Seventeen years ago canoeist Nathan Baggaley stood on an Olympic podium winning two silver medals within just a few hours.
But on Tuesday, the three-time world champion stood in a Brisbane court dock as he was sentenced to 25 years behind bars for his role in a bungled cocaine-smuggling plot.
Nathan Baggaley and his younger brother were each found guilty by a jury in April of attempting to import up to $200 million worth of cocaine into the country.
Brisbane Supreme Court Justice Ann Lyons sentenced Dru Baggaley, 39, to 28 years in jail.
Nathan Baggaley, 45, will have to serve 12 years in custody before he is eligible to apply for parole, while Dru Baggaley will be eligible to apply for parole after 16 years.
Dru Baggaley, 39, and a man he recruited, Anthony Draper, were arrested three years ago almost to the day after venturing more than 360 kilometres out to sea on a rigid-hulled inflatable boat (RHIB) to meet a foreign freighter carrying packages of cocaine.
The men retrieved bundles thrown off the ship after the 11-hour journey, but on their return flung them into the sea when pursued by an Australian navy vessel.
They were arrested shortly before the RHIB reached the mainland.
The boat’s registration was covered with duct tape that had Nathan Baggaley’s fingerprints on the underside.
Bundles recovered at the time, together with those that washed ashore for months after, contained 650 kilograms of white powder containing cocaine worth between $130 million and $200 million.
Nathan Baggaley – who was on parole at the time of the importation attempt – was arrested almost a year later.
Justice Lyons earlier rejected Dru Baggaley’s claim he should be sentenced on the basis he intended only to import tobacco, and the argument Nathan Baggaley’s role was comparatively minimal as he simply aided his sibling.
Instead she found the former world champion was “actively involved in the attempted importation of cocaine” and was to receive a substantial reward for his services.
It was Nathan Baggaley who bought the RHIB, a trailer and equipment like a GPS system and satellite phone, all worth more than $100,000.
“I find … that Nathan Baggaley knew the importation of cocaine involved a large quantity and was actively standing by to receive that cargo and to facilitate the movement of that cargo as a principal,” Justice Lyons said.
She sentenced Dru Baggaley on the basis he was “a principal organiser of the attempted importation of the cocaine”, knew a large quantity of drugs were involved and recruited Draper to go to sea with him.
Justice Lyons found evidence that established Nathan Baggaley knew of the voyage by the day before the men went to sea and that “it was to retrieve a large quantity” of cocaine.
The brothers could only have been motivated by greed to commit the “very serious offending”, the court was told during sentencing submissions.
Draper – a professional fisherman who testified during the Baggaley brothers’ trial as part of an undertaking – was sentenced to 13 years behind bars after pleading guilty to the same drug importation charge during earlier proceedings.
Nathan Baggaley’s career unravelled in 2005 – the year after the Athens Olympics – when he was banned for taking steroids.
The brothers were jailed in 2009 for manufacturing and supplying large numbers of ecstasy tablets, and again in 2015 for producing party pills and conspiring to make methamphetamine.
Those sentences and Dru Baggaley’s time in custody until Tuesday’s court proceedings have resulted in him spending 11-and-a-half years out of the last 14 behind bars.
AAP
