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Footballer Jay Emmanuel-Thomas has pleaded guilty to a cannabis importation charge over an attempt to smuggle £600,000 of the drug through Stansted airport from Thailand.
The 34-year-old striker was sacked by Scottish Championship side Greenock Morton after his arrest last year. The player who came through the Arsenal academy and was given his professional debut by Arsène Wenger in 2010, also played for Ipswich, Bristol City and QPR before moving north of the border. He changed his plea to guilty at a hearing on 7 May meaning his case can now be reported after reporting restrictions were lifted on Wednesday.
Emmanuel-Thomas pleaded guilty at Chelmsford crown court to fraudulent evasion of the prohibition on the importation of cannabis between 1 July 2024 and 2 September 2024.
He had previously denied the charges when asked to enter a plea in October last year.
The footballer, who has also played for Scottish clubs Livingston and Aberdeen and Thai side PTT Rayong, was remanded in custody ahead of his sentencing on a date to be fixed.
Emmanuel-Thomas, of Gourock, Inverclyde, Scotland, was arrested in the town by National Crime Agency (NCA) officers in September 2024. His arrest came after the NCA seized an estimated £600,000 of the class B drug as it was being smuggled through Stansted on 2 September.
Border Force officers detected roughly 60kg (132lb) of the drug in two suitcases, which had arrived via a flight from Bangkok. Co-defendants Rosie Rowland and Yasmin Piotrowska, who both denied the charge, face no further action after prosecutors offered no evidence in their case.
Prosecutor David Josse KC said that “at all material times they maintained both before the events that led to the importation and after the events they said they thought they were importing gold not cannabis”.
Judge Christopher Morgan directed that not guilty verdicts be recorded in the case of Rowland and Piotrowska and they walked free from the dock. Rowland, 29, of Chelmsford, Essex, and 33-year-old Piotrowska, of Kensal Rise, north-west London, wept after leaving the dock.
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Emmanuel-Thomas appeared at Wednesday’s hearing by video-link from Chelmsford prison. He was asked if he would like to appear at his sentencing in person or by video-link and he asked that it be in person, with the date for this hearing to be set administratively.
