LIVERPOOL Crown Court heard suggestions today that three men, including former Northwich Victoria owner Jim Rushe, got involved in a ‘sophisticated drugs operation’ as a way to raise money to pay players’ wages.

The 54-year-old Rushe, of Runcorn Road, Runcorn, is currently on trial alongside co-defendants Mark Fishwick, 46, of Greencroft, in Preston, and Andrew Fetherstone, 47, of Barnard Road, in Manchester, who have all denied a charge of conspiracy to supply Class A drugs.

The fifth day of the trial centred around police interviews with the three men following their arrests between June and August 2015, with each interview being read out in court.

The interview with Fishwick, on August 11, revealed how the Preston man - whose son Reece played for Vics - had lent the club’s former chairman £1,000 to help pay for players’ wages before the pair were seen meeting with known drug criminal Paul Berry – the target of an eight-month long police investigation.

Berry, 47, of Abbey Walk, Preston, has pleaded guilty to his part in the conspiracy at an earlier hearing.

DC Alec Scott and DC Mike Robinson conducted the interview, in which one of them asked: “Some money to pay players' wages – is that why you got involved with Paul Berry? To raise money to pay wages?”

Fishwick denied the suggestion.

The officer went on: “We have still got the sequence of you and Jim Rushe having a meeting with Paul Berry and Berry’s couriers turning up at Karting 2000 with a package, and then being caught with a quarter kilo of cocaine. Are we way off the mark here? Because you know what this looks like.” 

The cocaine was intercepted by police on the M6, with the prosecution arguing it was being couriered to Fishwick, with his MOT centre’s postcode being sent to the driver’s phone via text message from Berry.

In Rushe’s police interview at Runcorn Police Station on August 20, 2015, he told of how he was introduced to Berry by Fishwick.

He said he had met Berry in Mascrat Manor pub in Warrington after he was told Berry was looking to set up a business in Cheshire and wanted to discuss the possibility of him becoming a shirt sponsor for Northwich Victoria Football Club.

Rushe said in the interview: “I thought we could do some business – get a shirt sponsor or something, so I popped down to meet him.

“Within five minutes I knew there was nothing. I didn’t like the bloke. I just said to Mark, ‘Are you sure about him? He looks like a numpty to me.”

Rushe also denied suggestions he was turning to organised drug crime to make money for the football club.

He said: “At no point would I ever dream of dealing drugs to invest into the football club.

"Everybody knows you don’t see any of the money back that you put into a football club so it would be no benefit to me.”

The court heard that Andrew Fetherstone received a package from Berry’s couriers at Karting 2000 in Manchester, and was on the phone to Rushe at the time they arrived.

Fetherstone, who claimed the package was a television set-top box, admitted when shown footage in his interview that it was ‘stupid’ to hide it under his jumper.

He also told of how he owed Rushe ‘a lot more than £25,000’ after taking over the karting business from him, but denied getting involved to pay off his debt to Rushe.

The trial continues.