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A money laundering jeweller, who was jailed for seven-and-a-half years in 2021 for his involvement in one of Jersey’s most audacious and complex drug smuggling operations, has lost an appeal to have an eviction order overturned.
A now-defunct company called Jersey Online Traders was based at Pearce’s shop in the Central Market.
In February 2021, the Assistant Magistrate terminated its lease because the company had allowed illegal activity to take place at the premises.
This is because Mr Pearce cleaned dirty money on behalf of an enterprise that tried to smuggle £919,000-worth of cocaine, ecstasy and cannabis into Jersey in June 2019.
Mr Pearce appealed this ruling, arguing that there had been a conflation between him as a person and the company. Jersey Online Traders has never been convicted of committing any crime, he said, and therefore the clause of the lease relating to illegal activity did not apply.
However, in a recent ruling, the Bailiff, who was sitting with Jurats Andrew Cornish and Michael Entwistle, rejected this argument.
“That seems to us to overlook the reality of the situation," Sir Timothy Le Cocq said. “Firstly, at the material time [Mr Pearce] was a director of the Company; secondly, the shop was used... as was indeed a business account; and thirdly, clause 6.40 [of the lease] does not require the company to have perpetrated any criminal act but merely to have suffered it or permitted it.”
The Royal Court added: “It seems to us that the fact that Mr Pearce was one at least of the governing minds, he was present in the shop on the occasions, as the Court has found and the Assistant Magistrate found as well, is more than sufficient material on which the Assistant Magistrate could reasonably conclude that the provisions of clause 6.40 have been met.
“Accordingly... we dismiss the appeal.”
The Court also noted that the lease had, in any event, expired and there was no suggestion it would be renewed.
Mr Pearce is seeking leave to appeal his conviction to the Privy Council.
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