ONE OF the three men charged in connection with a €440 million cocaine haul off the west Cork coast last summer has told a court that he only realised drugs were being imported when he saw white packages floating in the sea.
Joe Daly said he had no knowledge at all of any drugs shipment until he stood at the cliff’s edge at Dunlough Bay on the morning of July 2nd, 2007, after getting a report that his brother, Michael, had got into difficulty at sea and he saw packages floating in the water.
“I had no knowledge whatsoever of any drugs whatsoever at any stage until I saw the packages that morning as I was standing at the cliff edge,” Mr Daly said after taking the witness stand on the 32nd day of the trial at Cork Circuit Criminal Court.
He told how he had gone to the cliffs after a man named Alex and his co-defendant, Perry Wharrie, whom he had not met before, called to a house at Farnamanagh in west Cork where he was staying on the morning of July 2nd.
They told him that his brother, Michael, had been in contact to say that he was in difficulty at sea after getting caught in bad weather. Mr Daly accompanied Alex and Mr Wharrie to Crookhaven village, where four or five men were poring over maps.
He asked them did they know where Michael was and they said they didn’t but a tall man pulled up in a gold-coloured car and pointed to a map and said Michael was just off the coast but it was impossible to get to him.
They drove up in a green Land-Rover to Dunlough Bay where they could see a boat. There was a person in the water but they couldn’t tell who it was, said Mr Daly, from Carrisbrooke Avenue, Bexley, Kent.
Mr Daly said he went down to the cliff’s edge and shouted to the man in the water but as he did so, he slipped and cracked his head and ribs off a rock. Mr Wharrie told him that it was pointless so they began making their way back up to the roadway.
“Perry is in front of me. He tells the coast guard there is someone in the water needs saving. We saw dozens of white packages. I said, ‘What does that look like to you?’ He said, ‘It doesn’t look good,’ or something to that effect. Perry said we better get out of here.
“We are looking for the keys and can’t find them anywhere but we are definitely not staying around here. That is when we took off into the fields,” said Mr Daly, adding that he was in a total panic at this stage.
Asked by his counsel, Blaise O’Carroll, if he had the slightest inkling what his brother’s plans were, Mr Daly replied, “None whatsoever. Michael would never give me any indication whatsoever by anything he said or by his behaviour. It was more than surprise, it was a shock, I was in shock – I was in shock talking to the guards – I had lost the ability to make any decent decisions – my head was scrambled, my head was in a spin.”
Joe Daly, who was arrested near Schull on July 4th, 2007, along with Mr Wharrie (48), Pyrles Lane, Loughton, Essex, and Martin Wanden (45), no fixed abode, deny charges of possessing cocaine for sale or supply.