[6] Gregory contested in court that he was instructed by former car salesman Paul Dye, whom he had known for several years and owed £1,000 to, to meet contacts of his in Penang.
Gregory stated that he believed he was sent there to help smuggle car parts and diamonds, and that he had never been involved with drugs before and did not know what heroin looked like prior to the day of his arrest.
[8] Dye was serving a 28-year prison sentence in England for his part in a drug smuggling operation which saw him branded as "devious, greedy and utterly unscrupulous" by Judge James Rant.
The judge said that it was his "finding that you merely suffer from a personality disorder characterized by your immaturity and anti-social behavior," he said, dismissing defence arguments that the Briton was mentally too unstable to be fully responsible for his actions.
[10] Despite her personal support for capital punishment, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher appealed to the Malaysia government to commute the sentence, to no avail.
[11] Gregory's local Member of Parliament, Barney Hayhoe, acknowledged that drug trafficking was an evil trade, but the particular circumstances merited a more compassionate and merciful treatment.