LONDON: A truck driver from Herefordshire has been sentenced to 14 years in jail for his part in a drug smuggling racket which saw him kidnapped and tortured.
Antony Joy, 47, was sentenced at Liverpool Crown Court last week having been found guilty of importing Class A drugs worth more than £4 million.
Joy, from Cedar Close, Moreton-on-Lugg, was arrested after Border Force staff at Immingham, Lincolnshire found more than 24 kilos of cocaine and two kilos of heroin stuffed behind carpet tiles in the lorry he was driving.
Just 24 hours later, after being released on bail, he was lured into a meeting with his boss and co-defendant Paul Wilson, from Aintree, Merseyside, where he was abducted.
After six days of being beaten and tortured, Joy was dumped naked and injured in a street in Liverpool, and called police from a telephone box.
Wilson, 60, was later charged with being involved in the kidnap, a crime for which he was sentenced to 12 years in prison. He admitted conspiring to import Class A drugs.
Joy denied the smuggling charge, but was found guilty by the Liverpool Crown Court jury.
Both were sentenced to 14 years. Wilson’s sentence will run consecutively to his 12 year sentence for kidnap.
DCI Paul Hesketh from Merseyside Police, senior investigating officer in Joy’s abduction case, said: “Paul Wilson played an integral role in the kidnapping of Antony Joy, who went on to endure days of suffering at the hands of several violent men who have yet to be brought to justice.
“The fact that he arranged this against his own employee and someone who regarded him as a friend demonstrates his utter ruthlessness as well as the murky world that both men operated in.
“Their sentencing for importing huge quantities of Class A drugs on top of Wilson’s 12 year prison term for Joy’s kidnap and torture shows the seriousness with which the courts view their crimes.
“Merseyside Police will continue to work alongside our colleagues in other law enforcement agencies to keep bringing serious organised crime groups to justice and to stop illegal drugs reaching the streets of the UK.”
