Monthly Archives: July 2010

Depressing news from Spain…….

Trevor Wade in happier times

For the past year I have been actively supporting the plight of  a Lincolnshire pensioner who was arrested in Spain after being duped into driving a car which contained £22 million worth of cocaine. Most criminals will tell you they are innocent or have been stitched up and for that reason alone I don’t tend to get involved in miscarriage of justice cases unless there is clear evidence that the person involved is innocent. But I have absolutely no doubt that the case of  Trevor Wade passes that test. Trevor’s plight is detailed in the revised edition of Hoods, so I won’t duplicate those details here but in short, the biggest problem is that Trevor has been held in prison now, without trial, since September 2007. Today I feel an overwhelming sense of anger and sadness after I learned that his lawyer believes a trial may not take place until April 2011. It is frankly shocking that a 66-year-old man in poor health, against whom there is no evidence other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time, can be left to rot in a foreign prison without trial for almost three years. I do not blame the Spanish for Trevor’s plight, they were only following the trail given to them by British investigators at the Serious Organised Crime Agency. SOCA has admitted it has no evidence on Trevor Wade but says it cannot interfere in the judicial process of a foreign power. Ditto the Foreign Office. But the fact is they don’t appear to be doing anything else to resolve the matter either, almost as if to say they would rather it was swept under the carpet than admit when a costly mistake has been made. If this had been a case of a foreign national in the UK then Trevor would undoubtedly be home with his family by now, either because there was no case to answer or through abuse of process rules. Even in the unlikely event he had gone to trial in the UK he would certainly have been given bail until the date of the hearing. At present, he is struggling to survive the regime in Leon Prison where the odd piece of Spanish Tortilla is often the only food he looks forward to eating. If there is anybody out there, either in SOCA or the Foreign Office, who has a conscience I would suggest that now is the time to make yourself known because all the apologies and platitudes in the world are going to mean nothing to Trevor’s family if he ends up living out his last days in that Spanish cell.

Why can’t we have a sensible debate about legalising drugs…….

This week an eminently sensible person made some eminently sensible statements about the UK’s current drugs legislation. In a newsletter sent out to barristers across the country, Nicholas Green QC, current chairman of the Bar Council of  England and Wales , said that Britain should consider decriminalising drugs. His words were picked up by the Daily Telegraph .This should have provided the platform from which a sensible debate about the drugs issue could be launched. What we got instead was the usual rabid reaction from the moral panic brigade which sought to shoot the messenger before he had a chance to elaborate any further on his hypothesis. Among those leading the charge was Philip Davies, Tory MP for Shipley, who said: “It is is a ludicrous argument to say let’s legalise drugs.” Is it so ludicrous? Right now the illegality of drugs in the UK makes it an economy worth more than £10 billion to the organised crime groups involved in its trade. The devastation to society in terms of  the violence, fear and corruption created by the gangsters dealing in drugs is immeasurable and however effectively you fight the war against the drug barons, there is a plethora of others willing to step into the vacuum created by any successful battles waged by our law enforcement agencies. What is measurable is that illegal drugs costs the UK another £13 billion to police in terms of drug-related crime; much of which is leaving a bloody trail on the streets where gangs are fighting turf wars over the profits to be made from it. In the UK’s prisons alone the drug trade is worth another £100 million, because drugs such as heroin can fetch up to ten times the price inside compared to the price on the streets. There are people being murdered in the UK because illegal drugs equals money and the profits to be made from them make it worth a dealer arming himself with a firearm or knife to protect their business territory. There is no sign either that the illegality of drugs is doing anything to prevent people taking them – in fact quite the opposite – their very illegality continues to create a mystique about substances some of which have been around us for more than 2,000 years. Lets face it illegal drugs are harmful to the health but are there many illicit substances which are more harmful in their health effects and the cost of their abuse than alcohol and tobacco. I know many sensible people in both the legal profession and law enforcement who would not only support a debate on the issue but would actively support a change in legislation because they know that the war on drugs cannot be won from the position we are in right now. However, fearing a tagging as a moral heretic to be burned at the stake, their voices continue to remain publicly silent. Frankly I only see the situation getting worse because career paths are now being laid for our young people which are built on the trade of illegal drugs from the school gates to the housing estates and on to the trendy bars where a trip to the toilet for the affluent middle class member of society is often more about a line of cocaine from the cistern than a leak in the bowl. Nevertheless many respectable people in positions of authority who have thought-provoking things to say about this issue are being silenced because the media is failing to push forward the debate and instead promoting a moral panic. I am unsure myself about the legalisation of drugs but I am sure that at the moment it is the biggest issue facing this country and it is a subject which we should be debating in a sensible way. To that end the Telegraph did eventually have a sensible say on the matter through the column of its blogger and writer  Andrew M Brown.  So let’s try to promote debate not destroy it because we should know by now that hysteria is simply the realm of the ignorant and the misinformed.

The age of organised crime is upon us…..

Earlier this week the Met’s chief Sir Paul Stephenson indicated that dealing with organised crime was the biggest challenge that would face the UK’s law enforcement agencies in the coming years . He rightly raised concerns about how, in the current economic climate, police forces and the criminal justice system – faced with making huge budget cuts – would be able to meet the challenges of organised crime. The public could be forgiven for thinking that the agency specifically charged with combating the problem the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) , now in its fifth year, is on top of the problem. 
In fact SOCA is only dealing with the top tier of criminals and most of the middle and lower tier criminal gangs which are operating now out of Britain’s housing and industrial estates fall under the radar of SOCA. As a result these gangs are being left to grow perniciously because the specialist units which local police forces have to deal with them are few and far between. More than that these specialist units are the very ones that may be at risk when the current round of budget cuts being considered by all police authorities come into play. In Nottinghamshire it was this very scenario – the dismantling of its major crime unit and drugs squad, in 2000/2001 – which contributed to the rise in power of gangsters such as Colin Gunn from the city’s Bestwood estate. In today’s Telegraph there is a further warning about how organised crime is being imported imported and yet this is a problem that has been festering for some years; staring the politicians in the face. Perhaps a way forward would be for police forces which share geographical county borders to pool their resources into regional specialist units to tackle organised crime such as the East Midlands Special Operations Unit which uses the resources of five police forces to tackle organised crime and middle tier drugs dealers. Ultimately it will be for the politicians to decide where the axe falls on the ever thinning blue line, but if Sir Paul Stephenson is correct the UK could be in for a rocky ride ahead with the economic conditions giving rise to more wannabe Tony Sopranos than it can handle.

To kick things off…..

During the writing of  “Hoods” I encountered several disturbing examples of the corruption that is blighting the fight against organised crime. They are sobering stories that go some way to explaining why law-abiding people lose their faith in the authorities. Two particular individuals have suffered immeasurable damage and continue to do so. Kevin Musgrove and Trevor Wade, though they have never met, share a common bond. An extract from Hoods of Kevin Musgrove’s story (more of which is to be revealed over the coming weeks) can be found here . The bones of Trevor Wade’s case can be found in a story I co-wrote for The Guardian and there are further details in the notes section of the Facebook page dedicated to releasing him from his nightmare in prison here. If there is one thing I have learned in 22 years in journalism it is that innocent people can and do end up in prison for crimes they had nothing to do with.