The £2m alleged criminal fortune of two gangster brothers was profit from legitimate businesses, lawyers for the men argued.
Ex-army corporal Peter Clarke, 37, and his security boss brother Stephen, 48, headed up a dangerous drugs gang with access to firearms, machetes and samurai swords.
The pair were jailed for a combined 26 and-a-half-years in November 2013, along with the rest of the henchmen, over a plot to ship cocaine and cannabis from Merseyside to Northern Ireland.
Now the brothers are locked in a battle with prosecutors who say their alleged £2m fortune was amassed through drugs trafficking and is squirrelled away in murky web of hidden assets.
But Nigel Power, QC, defending, told Preston Crown Court today that scaffolding and security businesses linked to Stephen Clarke turned in a legitimate profit.
He said his companies did business with firms including McDonald’s, Holiday Inn, Odeon Cinemas, PC World, Redrow Homes and even Warrington Borough Council.
Mr Power, referring to one scaffolding company, CNL, said: “One can see legitimately transferred payments going in, and cash being withdrawn. This is the opposite of money laundering.”
He clashed with prosecution counsel Nick Johnson, QC, over the practice of “interim dividends” being paid from the company bank accounts to shareholders in the businesses, which he alleged to be the flow of drug money back into the pockets of the defendants.
Mr Power accused the prosecution of being “completely ignorant” of the practice, which he claimed was not unusual or illegal.
However Mr Johnson pointed to the flow of money from a company linked to developer Peter McInnes, who was a joint 50% shareholder with Stephen Clarke in scaffolding company, Pro Scaff Access.
Mr McInnes made monthly payments of £4,000 to a joint account held by Clarke and his wife Rachel Clarke, which amounted to £178,000 between 2009 and 2012.
Mr Johnson said Mr McInnes was director of a development company called Peckers Hill alongside a man called Anthony Quigley, who recently pleaded guilty to conspiring to supply heroin.
Payments linked to Mr McInnes’ wife, Sheila McInnes, were also found to have been made to accounts linked to the Clarkes.
Mr McInnes and his wife have not been charged with any criminal offence.
Yesterday, Mr Johnson outlined a series of Stephen Clarke’s conversations – recorded on secret police listening devices – which he claimed exposed the family’s true “dirty” fortune.
One chat, recorded on July 9, 2012 between Stephen Clarke and his wife Rachel, took place as they were under observation at the Queens Drive home of Rachel Clarke’s mum Veronica Maxwell.
It referred to a person “sweating” as they were believed to have misplaced a sum of cash, to which Clarke replied: “I always know where my dough is”.
Another recording between Stephen Clarke and an “underling” of his scaffolding firm heard him boast of registering his home, in Banks, near Southport, in his wife’s name.
He said that was “just in case the f***ing bizzies take it off me”.
Another recorded chat, the court was told, featured Clarke recounting being owed £100,000 by a man called ‘Dave’, and “hoping to recover” £140,000 from ‘Belly’, who Mr Johnson said was a Manchester-based drug dealer.
The court heard bank accounts in the name of Stephen and Rachel Clarke currently hold more than £315,000 in cash.
The complex Proceeds of Crime Act hearing is due to last several weeks.
Source: http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/