Robert Daniel Flook has won permission to challenge his convictions at London's Court of Appeal

Robert Daniel Flook alleged to be a key organiser in a £350million drug smuggling operation which involved premises in South Devon has won permission to challenge his convictions at London's Court of Appeal.Lawyers for Robert Daniel Flook, currently serving 26 years for importing cocaine and cannabis into the UK, say the prosecution's case was so poorly presented that the trial judge effectively ended up putting the Crown's side of the story.Barrister David Nathan QC, for 47-year-old Flook, said the summing up amounted to a second speech for the prosecution, and he added that a Crown barrister had admitted in open court that the prosecution's case was badly prepared.
A few days into the seven-week trial at Blackfriars Crown Court, jurors complained that they didn't understand the Crown's case.Flook, of no fixed abode but from Eltham, south east London, was convicted on a majority verdict in August last year. He was found guilty of conspiracy to import cannabis and conspiracy to import cocaine.The court heard that drugs were smuggled into the UK from South Africa, with cannabis hidden in garden furniture and imported by Playaway Events Ltd, in south London and Kent, and cocaine in mirrors imported by a firm based in Brixham and Newton Abbot.Yesterday, Mrs Justice Cox, sitting with Lord Justice Hooper and Judge Michael Stokes QC, said that Flook had an 'arguable' case that his convictions were 'unsafe'.Eight tonnes of cannabis was seized by the Met Police at Felixstowe docks in September, 2006, the force's biggest-ever cannabis haul. Around 150kg of cocaine was seized in South Africa, that country's second-largest cocaine haul. Flook and his associates were alleged to have made 11 similar imports, taking the value of the drugs involved to £350m.No date was set for the full Court of Appeal hearing.