"Marcee Pepper told you of her history, a rebellious teenage meeting with Christopher range when she was 17 and he but a little older. Like Lady Caroline Lamb's description of Lord Byron, he was mad, bad and dangerous to know. She clearly fell for him. She was pregnant by him within 2 weeks. He was soon to be sentenced to 3 and a half years and later to 3 years. They were separated but she took him back. He had had a child at the age of 15 by another woman. She took that child in and treats her as her own. She has another baby by him. She told you she has had to try hard to find work or to get a profession. He kept her short of cash, went his own way and frequently stayed away. Alexander Range told you that Christopher liked his designer clothes and his expensive watch, and he thought that he, Christopher and Adam Hine had gone shopping in New York. Marcee Pepper seems to have had a different perception of him. She agrees she sent money to and for Christopher Range, the cash coming from the sale of the house. She agrees she hired cars, including the one detained at Manchester Airport. She says that they were for Christopher's use because his own had broken down. A car was needed to take the children to school or nursery. She needed her own car to look for work and, when she started work for Monarch at Gatwick, to get to the airport. The 045 number was a contract phone. It was rented for Christopher's use in her mother's name, as neither of them had a good enough credit status. She was totally unaware that Christopher Range had been involved in drug smuggling. When she sent him money by transfer it was at his request because he had run out of money for his return flights or, on one occasion, because he was going island hopping. She agreed that she made the three calls on the 045 number to Adam Hine on 9 May. She picked up the phone at home, she left for work in the early hours. Christopher rang to say he had lent the car to Hine and could not take the children to school and she got angry about this as Hine did not have her permission to drive the car, which, as I have told you, was hired in her sole name. So she rang Adam Hine and asked him why he was driving without her permission, only to be told that he had to go and that he was busy. She rang him again moments later really, and he did not even answer. When she rang a third time, again shortly thereafter, she got the same brush off. He was in fact, as you know, then in and around terminal 2, either the car park or the terminal itself, and was to be arrested moments later. I do not propose to remind you again about the search of her home and her arrest and her interview, members of the jury. She told you she was a stranger to the courts and police stations, and she would not knowingly get involved in any crime, let alone drug conspiracies, and would not jeopardise her children's welfare by getting involved in this sort of thing. She called her mother and father and her friend Mrs Borge. You remember that evidence and will bear it in mind."
"During the same four months there were several trips to the United States by different people. There were similar money transfers, and they involve Adam Hine on more than one occasion, Daniel/David Paul being in San Diego at one and the same time as this defendant and Adam Hine. On another occasion Adam Hine and Christopher Hine travelling to Mexico and the United States and following a rather, I cannot say convoluted, but certainly a meandering type of journey around the North American continent. To treat those trips in isolation from the rest of the activities of Adam Hine and Christopher Range and Marcee Pepper, is to stretch the jury's credulity rather a long way. They are fully entitled to look at the whole picture, and they decide whether it is a proper inference to draw that these were drug trips or whether they were not"
"They are all inextricably linked in one picture and, in my judgment, they do present circumstantial evidence from which the jury, properly directed, would be entitled to say 'we are driven to draw the inference that all these people are involved together and involved in a drug conspiracy, and these trips are part of that conspiracy'. The question then goes on how far does this draw this defendant, Alexander Range, into that conspiracy? The fact that he went on one of those trips with Adam Hine, the fact that he sent money on another trip to Alex Hine and Christopher Range, his brother, and the finding of a document in the car driven by Adam Hine, rented by Marcee Pepper, directed to go to Manchester at very short notice, clearly indicates a further link from which the jury would be entitled to draw that inference should they so conclude"
"Now, the prosecution ask you as a matter of common sense to infer that all this to-ing and fro-ing and transfers of money during this period are inevitably connected each to the other. They cannot attribute a purpose to the trips to America and Mexico, but from their pattern and timing they can hardly be holidays or tourism. From the very pattern of all that, the prosecution says that the only proper conclusion is that they were directed by Christopher Range, using funds provided by or through him and connected to his very obvious drugs importing business. They suggest that you should conclude that these trips were either to make or to renew contacts, or to meet drugs suppliers or their representatives, or to effect money transfers from Mexico or California into the Caribbean area as a means of avoiding detection in the United Kingdom. It may be a very long way from Mexico to Trinidad, but money can be moved at the press of a button"