A jury is set to consider a verdict today in the case of a truck driver accused of plotting to import $45,450-worth of cannabis.

Supreme Court has heard the drugs arrived in a consignment of dinnerware loaded into a blue wooden pallet that arrived on a cargo jet on May 12, 2010. Customs officers discovered the drugs packed into plastic pipes which were concealed within the blocks separating the planks of the pallet.

According to prosecutor Takiyah Burgess, the consignment of dinnerware was put back in circulation and the following day, truck driver James Walker arrived at the airport to pick it up.

Ms Burgess alleged that Mr Walker, 51, asked the freight manager for the pallet as well as the dinnerware but the manager told him he could not have it because they were short of pallets.

According to the prosecutor, Mr Walker took it anyway when the freight manager's back was turned. She said the accused man then drove to St George's where he was stopped by the police, who searched his truck.

The consignment, which was addressed to Nicholas Minors at Dolly's Bay Lane in St David's, was seized, but the pallet was no longer there. Ms Burgess said it was later found hidden in some trees in St George's and that Nicholas Minors was a fictitious name.

Mr Walker, of Tommy Fox Road, St David's, denies having any part in a plot to import the drugs. His trial began on Monday and he declined to take the stand to give evidence in his own defence.

Summing up the case for the nine women and three men of the jury yesterday, Puisne Judge Carlisle Greaves said they could not draw any adverse inference against Mr Walker for that.

“That is his right. He is not bound to say a single thing in his defence,” he instructed them.

Mr Walker denies conspiring with others not before the court to import cannabis, and the case continues.