OLIVER:DRUG BARON’S CHAUFFEUR TO DIE WITHIN MONTHS
The chauffeur for Britain’s most wanted drugs baron was spared jail because he has only months to live.
Peter Oliver, 62, helped 52 year-old Kevin Hanley organise the smuggling of cocaine from Venezuela into the UK in shipments of watermelons and pomegranates.
Hanley, who remained a high-profile fugitive until his arrest at a bar in Greece, was jailed for 17 years in October last year.
Oliver, described as a general assistant or ‘dogsbody’, was too ill to be sentenced at that hearing.
Judge Wendy Joseph QC said she would have given Oliver a six year sentence but for the fact he is terminally ill with a heart condition.
The judge added: ‘The medical view is that Mr Oliver is approaching the end of his life. What is left is to be measured in months, perhaps weeks, rather than years.
‘He requires 24 hour care and this cannot be accommodated in prison.
‘There is no public interest in imposing a sentence of imprisonment which would involve him being taken immediately to hospital in handcuffs and being watched by prison officers.
‘A suspended sentence will allow him to remain in his home with 24 hour care from his family and nursing staff.’
Oliver, who did not attend court, was sentenced to two years imprisonment suspended for two years.
The Old Bailey heard Oliver had known Hanley for many years before joining the drugs conspiracy in June 2012.
Judge Joseph said: ‘Mr Hanley used him as a sort of general assistant or dogsbody. On occasions he acted as driver for Kevin Hanley. On other occasions he acted as courier and on at least one occasion he oversaw the unloading of lorries. It is also clear he was handling drugs.’
Hanley was the right hand man of ‘Mr Big’ Brian Wright, the head of the most successful international drug trafficking network in the late 1990s.
He was jailed for 15 years for cocaine in October 2001 but set up a new smuggling operation in 2010 after serving his sentence.
Hanley used a wholesale food business in London’s Covent Garden Market as a front for the transportation of Venezuelan cocaine by lorry from southern Europe to the UK.
This venture was broken up in 2012 after a surveillance operation led to the arrest of his gang and the seizure of £2.5m of cocaine and £2m in cash.
Hanley remained on the run in Greece until July 2013 when police swooped on an Irish pub in Athens as he watched the British and Irish Lions rugby team beat Australia.
Hanley’s two ‘lieutenants’, Greek TV mogul Chrysi Minadaki, 45, and grocery businessman John Fowler, 58, were jailed for 17 years and 16 years respectively.
Oliver was caught with £4,000 worth of cocaine and £6,000 in cash stood trial with Minadaki and Fowler and was convicted of conspiracy to supply cocaine and money laundering.
His sentencing was adjourned until today after doctors diagnosed him with a serious heart condition and concluded he had only 6 months to live.
Hanley, of [31a] Moore Park Road, Fulham, southwest London, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply cocaine, amphetamines and cannabis and money laundering. He also used addresses in Sinclair Road, Kensington, Marina Place in Hampton Wick and a static caravan at Church Farm Holiday Village in Pagham, West Sussex.
Fowler, of (4) Billing Road, Chelsea, west London, Minadaki, of (35) Cadogan Square, Chelsea, and Oliver of (115 Samuel Lewis Trust Dwelling), Lisgar Terrace, Fulham, west London, were all convicted of conspiracy to supply cocaine and money laundering on Friday 1 August.
Fowler and Minadaki were also convicted of conspiracy to supply amphetamines. Fowler was convicted of a further charge of conspiracy to supply cannabis.
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