A LORRY driver admitted that he tried to take almost £300,000 of cash stuffed into carrier bags out of the country for his boss.

But Michael Hatton said he did not know he was doing anything wrong and he denied knowing the cash was anything to do with the proceeds of drugs.

The cash was found when customs officers searched his lorry cab as Hatton was leaving Dover. He said his boss had asked him to take the money to Belgium.

Hatton and mechanic Thomas Bradley, both from Bolton, along with their boss, Victor Davies, are on trial accused of smuggling £1 million worth of cocaine and heroin in a lorry airtank and of attempting to launder the proceeds of drug smuggling. Giving evidence, Hatton said that Polaroid pictures of his wife with bundles of money was part of £20,000 in cash his sister in South Africa asked him to bring back to the UK after a visit.

And he said a payment of £10,000 into his joint account was a loan from his parents so that he and his wife could undergo IVF treatment.

Davies, aged 48, of Stratton Drive, Platt Bridge, Wigan, 37-year-old Bradley, of Knightswood, Bolton, and Hatton, aged 38, of Thistlelton Road, Bolton, are on trial at Bolton Crown Court. They deny all the charges against them. The men are jointly accused of being knowingly involved in the fraudulent evasion of a prohibition on the importation of goods.

Davies faces two further charges of attempting to conceal the proceeds of his drug trafficking.

Hatton faces two charges of knowing or suspecting that a quantity of banknotes were the proceeds of drug trafficking, and that he attempted to remove them to assist another person to avoid prosecution.

The jury heard how a secret compartment in an articulated lorry was used to allegedly smuggle 17 kilos of cocaine and heroin from Europe to the UK.

(Proceeding)