AN ENGLISHMAN charged with possessing cocaine valued at €440 million yesterday denied that he was involved in organising a drugs shipment or that he drove the boat carrying the drugs that got into difficulty off the west Cork coast.
Martin Wanden (45) denied a suggestion by prosecution counsel Tom Creed that his version of how he ended up in a Rib (rigid inflatable boat) carrying 1.5 tonnes of cocaine was "a self-serving story to extricate" himself from the situation.
"I've never, ever been on that Rib," said Mr Wanden in reply to Mr Creed's suggestion that he was an integral part of the drugs smuggling operation and drove the Rib to rendezvous with the Lucky Day some 30 miles off the west Cork coast.
Mr Wanden insisted under cross-examination yesterday that it was possible for his friend, a man called Charles Goldie, and another man to transfer from the boat carrying the drugs to the rescue boat that Mr Wanden had brought out, despite the fact that there was a force five wind blowing with three-metre swells on the sea.
Mr Wanden said that because the two boats had tubing just a foot high, they were able to come close together. He said that one of the three other men, Gerard Hagan, held them together for a short period while the two men transferred to the rescue boat.
He said it was during an argument with Mr Goldie in the course of this brief engagement that he was pushed from the rescue boat into the boat carrying the drugs.
Mr Wanden, of no fixed abode, and his two co-accused, Joe Daly (41) from Carrisbrooke Avenue, Bexley, Kent; and Perry Wharrie (48) from Pyrles Lane, Loughton, Essex, each deny charges of possessing cocaine for sale or supply at Dunlough Bay on July 2nd, 2007.
Following cross-examination of Mr Wanden, counsel for Mr Wharrie, Tim O'Leary SC, told the jury at Cork Circuit Criminal Court that "because of the state of the prosecution case", he would not be calling any evidence on behalf of his client.