Drug club duo convictions are sound, say judges

THE owner and DJ manager of the Dance Academy will remain behind bars after being told that evidence given against them anonymously by undercover police officers did not breach their human rights.

Manoucehr Bahmanzadeh, aged 52, and Tom Costelloe, aged 37, were jailed for nine years and five years respectively in July after being found guilty of allowing ecstasy to be dealt in the Union Street nightclub.

During the trial at Plymouth Crown Court, 24 undercover police officers gave evidence anonymously and behind screens, visible only to the judge, the jury and counsel.

The officers impersonated drug-buyers inside the club during Operation Jonamac, which ran between December 2005 and May 2006.

At one stage the trial was halted to allow legal discussion of the use of anonymous undercover officers, following a decision by the House of Lords over an ongoing but unconnected trial.

It was argued by Costelloe’s barrister Alan Newman QC that each officer needed to be re-examined without the benefit of a screen. He claimed Costelloe needed to see if any of the people who had offered him drugs at the club were officers acting as ‘agent provocateurs’. He also insisted they needed to see Costelloe to determine whether any of them ever bought drugs in his presence.

Presiding trial Judge Francis Gilbert rejected the application and, after the jury found the pair guilty, he told the defendants they had allowed the ‘rampant, overt and blatant’ sale of ecstasy at the former theatre.

In late October lawyers for Bahmanzadeh and Costelloe took the case to the Court of Appeal in London, arguing that the use of anonymous police witnesses breached their human rights.

However, following the appeal hearing, which sat before a rarely-convened five-judge court, headed by the Lord Chief Justice, they have been told they will remain in jail.

Dismissing their appeals, the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, said the identities of the anonymous police witnesses were irrelevant to the issues the jury had to decide.

Their evidence, he said, had been extensively tested by defence lawyers, but their individual credibility had never been challenged.

Keeping their identities a secret, the judge added, had been ‘necessary to prevent real harm to the public interest’.

In addition, he said there was ‘ample evidence from witnesses other than the undercover officers from which the jury could infer that the offence was proved against these appellants’.

Lord Judge went on to explain that Bahmanzadeh and Costelloe – described by their own barristers as ordinary individuals with no connections to the criminal fraternity – did not pose a risk to the officers, but were more likely to be targeted by criminals who wanted to know the identities of undercover police officers.

“It would not have been sensible to have depended on the understanding of these appellants of the principles of confidentiality to secure the safety of the officers,” he said.

2fmedia.thisisplymouth.co.uk%2fTSPlayer%2fJSON.aspx%3fid%3d13633%26embedded%3dtrue" menu="false" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" quality="high" bgcolor="#C1C9E0" src="http://media.thisisplymouth.co.uk/tsplayer/videoplayer.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="300" height="258">He added that the trials of Bahmanzadeh, Costelloe and of supervisor Justin Hayward, who was acquitted, were not ‘prejudiced by the fact that a number of these witnesses gave evidence anonymously, and behind screens, shielded from the sight of the appellants’.

He said the two jailed men ‘were enabled properly and fully to test the evidence of the anonymous witnesses to strengthen their own cases or to undermine the case for the prosecution.’

He called Judge Gilbert’s order ‘sound and realistic’ and deemed the convictions safe before dismissing the appeal.

Lead investigator Det Insp Dave Huggett said he was happy with the outcome of the appeal.

“I would like to reiterate that this is not about the fact that they did all they could [to prevent dealing in the club], because the fact is they did nothing”, he said.

“Nothing changed from when we went in at the beginning of the undercover operation to the day we executed the warrant. They didn’t update their staff; they didn’t put in place our recommendations to tackle the problem.

“They were complicit in what went on there. They didn’t want it to stop because it was about getting people in through the doors. They may not have been dealing themselves, but their gain was the people coming in.”

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