The Court of Appeal yesterday ruled that a puisne judge erred in preventing a jury from hearing evidence linking a former prison guard to a $350,000 cannabis importation.

Ronald Hilton James, of Parsons Road, Pembroke, was acquitted of conspiring to import the more than 17 pounds of cannabis by the jury last September.

But the Appeals Court ruled that Pusine Judge the Hon. Mr. Justice Ward appeared to conclude that James' acquittal on the charge of importation in an earlier trial prevented a chance of proving he had conspired in the crime.

"This was not a correct approach,'' the court said. "The issue as to whether (James) had or had not withdrawn from the conspiracy was very much a live issue...

"Accordingly, we conclude that the trial judge erred in ruling that the evidence of the importation was inadmissible at the second trial.'' At the first trial, James said he had made arrangements for a man named Nigel Anderson in New York to ship cannabis to a dummy company he had set up in Bermuda.

James said he became apprehensive after he saw narcotics officers on a flight to New York so he directed Anderson not to proceed with the shipment. Anderson did so anyway.

That trial found James innocent of charges he imported the drug but guilty of conspiring to do so. He was sentenced to 71 years in prison but won an appeal against the conviction.

Crown Counsel Ms Sharon Kenny said she was not seeking a reversal of the acquittal nor an order for retrial but clarification of the law. She said the Attorney General appealed the decision on the grounds that the trial judge erred: By refusing to allow the Crown to introduce drugs importing evidence against James in support of its case. The decision prevented the information from being heard by the jury.

By not instructing members of the jury that statements before them had been edited and the reason for that editing.

Mr. Tim Marshall, for James, agreed that the evidence led at the first trial could have been used in the second trial provided it was only used to demonstrate James was guilty of conspiring to import.

The Court of Appeal said the second ground of appeal had become "largely academic in the light of the conclusion that evidence of the importation was admissible. There would have been no need to have the statements and the records of the interviews edited.