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Sentencing

After a seven week trial, on December 17th 1999, Ruth Wyner and John Brock were sentenced at Cambridge Crown Court to five years and four years in prison, respectively.

What follows below is a transcript of the sentencing by Judge Jonathan Haworth.

You will find that certain passages have been underlined. This is to indicate that the Cambridge Two campaign has included a response to the judge's comments in the 'Sentencing Response' which you can read by clicking on the marked passages or visiting 'Sentencing Response' from within the Campaign History section of this web site.

21 DEC '99 16:57 THE CROWN COURT AT CAMBRIDGE

You may remain seated for the moment.

I have not found this an easy case in which to decide the appropriate sentence -There are a number of competing factors which come together in what are wholly unusual circumstances. I therefore intend to set out the reasons for the sentences I shall pass in some detail.

Each of you has been found guilty by the jury of knowingly permitting the supply of heroin to take place on the premises for which you were responsible as managers. Those premises, Overstream House, were owned by the charity Winter Comfort, and were the home of the, Day Shelter, The Bus, provided to help the homeless. That help took the form of meeting essential basic needs, such as a hot drink or meal, and washing and toilet facilities; it also provided access to those able to provide housing, and to medical facilities. Unhappily heroin addiction is all too common among the homeless, and again the Shelter provided access to such drug rehabilitation services as existed in Cambridge. All these are wholly laudable aims, and it is not surprising to find that the Shelter was funded by the local and health authorities under a Joint Services Agreement.

That agreement stipulated that no prohibited drugs should be permitted on the premises. That is a condition applied generally to such hostels, and one that is generally carefully and rigorously enforced. That it was not in this particular case is only too clear after hearing seven weeks of evidence. This case therefore stands on its own particular circumstances, and it holds no message for other similar hostels other than to reinforce the necessity for managers of such hostels to do all in their power to ensure that the supply of drugs does not take place on their hostel premises. I venture to suggest that no responsible hostel manager would wish it to be otherwise.

I turn then to deal with the facts of this case. In January 1995 you, Ruth Wyner were appointed Director of Winter Comfort, with responsibility for the management of the charity's projects. You, John Brock, were appointed manager of the Bus Project, the day shelter at Overstream House, which premises also held the administrative offices of the charity. The policy at The Bus was to have an open door, and this welcome to all comers soon conflicted with your employer's policy on prohibited drugs. Concern was expressed locally at the difficulties caused in the neighbourhood, and there was a noticeable proliferation in drug use and, importantly, drug supply on and around the project.

This was vividly brought to your joint attention in late l996 when the local beat officer, PC Partridge, took the trouble to visit you and show both of you the available police intelligence on the supply routes for heroin into Cambridge, those routes terminating, at Overstream House with named dealers. That prompted you, Ruth Wyner, to formulate a detailed policy on drugs, set out in writing, and approved by your employers. In short, it affirmed that anyone dealing or suspected of dealing in prohibited drugs would be banned indefinitely from the Project. There was a Ban Book introduced available to record the names of those banned so that all employees might be aware of the names of those not permitted on the premises. All this was introduced in January 1997.

That there was a serious problem with heroin dealing on the penises was acknowledged by each of you in evidence. By the period covered by the charge in the Indictment, February to May 1998, it is quite clear that heroin dealing was rife, that each of you was aware of it, and that each of you did little or nothing to enforce your avowed policy to prevent it happening.

The scale of the problems became clear as the evidence, unfolded during the trial. Despite the introduction of a specific banning policy in January 1997, and a minuted comment from you, John Brock, at an Advisory Group Meeting of the 21st July 1997 that there was a 'need to look at the obvious dealing in and around the Project', the first ever ban recorded as for drugs dealing was not until 17th August 1997, and then only a ban for two weeks. You, Ruth Wyner, said in evidence that you 'knew at that stage that obvious dealing was taking place on the Project'. The first indefinite ban was not until the 7th December 1997, only the fourth or fifth for drug dealing in the whole of 1997. There two bans for dealing in February 1998, and two in April. One of those banned indefinitely in February was seen time and again on the video film, back on the premises in open defiance of his ban, dealing in drugs, with no action being taken by staff to enforce his ban.

