peter Carine, he is now serving a 20 year prison sentence!

A businessman once at the centre of protests because of his export of live calves was today beginning a 20-year jail sentence after being convicted of plotting to smuggle £22m worth of cocaine into the UK.

Pilot Christopher Barrett-Jolley, 55, of Wellington, Somerset, was at the controls of a Boeing 707 freight airliner that flew from the West Indies to Southend, Essex, in October 2001 carrying six suitcases packed with more than 270kg (nearly 600lb) of cocaine, Basildon crown court heard.

Barrett-Jolley told the court that he knew nothing about drugs being on board. He said the plane had been chartered by an organisation called Air America, an "arm of the CIA".

His brother-in-law and co-pilot, Peter Carine, 50, of Hensall, North Yorkshire, was also jailed for 20 years after being convicted of being an equal partner in the plot. Two other men were cleared by a jury following a trial lasting more than 50 days.

Jurors heard how customs officers were tipped off by one of the people on the plane. Officers were waiting as the suitcases were pushed out of the hold as the plane taxied along the remotest part of the runway at Southend airport.

Barrett-Jolley, who has also been at the centre of media reports over alleged gun-running to developing countries, had denied smuggling, with Carine. Passing sentence Judge Zoe Smith told Barrett-Jolley and Carine: "You plotted together to devise a clever plan to fly a plane into the UK without attracting attention."

(note: Does this remind anyone of the scheme to fly calves from Coventry to Amsterdam and back? Each time the plane landed in Coventry, the Police concentrated on getting the plane quickly loaded and and into the air again with minimal checks of what was actually going on ... what better cover for bringing something into or out of the country without having proper customs checks? ... and was it ever really commercially viable to export calves by air rather than by ship? ... sounds unlikely, or at least it makes you wonder what the real reason behind the flights were.)

The jury heard that the plane, which belonged to a Nigerian prince, began its journey in Africa, travelled to Eastern Europe then flew on to Montego Bay, Jamaica, before landing at Southend.

Barrett-Jolley came to attention a decade ago over the export of live animals to the continent. He was the head of a firm called Phoenix Aviation which ran a veal export business from Baginton airport, near Coventry, Warwickshire.

In 1994 five people died when a returning veal flight crashed into a wood as it approached the airport. A year later animal rights activist Jill Phipps, 31, was crushed to death by a lorry at one of the protests against the trade. Phoenix Aviation's trade was criticised by leading church figures. The company went out of business in 1995.

Four years later, Barrett-Jolley was at the centre of newspaper allegations about the export of weapons to the Sudan. Reports alleged that he had flown a plane packed with arms and ammunition from Slovakia to Khartoum. Barrett-Jolley denied the allegations.

Selected lowlights of Barrett-Jolley's career include:

March 1993: Crosby Otovo, a Phoenix Aviation pilot, is jailed for 8 years after being found guilty of smuggling half a kilo of cocaine and one and a half kilos of heroin into the UK. He brought in the drugs in a suitcase while piloting a Phoenix-chartered Boeing 707. While nothing was ever proved against Barrett-Jolley, he had extensive business interests in West Africa, where the drugs are believed to have originated, not least through his arms dealing.

June 1994: Christopher Barrett-Jolley pilots a Ghanaian-registered aircraft carrying some 1,800 tons of weapons from Plivdov in Bulgaria to Riyan in South Yemen where they are used by South Yemeni forces in the vicious civil war. The shipment includes bombs, mortars and Kalashnikov rifles, but when confronted by the press when it transpires there is some `irregularity` with the papers for the arms, Mr Barrett-Jolley is happy to defend his contribution to humanity when speaking to the Birmingham Post "I've done plenty of legitimate arms deliveries on a government-to-government basis for 20 years. The South Yemenis need these arms to defend themselves. I believe these weapons will save a lot of lives. I have no regrets." He did admit to some misgivings over the problems with the documentation for the shipment but still made at least four more `life-saving` missions to Yemen for which he was paid at least £2,000 per flight. However, always modest, he was not keen for his humanitarian role in Yemen's bloody civil war to be made public, threatening Daily Mirror journalists "If this is printed, you'll be dead come Monday".

July 1994: Barrett-Jolley is back on the humanitarian trail again, this time in Angola where UNITA rebels have wrecked the UN-brokered cease-fire and elections to restart the countrys ten-year civil war. Bad news for the thousands of civilians who are killed or maimed in the fighting, but excellent news for Mr Barrett-Jolley who is laughing all the way to the blood bank with at least one 44-ton arms shipment from Vishkek in the former Soviet Union to Luanda, the besieged capital of Angola. It is believed he made many further shipments to Angola as part of a general effort by arms dealers to keep both sides supplied with arms in what was, for the arms trade, a highly profitable civil war.

October 1994: Barrett-Jolley is convicted of theft after he is sued by Lord Guernsey. Lord Guernsey had made the mistake of renting Barrett-Jolley a cottage, which he left in somewhat acrimonious circumstances in March 1994, taking with him some £6,000 worth of carpets and furniture. Lord Guernsey sued and was awarded £1,500 compensation and £7,000 costs. It was not known whether Barrett-Jolley paid the money.

Late 1994: Barrett-Jolley was convicted of assault causing actual bodily harm after attacking a protester at Coventry airport with a crowbar. In an earlier incident he had tried to run a protester down in his Range Rover.

Early 1995: Barrett-Jolley is captured on video firing an air rifle at (and hitting) a protestor near his house. Shortly after this ... in a bizarre incident ... one morning the Police who were guarding his house ... changed rolls and raided it, arresting Barret-Jolley on suspicion of fraud (something to do with a range rover reported stolen, that was mysteriously found in Barret-Jolleys garage). If anyone knows more details about either of these events, please get in touch.

December 2002: Barret-Jolley sentenced to 20 years in prison for smuggling 600lbs of cocaine into the UK

Christopher Barrett-Jolley is clearly the lowest form of life, a man with no respect for any life, be it animal or human. From dealing death to kids in Britain, to supplying arms for foreign despots, to theft and violence.

You name it, he did it. And when the bottom fell out of the market in human death, Barrett-Jolley, an entrepreneurial pioneer of Britains export earnings moved straight into the animal death trade instead ... and maybe he had an alternative drug smuggling based reason for doing that?

His sick trade, the callousness of the lorry driver and the Police's negligence caused the death of a dedicated and compassionate young woman whose loss has been sorely felt by all who knew her and the animal rights movement as a whole.

It is clear from his record that Barret-Jolley should never have been allowed to start the exports from Coventry nor should he have been allowed to continue after his plane crashed at the airport late in 1994 ... killing 5 people on board, clipping one house and narrowly missing ploughing into a housing estate.

It even emerged in the investigation that the plane flew into the UK illegally, without Department of Transport permission!

This clearly shows that the Government and the Police put the profitability of the UK farming industry above questions of public safety or morality ... and were willing to go as far as to support (with massive resources) a known criminal with well known involvement in some very dodgy dealings.

Ask yourself ... who else apart from Barret-Jolley is to blame for Jill's death?

return to top

If you have come from the History section click here to return there

Click above to visit the Vegan Society website: