Jay Emmanuel-Thomas has admitted his involvement in a plot to smuggle drugs through Stansted Airport. (Image: Newsquest)
Jay Emmanuel-Thomas has admitted his involvement in a plot to smuggle drugs through Stansted Airport. (Image: Newsquest)
A former Ipswich Town striker has pleaded guilty to being part of a drug smuggling plot.
Jay Emmanuel-Thomas, 34, of Cardwell Road in Gourock, Inverclyde, was arrested by the National Crime Agency at Stansted Airport as 60kg of cannabis arrived in suitcases on September 2 last year.
After being charged, he was sacked from Scottish club Greenock Morton.
He had previously denied the charge of fraudulent evasion of the prohibition on the importation of cannabis together with co-defendants Rosie Rowland and Yasmin Piotrowska between July 1 and September 2 last year, but admitted the offence at Chelmsford Crown Court on Wednesday.
Emmanuel-Thomas appeared at Wednesday’s hearing by video link from Chelmsford Prison.
He was asked if he would like to appear at his sentencing in person or by video-link and he asked that it be in person, with the date for this hearing to be set administratively.
The court had heard the drugs, worth £600,000, were detected by Border Force on a flight arriving at the north Essex airport from Bangkok, Thailand.
Co-defendants Rowland and Piotrowska, who both denied the charge, face no further action after prosecutors offered no evidence in their case.
Jay Emmanuel-Thomas appearing at Chelmsford Crown Court via video link
Jay Emmanuel-Thomas appearing at Chelmsford Crown Court via video link (Image: Elizabeth Cook/PA Wire)
Prosecutor David Josse KC said that “at all material times they maintained both before the events that led to the importation and after the events they said they thought they were importing gold not cannabis”.
Judge Christopher Morgan directed that not guilty verdicts be recorded in the case of Rowland and Piotrowska and they walked free from the dock.
Rowland, 29, of Southend Road, Chelmsford, Essex, and 33-year-old Piotrowska, of Purves Road, Kensal Rise, north-west London, wept after leaving the dock.
Emmanuel-Thomas will be sentenced at Chelmsford Crown Court at a later date.
The striker made more than 70 appearances for then-Championship side Ipswich, scoring nine goals, after joining from Arsenal for an undisclosed fee in 2011.
He stayed at Portman Road for two years before making a move to Bristol City in League One.
Other clubs Emmanuel-Thomas played for include Queens Park Rangers, Cardiff City, Milton Keynes Dons and Jameshedpur in India.