SIR HUGH PARK

ALTHOUGH he sat on the High Coun Bench for some 20 years, Sir Hugh Park's most famous case was a criminal trial heard at Bristol Crown Court in early 1978 . In March of that year he jailed 14 men and a vvoiran for a total of 120 years and gave two other women suspended sentences. The gang, which had made millions of pounds from the manufacture and distribution of LSD, had been brought to justice through one of the most successful undercover opera - tions in British police history, "Operation Julie". Park reserved the heaviest sentences — 13 years — for Henry Todd, the ring's princi - pal distributor, and the chem - ist Richard Kemp, who had

Jailing Britain's biggest LSD gang

turned the cellar of his cottage near Tregaron, Wales, into a drug factory. Another member of the gang was the American author David Solomon (sen - tenced to ten years), a friend of Timothy Leary, the psycholo - gist and LSD evangelist. Hugh Eames Park was born in 1910 at Pinhoe near Exeter. His father, William, was a shipping agent. He attended Blundell's and then read law at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. He was called to the Bar in 1936 and joined a chambers in Garden Court in the Temple, where he began to build a common law practice on the Western Circuit. In 1940 Park joined the RAF. Two years later, he was

seconded to the Special Opera - tions Executive,...