Former St Brelade’s deckchair stall holder ‘sold drugs’, trial is told

Former St Brelade’s deckchair stall holder ‘sold drugs’, trial is told

Joanne Marie Jones, who rented out deckchairs at the western end of the bay, denies four charges related to concealing and converting criminal proceeds.

She is accused of putting drugs profits of £18,200 into a Welsh bank account between 2011 and 2014, moving another £10,700 to the same account in 2015 and 2016, and converting further drugs monies by purchasing a £65,000 Welsh property in March 2013 and then depositing just under £300,000 in fixed-deposit investments in May 2015.

Ms Jones has already admitted a number of related offences, Crown Advocate David Hopwood told the court as he opened the prosecution’s case yesterday.

Advocate Hopwood said Ms Jones claims that money she deposited in Wales – in eight instalments valued from £2,500 to £5,000 each – was from a cash inheritance left to her by her grandfather, which she found in a ‘tin can with a note attached to it’.

Advocate Hopwood said the court would find the 49-year-old defendant’s explanations of where the funds came from ‘incredible’, as she claims they came from ‘wheeler-dealering’ while living in Jersey and working low-paid jobs.

‘She had more cash than she knew what to do with,’ he said, adding that at the time of her arrest, Ms Jones had a ‘hoard’ of over £80,000 in large notes hidden in the attic of her home and another £3,000 concealed in a hooded jumper.

But, Advocate Hopwood said, her only explanation for this wealth was having worked low-paid jobs.

Ms Jones came to Jersey in 1995 and worked first at a car dealership before buying the deckchair concession – ‘Sunnyside Chairs’ – with a partner in 2008, the court heard.

The concession was sold in 2015, after which she ran a car wash in the car park of a St Brelade hotel.

Advocate Hopwood told the court that when States police searched the car wash, they found almost half a kilogram of cannabis resin. Ms Jones has pleaded guilty to a possession charge in regards to this cannabis on the basis that she was ‘minding it’, but the Crown rejects this explanation.

The cannabis was embossed with a distinctive Christmas tree logo, the court heard.

The Crown’s case is that the mother-of-one ‘is a drug dealer and has been a drug dealer for some time’, Advocate Hopwood said.

As the trial opened, the court also heard evidence from a number of police officers about how they came to search Ms Jones’s home and business.

And a senior drugs squad officer said the presence of cash – divided methodically into Sterling and Jersey notes – was significant. DC Alasdair Castle said the percentage of Sterling found was roughly consistent with what would be paid to a mainland supplier of drugs and the Jersey amounts would be the profit.

However, Advocate Michael Haines, defending, suggested that the Sterling could have come from English tourists using the deckchair business.

Commissioner Julian Clyde-Smith is presiding over the trial, which is expected to run until the end of the week. He was joined by Jurats Jerry Ramsden and Pamela Pitman.

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