At 6.30PM on Monday, February 27, 2006, 59-year-old haulier Geoff Hyde sat at home nursing a cold when he received a call on his mobile phone. That call set off a chain of events that would, nine months later, see him sentenced to 22 years in prison for a crime he, his family, friends and staff  know he did not commit. For, unknown to Geoff, on that winter’s evening a Spanish lorry with a consignment of lettuces was making its way to the yard in Chertsey, Surrey, from where he ran his transport company. When it arrived it came into view of a police CCTV camera. Concealed in a secret compartment within the lorry trailer was 77kg of high-quality cocaine with an estimated street value of almost £10million.

Within an hour the drugs had been loaded onto a waiting van, ready to be sent on, split up into £60 bags and sold on the streets. But before the van could make its getaway, police officers who had been watching the yard after receiving information, swooped and arrested the driver, who immediately admitted his part in the plot. The Spanish lorry driver was also arrested. He denied any knowledge of the drugs. Two-and-a-half hours earlier, Geoff was alone at his home in Effingham, Surrey, nursing a cold. He was intending to go into the yard, not for any special reason, just to make sure everything was okay. Then came the fateful call on his mobile. The voice on the line was not familiar, but said he used to do some work for a man named Mick Barnes. Geoff knew the name; it was someone who had run a transport firm called Premier Warehouse Ltd from the same Chertsey yard until it went into voluntary liquidation the previous August.
"I’ve got a foreign lorry near your yard," said the voice on the line. "It’s got brake problems. "Can I pull it in the yard and get my fitter to look at it?"
What Geoff said next that would seal his fate. "Let me ring you back. I’m at home at the moment but I’m on my way there. If there’s space; no problem."
How could he know that, by agreeing to help out, nine months down the line he would be convicted of being part of a massive drugs conspiracy.

Why? Because when he got to court, Mark Gadsden for the Crown Prosecution Service told the jury that it was this and further calls – with what was referred to as the green phone – that proved he was in on it. Because while the green phone was calling Geoff, it was also in contact with a second mystery "orange" phone owner who was in touch with the van driver John Town. Here, said Mr Gadsden, was proof of a sophisticated conspiracy. Mr Gadsden never heard the phone calls and neither did the police investigation team, because there was no recording of the phone calls.

Back on the 27^th, Geoff had got into his Mercedes and made the short journey to Chertsey. In that time, the caller had rung back twice to ask him if he had got there yet. When he arrived at the yard, he found there that if he moved a couple of his vehicles back a few feet there would be space for the stricken lorry and one of his own due back that evening. So when the man called him back, Geoff gave him the go-ahead to bring in his lorry. After completing a little more work Geoff made his way home, passing the stricken lorry and a white van he assumed was being driven by the fitter. On the way, he phoned the unknown caller to let him know his lorry and fitter were there. Back home the caller rang again. "One of your lorries has come into the yard," he said.
"Can you let him know why we’re here?"
"No problem. I’ll give him a ring.
" And so he did, again building up more evidence against himself.

After the police made their arrests they phoned Geoff’s driver, who had by now given his statement and left. The police wanted access to the office. The driver rang Geoff, told him that the police were everywhere and that they wanted to get into the office. So, with the phone in his pocket – the phone that the police would use to link him to the conspiracy - Geoff went back to the yard, where he was arrested because he was, in the words of the arresting officer, the owner of the yard.

After spending a night in the cells at Charing Cross the interview was carried out by detectives David Baxter and Samantha Cailles of the Met’s Specialist Crime Directorate. It lasted just 27 minutes – but that was enough for Geoff to make two grave mistakes. Firstly, he declined several opportunities to have a solicitor present and secondly, he lied about how he had known to tell his driver that the lorry and fitter were in the yard, telling DCs Baxter and Cailes he had spoken to the van driver on his way out.

Cross-examined in the witness box at Inner London Crown Court in South London nine months later, Geoff was asked why he had told those lies and admitted that he had panicked. "I didn’t want to be connected to the green phone," he said. "I had been thinking all night long that I’d been set up. I thought that they would say ‘You are connected because this bloke has phoned you’."
And for the jury that was enough. They needed no more to be convinced beyond reasonable doubt. One 27-minute interview. No evidence of police inquiries into his accounts, no evidence of any suspicious behaviour with anyone in Spain where the drugs came from, no transcripts or recordings of those calls with the green phone.

When, in police interview, DC Baxter warned Geoff that he would be checking whether any foreign lorries came into the yard. Did he? No. The gates at the yard in Chertsey are never allowed to be locked, this is a legal requirement. Because the gas board has to have 24hr access to the yard. Therefore it is an open yard and a well known parking area for trucks.Right up until the beginning of the trial the yard was still being referred to as belonging to Geoff, even when Geoff tried for an appeal in 2007, they still said he owned the yard, despite him being one of four tenants. Did the police talk to any of these other companies? No. Where was all the supporting evidence? When asked in court whether any inquiries, had been made into the Mick Barnes lead, DC Cailles said she had looked on the internet. "To be honest," she said, "even if I had traced Mick Barnes or that company it wouldn’t have got me anywhere cus what would I have asked him?"

And so 59-year-old Geoffrey Hyde, with no previous criminal convictions to his name, languishes in prison. Away from his wife, his two daughters and son. Away from his own 85-year-old father and three grandchildren. And the real conspirators? The mystery callers referred to as orange and green? They walk the streets as free men while Geoff Hyde stares down the barrel of a 22 year sentence.

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