An OAP drugs mule has been sent back to a maximum security jail - after complaining that prison chiefs were breaching his human rights.
Roger Clarke, 77, claimed to be lining up a £60,000 compensation bid because he should have been freed in 2022. He had been housed at HMP Standford Hill, on the Isle of Sheppey, Kent, and enjoyed days out from the open prison each month. But his whines have landed him in hot water with prison bosses who transferred him from his cell in the open prison to a closed maximum security jail.
A source said: “Roger was enjoying day release from an open prison for months. But his claims of a ‘human rights breach’ have not gone down well with officials. It violated the terms of his temporary release and he’s been sent straight back to a closed prison. Roger was due to be released in May but that’s now completely up in smoke.”
A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: *“Prisoners must pass a robust risk assessment before any move to open conditions prison and we do not hesitate to move them back to closed prisons if they break the rules.”
Clarke out on day release before being sent back to a maximum security jail (Adam Gerrard / Daily Mirror)
Roger and Sue Clarke were caught with £1million worth of cocaine (Internet Unknown)Clarke said he should have been freed in December 2022 after serving half his eight-year term for bringing £1million of cocaine on a cruise ship from St Lucia to Europe with his wife. Roger was transferred from a Portuguese prison to a UK one in 2021, just days after Susan, 72, died behind bars.
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Last week he told the Mirror how he wants to be freed so he can have a proper memorial for Susan and to heal a rift with his family. The couple were arrested on the Marco Polo cruise liner as it sailed into Lisbon in December 2018.
Sawn inside the lining of a suitcase was 20lbs of cocaine - but the couple always denied they knew it was there and said they were doing a “favour” for friends. Speaking to the Mirror in a Morrisons supermarket cafe, he repeated his denials, saying: “I can understand why people don’t believe me. Sue knew nothing. I blame myself, I should have checked. I didn’t. But I trusted these people.”
He was due to be released in May (Adam Gerrard / Daily Mirror)Roger said he fills his time in prison making matchstick picture frames for other inmates - in exchange for vapes - and enjoys two days out of prison each month. He maintained he was innocent over the 2018 cocaine trafficking plot. And he claimed he was held in a cell in the notorious hell-hole EP Lisboa with 10 other prisoners, including murderers and rapists.
He also said he paid £158 from his own pocket for the British Airways flight from Lisbon when he was transferred back to Britain. He was accompanied by police who swept him through London Heathrow Airport and took him to HMP Wandsworth where he spent 15 days before being taken to HMP High Down in Surrey.
Speaking about his time in a Portugues prison, Roger said: “There was a lot of violence. I was hit by a prison officer once because I refused to sign a document because it was in Portuguese. It was terrifying being in that prison. I lost so much weight. There was nothing to do, I just walked around the patio.
“They had a library and I read every English book there. Mostly Martina Cole novels. I also bought a TV which had four channels. I watched English and American films when they were shown on the weekend.”
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