Barred evidence saved drug baron

Drugs baron Curtis Warren walked free from court when the cocaine smuggling case against him collapsed - because it was based on intercepted phone calls.

The man who was then Britain's biggest drugs smuggler, known to Interpol as "Target One", taunted Customs investigators as he left the dock, telling them: "I'm off to spend the £85million you couldn't find."

Warren had invested his vast wealth so well that the Sunday Times Rich List estimated he was Britain's 481st richest man.

But when he quit Britain to set up business in Holland, his criminal career ended because different rules of evidence allowed prosecutors to use bugged conversations to have him convicted.

The Dutch rules permit the police to make arrests on the basis of tapped calls, and allow prosecutors to play the tapes in court as proof of guilt.

Jailed in 1997 at The Hague, he faces spending at least the next decade behind bars after first kicking another prison inmate to death, then being told that he will have his sentence extended unless he hands over his assets.