A respected fisher who met King Charles and government representatives to discuss the future of the industry has been jailed for taking part in a sophisticated plot to smuggle £18m of cocaine into the UK.
Peter Williams, 44, was sentenced to 16 years and nine months for captaining a boat that went out to pick up packages of cocaine dropped into the sea off Cornwall by a “mother ship” transporting the drugs from South America.
Truro crown court was told that Williams, from Havant, Hampshire, had been an upstanding member of his local community but after falling on hard times developed a drug habit and accrued a large debt.
He was recruited by his drug dealers to skipper the rigid-hull inflatable boat (RHIB) for the drug-smuggling operation in September last year but it went wrong when it was spotted by a UK Border Force cutter.
The fisher led Border Force officers on a 28-mile chase, which ended on Gwynver beach near Land’s End when Williams ran the RHIB aground.
He and other members of the gang, which included three Essex men believed to have been aiming to sell the drugs in the south-east of England, and a Colombian man thought to have been acting as security for the South American drug cartel, were caught.
In mitigation, Williams’ barrister, Harry Laidlaw, said he had been a fisher for about 15 years, having previously worked with children in the care sector. The barrister said his problems began almost 20 years ago when his father, also a fisher, died in his presence on a boat.
“His response to that was to turn to drugs, cocaine in particular,” said Laidlaw. “He sorted out his addiction to a degree and managed to get his life back on track. In 2020 his marriage began to break down. Covid struck his business and he fell back into the same trap.”
Laidlaw said Williams had been left with “significant debt”, relating to his business problems and his drug habit, and was approached by his dealers to become involved in the plot.
The barrister said it had been a “massive fall from grace”. He said: “He was a decent, upstanding member of the local coastal community. He represented fishermen for years in front of government and meeting the king in that capacity.
“He worked for a charity called Fishing into the Future. He was vice-chair of that charity.” Laidlaw said he met the king – when he was Prince of Wales – on a number of occasions through the charity, speaking to him at length about sustainable fishing and getting young people involved in the industry. “He has made a terrible series of decisions,” Laidlaw said.
Sentencing Williams, Judge Adkin said: “This was an international conspiracy to smuggle a large quantity of cocaine into the UK.” He said Williams was a “trusted gang member”.
Earlier this month, the Guardian revealed that law enforcement agencies had urged people living in coastal communities in the UK to help them catch drug gangs.
They have warned that gangs are favouring a method called “at-sea drop-offs” (Asdos) in which packages of drugs are released into the ocean from “mother ships” for smaller vessels to pick up and take into the UK via small coves and harbours.
There is growing concern the gangs may begin to use more sophisticated techniques such as deploying underwater drones, nicknamed narco submarines, to evade Border Force cutters.
Williams admitted conspiracy to import class A drugs. Five other men have been sentenced over the same plot and one more is to be dealt with next month.
