OAP’S year of hell after 7lbs Judge said I was first man cleared of heroin smuggling in 23 years

In May last year he was asked by an old colleague to go to Amsterdam, where he was to work for a Dutch travel company on a £500-a-day contract.

But after landing at the city’s Schiphol airport he was told the job was actually 8,000 miles away – at a company outpost in Mozambique.

While there, he was asked to visit the Maputo Market to buy gifts “as a thank you” for an associate in Amsterdam.

A colleague there known only as “Jack” lent him a case to carry the trinkets back.

Peter boarded flight TP284 at 8am on May 24 for the journey back to Europe, with a stopover in Portugal before returning to Amsterdam to complete his paperwork for the consulting job.

But when he collected the bag from carousel No12 at Lisbon airport, he was pounced on by a team from Portugal’s national anti drug-trafficking unit.

Slashing open the case’s canvas lining, they found three kilos of heroin with a purity of 38.2 per cent – enough to make 38,400 individual doses.

Peter said: “I was surprised. I’d bought straw hats and African carvings and put them in the bag. I had no reason to suspect an ulterior motive. I suppose in hindsight I should have been suspicious. Jack offered to lend me a bag and he carried it up the stairs to the room and to the airport.

“I never had the chance to pick it up and test the weight, I never thought there was anything untoward. Jack said, ‘Thanks for coming to sort out the problem’.

“When I landed I picked up the bag and these two men just appeared. Two women were there and one of them got a knife and slashed the side of the case.

“There was black plastic there, but I had no idea what it was – I had no idea it was heroin. I had no idea there were going to be any issues.

“I was taken to a cell in the basement, I was thinking, ‘This is a mistake’. I knew that there was no evidence.

“I wasn’t paid anything, I knew my fingerprints weren’t on the case, I had no phone messages about it. That’s the constant thread – that’s why I knew I would be freed.”

As Peter was taken into custody he claims he was assaulted by investigators and was left smeared in blood from a broken nose.

It was only when he appeared in court that he discovered the full weight of the charges being levelled against him.

He was held for four days before he could call his wife Jean and 17-year-old daughter Lucy to tell them he had been accused of helping an international drug trafficker.

Peter was moved to highsecurity EP Lisboa, one of Portugal’s most notorious jails, where he spent seven and a half months.

He said: “My wife didn’t know I was travelling to Mozambique, she thought I’d gone to Amsterdam.

“Then all of a sudden I’m in prison in Lisbon.”

Jean, 66, made 17 trips to the city, spending more than £30,000 on legal costs and travel.

Diabetic Peter, who was recovering from a brain seizure at the time, lost more than three stone in jail. He said: “The