EXCLUSIVE: Roger Clarke, 79, was jailed in Portugal for trafficking £1million of cocaine from the Caribbean, with his wife, Susan. He was extradited to the UK in 2021 – just days after Susan, 72, died of cancer in her Lisbon cell
OAP drugs mule Roger Clarke has been released from jail and has jetted off to the Costa Blanca for some Spanish sunshine.
The 79-year-old was jailed in Portugal for trafficking £1million of cocaine from the Caribbean, with his wife, Susan. He was extradited to the UK in 2021 – just days after Susan, 72, died of cancer in her Lisbon cell. In 2024, the Mirror tracked him down while on day release from prison when he claimed he should have been released in December 2022 halfway through his eight-year sentence.
But his complaints angered prison bosses who transferred him from his cell in the open prison to a closed maximum security jail. Now the Mirror can reveal Clarke is free again and is in sunny Spain where he once lived with Susan. In a post on Facebook, Roger claimed to have to have travelled to Rojales in Spain’s Alicante.
It is just a 15-minute drive from Guardamar del Segura where he once lived in a white-washed villa before being jailed for drugs offences. A source said: “Roger spent a long time in jail and it’s taken it’s toll. But the fact he’s free and claim he’s jetting to Spain on holiday is staggering. You’d think he’d keep a low profile.”
Reports in 2017 revealed the couple became regulars at the Med Bistro & Bar in El Raso, a sprawling housing estate where villas cost up to €300,000 (£259,000), and joined the bar’s golf society. “They did not come in to the bar so much to drink but to play golf,” said a regular who did not give his name. “They liked to put on the golf society’s colours and liked to play a few rounds.”
In 2024 Clarke insisted he was fitted up over the cocaine smuggling plot but said he blames only himself for the mess. He spoke as he was pictured on British soil for the first time. He said he had served more than half his eight-year term for bringing £1million of cocaine on a cruise ship from St Lucia to Europe with his wife.
Clarke even claimed he was planning a human rights compensation bid for nearly £60,000 for “false imprisonment”. Clarke said: “People say, ‘Do you want revenge?’ What’s the point? It won’t bring my Susan back. My stupidity, that’s what caused this.”
Clarke and his wife were arrested on the Marco Polo cruise liner as it sailed into Lisbon in December 2018. We tracked Clarke down to Sittingbourne, Kent, where he spends time on day release from nearby HMP Standford Hill on the Isle of Sheppey.
Speaking to the Mirror in a Morrisons supermarket café, he said: “A friend asked me to carry a suitcase back from the Caribbean. We had done it for them before and were searched four times but there was never anything to find.
“When we pulled into Lisbon the police came on and said, ‘Can we take a look in your suitcase?’ I said, ‘Of course you can.’ In the lining was cocaine. I was shocked. I had no idea. It was a brand new suitcase. Whoever did it was very clever because you couldn’t see the seams or anything.
“I can understand why people don’t believe me. Sue knew nothing. I blame myself, I should have checked. I didn’t. But I trusted these people.” Clarke, who said he has serious health issues and needs a pacemaker, claimed he is owed £107 a day for being in prison “unfairly”.
He said: “My argument is I’ve not been sentenced in the UK by a judge. I should have served four years but now I’m being told to do five and a half. I feel like I’m a free man still in prison. I’m doing time I shouldn’t be doing. I think it’s a breach of my human rights. “They say I won’t be freed until May. They owe me compensation. I’ve lost my life and I’ve lost my wife.
“Susan was 100% innocent. Had she been brought back to England when she was still alive she would have got the care she needed.” Susan was also sentenced to eight years before she died age 72 from cancer in the EP Tir’ jail.
Clarke claimed authorities demanded £35,000 to repatriate Susan’s body but he could only afford £1,500 for her cremation. He added: “Being without Susan is so difficult. I wasn’t able to go to her funeral. All I want now is to hold a memorial service. I don’t have many years left now. I’m quite a sick man.
“I want to be freed so I can try to reconnect with the family I once knew. They’ve disowned me but I’d like to see them and make amends and see my grandchildren who I never got to know.” Speaking of his time in EP Lisboa jail, Clarke added: “It was terrifying. There was a lot of violence.”
Clarke and his wife were previously jailed for being couriers for an “organised criminal group” and imported cannabis worth £1million over 15 months into Norway. Court documents reveal they went on at least 16 drug-smuggling trips in a battered old car. After their 2004 arrest in Oslo they skipped bail and returned home, where they changed their names and moved into sheltered housing.
But a picture of Clarke in a local paper led to him and Susan being arrested and extradited to Norway where the couple, who previously lived in Chatham, Kent, were jailed in 2011.
