A FORMER prison escapee was one of three men sentenced in Jersey’s Royal Court yesterday for a plot to import cocaine hidden in Kinder eggs and remove criminal money from the Island.
Aaron Sebastian Brannan (34) – who escaped from a Scottish prison in 2019 – was jailed for 18 months for one count of attempting to remove criminal property from Jersey, and one of perverting the course of justice for smashing his phone against a table in an attempt to destroy it as he was being arrested.
The two other men, a pair of stepbrothers, made the “biggest mistake” of their lives by getting involved in drug trafficking, the Royal Court heard.
Civil engineer Kieran Martin Thomas Walker (32) admitted to one count of importing cocaine to the Island and one of being concerned in an arrangement to acquire, use, possess or control criminal property.
And his 45-year-old stepbrother Grant Philip Adams admitted one count of being concerned in an arrangement to facilitate the acquisition, use, possession or control of criminal property, and one count of importing a small amount of cannabis for his personal use.
Brannan was stopped on his flight from Liverpool to Jersey on 4 September 2025 and declared some cash.
The two other men followed on a ferry from Portsmouth two days later, and swabs of their car revealed a positive test for cocaine.
When customs officers asked him whether he had anything on him, Walker admitted to having cocaine “down his pants”.
When asked how much he had, Walker said: “A fair bit, to be honest.”
He produced 57 grams of cocaine hidden in three Kinder egg containers. Adams said he knew nothing about the drugs, which the court accepted.
The cocaine had very high purity, at 87%, and would have a street value of £8,600 to £14,300, or more if it was adulterated.
Messages on Walker’s phone showed that he had been speaking to Brannan, and that Brannan had sent Adams money for their ferry and hotel.
On Sunday 7 September, Brannan was stopped in Jersey Airport’s departures hall and taken to a search room, where he told a customs officer that he didn’t have any bags with him and he “had disposed of the bag he had travelled to Jersey with a few days earlier”.
Customs officers found that he was carrying £2,339.55 in a black sock, as well as a pair of Prada sunglasses worth £253.44 bought at World Duty Free.
He had another £70 in cash, making a total of £2409.55.
As the officer tried to arrest Brannan, he “immediately took hold of his mobile phone, which was on the table next to him, and started smahing it against the table in an attempt to destroy it,” Crown Advocate Sette said.
He later didn’t give the right PIN for the phone, claiming he had issues with his short-term memory after a car accident, though there was no evidence to back this up.
Crown Advocate Sette asked for Walker to be jailed for six-and-a-half years, Brannan for two years, and Adams for seven months.
Advocate Julia-Anne Dix, defending Walker, said he had suffered “serious and complex longstanding mental health conditions” that made him “incredibly vulnerable”.
He had made a number of serious attempts on his own life and had several times been sectioned under the English and Welsh Mental Health Act, she said.
He had taken drugs to alleviate his symptoms, she said, leading him down “a vicious cycle”.
She said he had described the offending as “the biggest mistake of his life”.
“Indeed, it is hard to see his offending as anything else and it was a devastating lack of judgement that will cost Mr Walker dearly,” said Advocate Dix.
She said that his stepbrother Adams “had no knowledge that he was carrying drugs, having told him they were simply coming to Jersey to collect money”.
“He bitterly regrets this,” she added.
Advocate Dix said that the brothers’ elderly mother would now have two sons in prison, and that the sentence would impact Walker’s family.
Advocate Chris Baglin, representing Adams, explained his client’s “wilful ignorance” about the purpose of the trip to Jersey.
The brothers, he said, had a difficult past but Adams was now a “family man”.
“It was a childhood marked by trauma and like his brother, the months spent in custody since the beginning of September has been the beginning of a period of sobriety and reflection,” said Advocate Baglin.
Childhood trauma was behind his client’s addiction, he added.
Advocate Baglin said that Adams would be welcome back at his previous job as an engineer connecting houses to high-speed broadband.
Advocate Ian Jones, defending Brannan, said that his client had spent most of his adult life in jail, with 65 previous convictions.
“It is a sorry tale and one I hope the court will express at least some sympathy for,” said Advocate Jones, adding that there “does seem to have been a change” in recent years.
Brannan was jailed in Scotland for ten-and-a-half years for his part in a £230,000 daylight jewellery raid at the Argyll Arcade in Glasgow in 2015.
He was jailed to a further 12 months in 2016, committed further offences in custody and escaped from prison in 2019, before being released on licence on 4 April last year.
But following his crimes in Jersey, Brannan will not be eligible for release in the UK until 2035 at the earliest.
Advocate Jones stressed that any time Brannan spent in custody in Jersey before being sent back to custody in Scotland would delay his eventual release to his family.
Sentencing him to 18 months imprisonment, the Bailiff, Robert MacRae, told Brannan: “You have a significant criminal record.”
He also sentenced Walker to four-and-a-half years’ imprisonment, and Adams to six months.
However, Adams had already spent enough time on remand that he walked free from court yesterday.
Jersey Customs and Immigration Service senior manager Paul Le Monnier said: “Drug importations will not be tolerated and those who attempt to launder the proceeds only serve to further fuel drug trafficking.
“JCIS remain committed to safeguarding our community from the harm caused by illegal drugs.”
