Two men jailed for conspiring to smuggle half a million dollars’ worth of cocaine to the Island may be freed if their appeals against conviction are successful in the Supreme Court.

Footballer Everett Bean, 31, who is accused of being the kingpin in the operation, is appealing his conviction alongside 46-year-old Randolph Simons.

The two are currently serving terms of 15 and 12 years respectively for conspiring, with others not before the court, to import cocaine, between a date unknown and January 7, 2011.

They were jailed in April, 2013. Bean had been a regular player on the Southampton Rangers team.

The drugs were concealed in a consignment sent from Trinidad on an unknown date — and the cocaine was intercepted by US authorities in Puerto Rico three days before the container’s arrival in Bermuda.

Simons, described as the “pick-up man” at the close of trial, was arrested on January 8 as he left International Bonded Couriers with the package.

Arguing that Puisne Judge Carlisle Greaves had inadvertently misled the jury in his final directions, Bean’s lawyer Richard Horseman told the Court of Appeal that jurors debated the case for five hours — but unanimously found Bean guilty just ten minutes after questioning Mr Justice Greaves on a point of law.

Characterising the matter as hinging on circumstantial evidence, Mr Horseman argued before Appeal Justices Edward Zacca, Sir Anthony Evans and Sir Scott Baker that Mr Justice Greaves, in summing up the case for the jury, failed to warn jurors that a police officer’s testimony that he’d recognised Bean in the vicinity of the couriers rested on allegedly spotting Bean for “a split second” as he drove along Washington Street and looked up Park Road.

“This is a guy on a bike with a helmet on — it’s a split-second, classic fleeting glimpse,” Mr Horseman said.

A customs officer accompanying the police officer testified that he couldn’t make any description because the suspect was wearing a helmet with a visor covering his face.

Reviewing transcripts from the summing up of the evidence, Mr Horseman maintained it had been improper for Mr Justice Greaves to tell jurors there was “not a lot of controversy” about the identification of Bean.

Mr Horseman also attacked the Crown’s use of phone calls allegedly made to Trinidad from Bean’s phone.

“The only evidence of conspiring with anybody before this package arrived in Bermuda were some telephone calls to Trinidad. That can hardly be evidence.”

He called it “circumstantial evidence based on some phone calls to God knows who”.

Mr Horseman also faulted Mr Justice Greaves’ allusions to Section 27 of the Criminal Code, which he said had confused the jury.

Under Section 27, anyone who aids, counsels or procures another person in committing an offence is as guilty as the principal offender.

Mr Horseman said the direction was “clearly unsound” in the case of conspiracy, since agreeing to aid, under the circumstances, didn’t amount to conspiring to import.

“Either you’re party to the agreement, or you’re not,” he said, arguing that directing the jury to consider aiding and abetting in terms of conspiracy had thrown the jury off track.

Five hours after being sent to reach a verdict, the jury returned with a question on how Section 27 could be applied to the case.

“This shows how mixed up they are on conspiracy and secondary enterprise,” Mr Horseman said. “Clearly they’re confused as to how Section 27 ties into conspiracy, and how aiding and abetting can make you guilty of conspiracy.”

Ten minutes after Mr Justice Greaves went over that area of the Criminal Code, the jury returned with unanimous guilty verdicts for both men.

The defence lawyer for Simons, Shade Subair, went over her client’s case that text messages allegedly sent to him from Bean — and signed “Nai” — had in fact come from a Kanai Bean, for whom he worked doing odd jobs, and not from the co-accused, whose actual first name is Jahni.

Simons maintained he was sent by Kanai Bean to collect what he believed was simply an air compressor — although a Kanai Bean was never brought before the court to give evidence.

Ms Subair continued: “The jury may well have come to the conclusion that when Mr Simons went to collect the package, he knew full well what was in there, and that he was aiding the principals by knowingly going to collect — even though it didn’t have any contraband in it because it was intercepted. Even if that was true, the difficulty is that when one is charged with conspiracy to import, then the jury would have had to be clear in their minds that the collection was not this aiding and abetting under Section 27, but an act from which one could infer the presence of a prior agreement. And we’ll never really know which conclusion the jury came to.”

Ms Subair maintained that a possible lesser offence had been incorrectly caught up with conspiracy — telling the court that her client might even be guilty of another offence, but couldn’t be found guilty of conspiring to import by virtue of the fact that there was no evidence by which the jury could satisfy themselves that Simons had been part of an agreement.

The case continues today.