RIVERS: GIRLFRIEND HAD LIFE OF LUXURY WITH DRUG LORD

The glamorous girlfriend of a champagne-swilling drug lord is facing jail for helping him launder thousands of pounds through a bogus beauty business.

Amy Rivers, 25, turned a blind eye as her millionaire partner William Forster deposited more than £2,500 per day into the salon’s accounts using fictitious customer records.

She shared a £1m apartment in Chigwell, Essex, with Forster, 30, where police found the fridge was stocked with bottles of £4,500 Dom Perignon champagne and the wardrobe was lined with his and hers designer clothes.

The couple enjoyed a luxury 10-day holiday in Dubai and splashed out on a Mercedes SLK, a £64,000 Range Rover and a £40,000 watch. Forster also paid £11,000 for flying lessons.

Forster, 30, was jailed for 12 years earlier this month for his part in a scheme to flood the streets with £48million of cocaine.

In total he paid £27,000 to the business accounts of Lumiere Beauty and Tanning, Broadway Woodford, during the short time Rivers was named as a director.

Snaresbrook Crown Court heard Rivers was appointed as a director after Forster’s accomplice, James MacDonald, 28, was arrested in connection with the drugs plot in September last year.

MacDonald and then Forster were arrested after they were linked to a shipment of almost three quarters of a kilogram of pure cocaine found in the back of a transit van driven by James Chew and Matthew Davies, both 24, in August 2010.

Officers went on to discover around 6kg of pure cocaine at various address linked to the gang and enough cutting agent to produce 450kg of cocaine for sale on the street.

After Forster was arrested Rivers sold a Range Rover with a personalised number plate for £32,000 and had attempted to sell off a number of Bang & Olufsen products.

Prosecutor Christopher Gillespie told the court Rivers had been arrested in December 2010 after police investigating Forster and MacDonald discovered the link to the beauty salon.

He said: ‘Miss Rivers was a director of the company that ran the business and indeed provided services purportedly for the business.

‘The prosecution case is that most of these services were bogus and intended to mask the drug money that was being laundered through the business.

‘The business was set up and fitted out [by Forster and MacDonald] by paying in cash.

‘On September 25, 2010, after the arrest of James MacDonald, Amy Rivers became a director of that company.

‘Between September 30 and October 12 £27,000 in cash was deposited in the business accounts of Lumiere Beauty Ltd.

‘A forensic accountant has analysed the books of Lumiere and concluded that fictitious client records have been created in order to hide the movement of monies through the business.’

Rivers pleaded guilty to concealing criminal property in March and was due to be sentenced today.

But the hearing was adjourned after her barrister Scott Ivill claimed Rivers did not know the money being laundered through the business came from the sale of cocaine, though she admits she suspected it.

Mr Ivill told the court his client’s guilty plea had been entered on the grounds she had taken up directorship at the behest of Forster and had felt ‘under pressure’ to allow him to use the company accounts.

He said: ‘Though the defendant cannot discount the possibility that the monies (being paid into the account) were the proceeds of drug trafficking at no stage was she positively aware they were the proceeds of drug trafficking.’

Judge John Lafferty said he was unable to accept Rivers’ stance adding: ‘I am afraid that without hearing evidence I am not able to sentence this young woman on the basis that she did not know that the accounts were being used for drug money.’

The case was adjourned until Friday of this week for further instructions to be taken.

On July 1 Forster, of (Flat 12) Goldsmith House, Brandesbury Square, Chigwell, was sentenced to 12 years after he pleaded guilty to the supply Class A drugs.

Macdonald, of (Chapter Three) Old House Lane, in Roydon, Essex was also jailed for 12 years for conspiracy to supply Class A drugs.

Chew, of (1) The Gables, in Ongar, was jailed earlier this year for nine years.

Davies, of (8) Wakerley Close, in Becton, east London, was jailed for six years.

Rivers, of (47) Barnado Gardens, in Davenport Street, Shadwell, east London, had initially been due for sentence alongside Forster but her case was adjourned because she was involved in a car accident.

She was released on bail.

ENDS