FIVE members of a gang who plotted a bungled attempt to drop £515,000 of cannabis from a light aircraft over L’Etacq have been sentenced to a total of 44 years behind bars.

Richard Styles (36), the pilot and an experienced international drug runner, was sent down for 12 years by the Royal Court yesterday.

When he is released from prison, he will be extradited to Belgium to serve an additional five-year term.

Styles, from Hertfordshire, has been on the run from Interpol since being sentenced in 2003 for trying to smuggle 130,000 ecstasy tablets in a light aircraft in 2000.

On that occasion, he crashed on take-off.

Joseph Day (35) and Joseph Carney (29), both from Liverpool, were each jailed for ten years.

They flew with Styles from a remote airfield in Yorkshire over Jersey en route to Dinard, in Brittany.

Their role was to force open the door of the plane against the wind resistance at around 11 pm on 3 October 2003, throw three holdalls onto the wing and release them at the preordained time.

The bags were supposed to land on the model aircraft runway at Les Landes, but they fell 500 metres off target and landed in an overgrown c๚til behind the site of the former Lobster Pot restaurant, at L’Etacq.

Children playing behind their home the following day found the holdalls and 358 nine-ounce bars of the class B drug.

Two other men, Cliff de Sousa (28) and Timothy James (26), both residents in Jersey at the time of the drug drop, were sentenced to seven years and five years respectively.

Although the court accepted that James had played the greater role in the conspiracy to import the drugs, he was given a lighter sentence than de Sousa because he had pleaded guilty.

All five were charged with the same offence of conspiracy to smuggle cannabis.

Styles, Day, Carney and de Sousa denied the offence, but were all unanimously found guilty by a jury in December.

The maximum sentence for the offence is 14 years.

Before announcing sentence, Commissioner Sir Richard Tucker, the judge, said: ‘This is a serious case which must be met by substantial custodial sentences.’ He then called the defendants in one by one and told each one his fate.

To Styles, who in addition to the Belgian conviction has served 18 months in a French jail for drug-running using a small plane, he said: ‘It is clear to the court that you were, and are, prepared to use your skill and experience as a qualified pilot for unlawful purposes and no doubt for considerable reward.

‘You were at the heart of this conspiracy and close to the source of supply of the drugs.’ The court found no mitigation in relation to Styles.

Advocates Dionne Gilbert, for Day, and Marcus Pallot, for Carney, both said their clients were couriers at the lower end of the supply chain and described as ‘excessive’ the sentences asked for by Advocate Stephen Baker, for the Crown.

Advocate Lisa Springate, for James, said her client had been in a ‘different league’ from Styles, Carney and Day and that he had only become involved in the plot in September 2003.

The court was also given several testimonials from friends, family and former employers.

Advocate Rebecca Juste, for de Sousa, said her client’s involvement was only a matter of hours after he was rung up by his friend James at the last moment to drive Day and Carney to look for the lost drugs.

Commissioner Tucker was sitting with Jurats Le Breton, Allo, King, Morgan and Quérée.