By February 1998 there were up to ten dealers a day operating on and within the premises. They were there for the sole purpose of their trade. We saw them on video plying their trade, often in particular locations on the premises, and frequently in the presence or within the view of staff members. We heard evidence from three of them. One in particular, Timothy Pocket, gave a graphic description of how he had been stranded in Cambridge unexpectedly. He was a heroin addict, and sought a source of supply in Cambridge. He was directed to Overstream House, where he readily met his needs. After a week he moved on, but so taken was he by the freedom the dealers enjoyed that he made plans to return and himself deal in heroin there. After another trip in January 1998 to check he really would be able to deal free from interference, he returned in March with his supply line arranged. He then dealt on a daily basis at Overstream House until his arrest in May. He made up to £1000 a day from his dealing there; he bought himself a BMW 7 series motor car, which he took to arriving in, parking it nearby. He was able to live a lifestyle he had not known for some years. He did all this under your noses, and as we saw, under the nose of the police surveillance video camera and the two undercover police officers who were to purchase heroin from him on the Project. He gave evidence having been sentenced without any discount for giving evidence, and with no evidence that he had anything to gain from giving his evidence. I found him a convincing witness as to the true state of affairs inside Overstream House in the spring of 1998.

The level of heroin supply was such that when a dealer arrived on the premises a queue would form at his or her side. Customers came from 30 or 40 miles away for the sole purpose of buying heroin. Time and again on the video evidence we saw a customer make a purchase and walk straight off the premises and on their way. They were not the homeless; they were not seeking to make use of the hostel services, save the illicit one of purchasing their heroin.

I have said that the police were concerned at the level of heroin supply on the premises from the second half of 1996. There was regular contact between yourselves and the police at six-weekly Advisory Group meetings. Time and again at those meetings the Police sought to raise their concerns; time and again you reassured the police, and indeed your own employers, the Trustees, that you were fully aware of the problem and taking appropriate steps to deal with it. However, when asked to do so, you refused to name to the police any person banned for dealing or suspected dealing in drugs. You perversely seemed to regard even the dealers as your legitimate clients, and that they can never have been. You claimed to have a policy of confidentiality, which prevented you from assisting the police to arrest and prosecute dealers in a wickedly addictive Class A drug. As I said during the trial, when that policy conflicted with the law it could not stand, yet you sought to uphold it to the last.

In the result the police had no alternative but to mount a covert surveillance operation at considerable expense in manpower and resources. It was an unprecedented operation for the Cambridge police, but one that was necessary to meet an unprecedented situation. That observation revealed the picture I have described, of dealing so blatant that it can only indicate dealers who felt completely safe from interference by you or the police. You had created a haven for heroin dealers.

In response to that evidence the police then sent in two undercover officers to the premises. They visited twelve times over a three week period between the 25th March and the 15th April, and on nine occasions were able to buy freely available heroin within a few minutes of their arrival. That again illustrates the nature and extent of the haven you created.

Matters came to a head on the 15th April 1998 when a genuine user of the hostel died in the bath there from an overdose of heroin. If ever there was a moment for you to realise that you had to take effective action to end the dealing, that was it. But again the evidence was clear that you permitted the dealing to continue, even to the extent of allowing the one and only person then banned indefinitely for dealing to return at will and continue his dealing.

And finally, at the meeting of the 20th April 1998 when you were pressed for assistance by the police, you maintained your refusal to name those who had been banned for drugs supplying, but offered to tell the police how many people had been banned for drug supply and misuse in the three months January to March 1998. You did so, but gave them outrageously inaccurate figures which in fact covered 15 months, and not 3. And you claimed that was an innocent mistake. I am driven to the view that you each knew full well that those figures could not possibly be correct for a three month period, yet you put them forward as such to deter the police from their proper duty. Despite their best efforts the police received not one ounce of co-operation from you in carrying out their duty to arrest drug dealers; you did no more than tolerate their presence at joint meetings.

John Brock, I did detect signs that you were worried by what you had done, or rather failed to do, and I take note of that. You are also of good character, without a blemish on your record, Ruth Wyner you have no previous convictions, and l take that into account in your case. I do not hold against you the circumstances surrounding your dismissal from a similar post immediately prior to your taking up this one, save to say that whatever the rights and wrongs of your dismissal from the hostel in Norwich, you came to this job well aware of the need to ensure that drugs were indeed prohibited on the premises.

I have read carefully the Pre-Sentence and Medical Reports and other testimonials placed before me today in each of your cases, and acknowledge the assistance of your Counsel. I acknowledge too the inevitable impact this case has had and will continue to have on you and your families. I take full account of the fact that you are people who would never normally expect to find yourselves before the Courts, and that there are many who are very supportive of the work you have done over the years for the homeless. I take particular account of the impact of the trial process upon you. Even though it was caused by your own pleas of not guilty, it is clear from the medical and other evidence that the process has had a deep impact upon each of you. I have specifically reduced the sentences from what they would otherwise have been for these reasons.

