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A convicted cocaine smuggler who gave videos of drug-fuelled sex romps to his friends has been allowed longer to repay a £3.2 million debt to the taxpayer — so he can make more money running a London brewery.

Former public schoolboy Jules de Vere Whiteway-Wilkinson was jailed for 12 years in 2004, after a court heard how he supplied drugs to clients including celebrities, City traders and music industry figures.

He was later ordered to hand back his £2.1 million criminal profit. He still owes nearly 90 per cent of the sum, plus another £1.2 million in interest, with much of the money held in “hidden assets” that have remained out of reach of prosecutors for years.

But a judge has now allowed him to defer repayment until well into next year at the earliest.

It followed a plea by his barrister Gavin Irwin, who told Westminster magistrates that the new London Fields Brewery in Hackney was “heading” towards success and likely to be earning millions of pounds within two years. Mr Irwin said that would allow his client to clear his debt to the taxpayer.

Forcing Whiteway-Wilkinson, 42, to give more than the £500 a month he currently hands back would slow repayment, and prevent him from buying a new fermenter that would “raise a great deal more” money for his brewery, said Mr Irwin. “The business is still in its infancy and every pound that is taken now makes it less likely to succeed,” he added. “What we are asking is that the court doesn’t take any more money for a year or 18 months.”

The court heard that a turnover of between £2 million and £3 million was expected at the brewery next year and that its profits could be boosted if HM Revenue and Customs allowed it to fulfil export orders to 14 countries. An alcohol licence for an “events space” at the site was being sought.

Mr Irwin conceded accounts for the brewery presented to the court were “poor and inadequate”, and investors could “become jittery” because of Whiteway-Wilkinson’s criminal record. But he insisted his client had shown his desire to repay by selling “watches and statues”, and going to Spain to recover £70,000 held in bank accounts there.

Whiteway-Wilkinson, who led the drug-smuggling ring, was jailed at Southwark crown court with three others after admitting conspiracy to supply cocaine. He was freed several years ago. At the latest hearing, District Judge Elizabeth Roscoe said promises of future payment were often not fulfilled, and she wanted to see evidence of the brewery’s “ownership and set-up”.

After being told Whiteway-Wilkinson’s shareholding was held jointly with his wife, she added: “We have many people who come here showing assets that have suddenly gone to their partner, or a dominant shareholding in a company that becomes less dominant.

“The court wants to see some reassurance that this is not suddenly going to disappear into the ether.”

But she agreed not to raise the monthly repayments — while warning he would have to repay a “significant lump sum” within six months when the case returns to court. “To put it bluntly, the court is less concerned with providing Mr Whiteway-Wilkinson with a long-term career than it is with getting the money in,” the judge added.

Ales made at London Fields Brewery include Hackney Hopster, described as “a debonair young chap of a Pacific pale ale”, and Love Not War, “first brewed barricaded in the brewery during the London riots”.

At the time he was jailed, the court heard how Whiteway-Wilkinson boasted of laundering “big briefcases full of cash” made from supplying millions of pounds worth of cocaine.

He told his family in Devon he was a party planner, but instead used a light aircraft to fly in drugs. He led a life of excess and used a house in Hoxton to film cocaine-fuelled sex romps with naked women for his friends.

Police found a bag containing £200,000, and another holding 15kg of high-purity cocaine, when they raided a building in Brick Lane.

He has handed back only £265,115 of the £2.1 million, despite facing a potential eight-year sentence for non-payment. No information was given to the latest hearing about the whereabouts of the £1.9 million “hidden assets”, which in 2005 a judge said he was “sure” Whiteway-Wilkinson possessed.