Pensioner, 77, caught with £1m of cocaine breaks silence with his biggest regret

22 February 2024 , 22:16

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Drugs mule Roger Clarke insists he was fitted up over a cocaine smuggling plot that landed him and his wife Susan in jail, but said he blames only himself for the mess.

The 77-year-old spoke as he was pictured on British soil for the first time today since his transfer from a Portuguese prison to a UK one in 2021, just days after Susan died behind bars. His claims of innocence will astonish many given that the couple were once jailed in Norway for drug smuggling.

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. He will not be released until May and is even planning a human rights compensation bid for nearly £60,000 for “false imprisonment”.

Clarke said: “People say, ‘Do you want revenge?’ What’s the point? It won’t bring my Susan back. My stupidity, that’s what caused this.” He told 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. We tracked Clarke down to Sittingbourne, Kent, where he spends time on day release from nearby HMP Standford Hill on the Isle of Sheppey.

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Roger and Susan Clarke (MDM)

The suit cases being taken apart to show the hidden cocaine (SOLARPIX.COM)

Speaking to the Mirror in a Morrisons supermarket cafe, he said: “A friend asked me to carry a suitcase back from the Caribbean. We had done it for them before and were searched four times but there was never anything to find.

“When we pulled into Lisbon the police came on and said, ‘Can we take a look in your suitcase?’ I said, ‘Of course you can.’ In the lining was cocaine. I was shocked. I had no idea. It was a brand new suitcase. Whoever did it was very clever because you couldn’t see the seams or anything.

Drug mule Roger Clarke out on day release (Adam Gerrard / Daily Mirror)

“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.” Clarke, who said he has serious health issues and needs a pacemaker, claimed he is owed £107 a day for being in prison “unfairly”.

Susan died in prison (Roland Leon Sunday Mirror)

He said: “My argument is I’ve not been sentenced in the UK by a judge. I should have served four years but now I’m being told to do five and a half. I feel like I’m a free man still in prison. I’m doing time I shouldn’t be doing. I think it’s a breach of my human rights.

“They say I won’t be freed until May. They owe me compensation. I’ve lost my life and I’ve lost my wife. Susan was 100% innocent. Had she been brought back to England when she was still alive she would have got the care she needed.”

Susan was also sentenced to eight years before she died age 72 from cancer in the EP Tires jail. Clarke claimed authorities demanded £35,000 to repatriate Susan’s body but he could only afford £1,500 for her cremation.

He added: “Being without Susan is so difficult. I wasn’t able to go to her funeral. All I want now is to hold a memorial service. I don’t have many years left now. I’m quite a sick man. I want to be freed so I can try to reconnect with the family I once knew.

Clarke with Mirror reporter Dan Warburton (Adam Gerrard / Daily Mirror)

“They’ve disowned me but I’d like to see them and make amends and see my grandchildren who I never got to know.” Speaking of his time in EP Lisboa jail, Clarke added: “It was terrifying. There was a lot of violence.”

He claimed he even had to stump up the £158 from his own pocket for the BA flight from Lisbon to the UK after his plea to be transferred here was granted. But his claims of innocence over the cocaine smuggling plot are difficult to believe as he and his wife were jailed for being couriers for an “organised criminal group” and imported cannabis worth £1million over 15 months into Norway.

Court documents reveal they went on at least 16 drug-smuggling trips in a battered old car. After their 2004 arrest in Oslo they skipped bail and returned home, where they changed their names and moved into sheltered housing. But a picture of Clarke in a local paper led to him and Susan being arrested and extradited to Norway where the couple, who previously lived in Chatham, Kent, were jailed in 2011.