However, it is this Court's duty to make it clear that those who harbour or by their knowing inaction encourage the trade in heroin on premises for which they are responsible must expect to face an immediate custodial sentence. When they do so on the scale here, up to 10 dealers a day, with the takings of one dealer topping £1000 a day over the time-scale encompassed by this Indictment, then that sentence must be of a length sufficient to make it crystal clear that such a breach of the law cannot be tolerated. - Nor is it any answer to say that the dealing would have taken place elsewhere if not on these promises. Elsewhere the police can act, free from the restraints that you placed in their way. Nor was this a victimless crime by you - the consequences became all too clear prior to your arrests. In the final analysis the Court must place its duty to protect the young and disadvantaged above your own particular circumstances today. The only way in which it can do that is to pass in the event 8 dealers were arrested and prosecuted, and for their one deal with the undercover officers were sentenced without exception to terms of imprisonment, in most cases 4 years. Those sentences exemplify the public's abhorrence of heroin dealing, a trade in a drug which is addictive and destructive; addicts become tomorrow's thieves and burglars, stealing to fund their habit, to pay the very dealers taking advantage of the haven you provided. And therein lies the seriousness of your offence - in positions of responsibility, trusted to implement and enforce a policy consistent with the law, you broke that trust, you placed in jeopardy the good work that such a project can do, and above all you placed at risk those very people you were supposedly committed to helping. It was the homeless, the under-privileged and the needy who, far from finding a refuge from their daily hardships, found themselves all too easily able to maintain their addiction to heroin. It is those addicts that repeatedly this Court has before it as burglars, thieves, and eventually dealers themselves, unable to break the awful addiction they have. Their own lives are destroyed, and they prey on others: this was the vicious circle you were permitting to happen on the premised for which you were responsible. You were doing so at a time when it was well publicised that deaths from heroin overdoses in this City were escalating at a frightening rate.

As I said in opening, there is a view of your behaviour which is charitable to you; that you were doing a difficult job in trying circumstances; that your primary motives were good and charitable, and that you were unable to cope rather than deliberately obstructive. I acknowledge that that view exists, but, having heard the evidence during your trial it is not one that I can take; in my view you had clear responsibilities that you deliberately ignored with your eyes open. You permitted a situation to arise where your hostel became a centre of heroin dealing in Cambridge; when told to your faces by police officers, local councillors and others that it was happening you took none of the readily available steps you could have done to stop it; when deaths occurred it still did not provoke a change of attitude. Only your arrests prompted a change of policy, to a closed door with individuals admitted on request; a change, which, incidentally, swiftly brought to an end any significant dealing on the premises.

I can give neither of you credit for a plea of guilty: each of you pursued a not guilty plea to the end in the face of increasingly overwhelming evidence. You, Ruth Wyner, showed no sign of remorse or acknowledgement of wrongdoing when giving evidence in your case.

Stand up please - Ruth Wyner, as director you were responsible for the implementation of policy and ensuring it was enforced. Your own beliefs meant you disqualified yourself from the most obvious means of securing the removal of dealers, by calling the police. You did so with your eyes open, aware of the practical consequences on the Project. I can give you no credit for a guilty plea. You will go to prison for 5 years.

John Brock, you were responsible for implementing the policy on the ground on a daily basis. You lamentably failed to do so, when all around you was the clear evidence of the consequences of that failure. It may be that, left in sole charge, you would have done things differently. But you did not, nor did you seek to do so. You were not sufficiently concerned by events even to raise the matter with the trustees of the charity. You are equally responsible for what happened, and the only additional mitigating feature of your case is that you felt bound to Ruth Wyner's policy of not calling in the police even though in your heart of hearts you of may have queried its validity. You will go to prison for 4 years.

You will each serve two-thirds of your sentence unless released earlier on parole. Upon your release you will be on licence for a further period. If at any time before the expiry of the full sentence you commit any further offence you are at risk of being ordered to serve the balance then outstanding of this sentence. Do you understand?

I make no order under the Drug Trafficking Act.

Mr Caudle, the situation faced by the local police force here was an intolerable one. In my view they dealt with it in the only way they could, and are to be commended for the diligence and restraint they showed in the most difficult circumstances.

Finally, I wish to say a word to those who so selflessly give of their time and money to aid the work of Winter Comfort. I hope they will emerge from this unhappy episode strengthened in the knowledge that their purposes are laudable and their policies more than adequate to ensure compliance with the law, provided only that their managers ensure that the Charity's policies are indeed enforced to the best of those managers' ability. It is upon the managers of a project that the law places the burden of taking responsible steps readily available to prevent the supply of drugs taking place, a burden discharged successfully at other hostels within Cambridge and elsewhere, and indeed on the information I have available, at Overstream House now. That is the limited extent of the message to be learnt from this unfortunate case.

Please read the full 'Sentencing Response' by clicking here