During this time, Jane and her business were also targeted by state agencies – HMRC, the Care Commission, Police Scotland. Vexatious allegations were made against her – tax evasion, money-laundering, mortgage fraud, nursery regulation breaches – all of which had to be investigated, even once she had explained to the civil servants that they were being used as puppets by a domestic abuser to attack and break her. The pressure was immense, with every intrusive challenge from faceless officialdom taking great effort, time and money to put right. These government agencies became dupes – tools in Donaldson’s systematic campaign of abuse. But, they explained, they were obliged to investigate.
Her new home soon felt more like a trap than a refuge. The shooting threats instilled a fear of putting on living-room lights during darkness, as she would become an easy target. So she commando-crawled around the unlit house on her belly to stay below window-level and used the beam of her phone to illuminate her way between rooms.
Donaldson made noises about how she had been seen at Glasgow airport getting on a flight to Dubai when she was actually in Glasgow. Associates were told that she had cruelly dumped poor Frankie for a mysterious millionaire. Later she was accused of having an affair with a senior police officer. Eventually, she was supposed to be involved with me. All of these stories were fiction and either the product of Donaldson’s jealous imagination or perhaps an attempt at saving face.
By early December 2013 her resolve began to crack and she made a tentative approach to a specialised police unit whose officers deal with domestic abuse crime. Still too scared to give a statement, she just wanted to see what her options were. Throughout the subsequent weeks, the pressure increased. Not only did she have a virtual target on her back 24/7, she felt responsible for others being put in jeopardy, including innocent children, relatives, friends and colleagues.
The turning point came on the evening of Boxing Day 2013, when Liz’s husband phoned Jane in a panic. Donaldson had come to his door and said that a gunman was already on the way to shoot Jane that night at her home in the city’s west end. Donaldson also allegedly threatened that Liz would be getting shot as well. Jane believed his threats to be credible so called 999. The police arrived quickly and escorted her from her home. From there, they drove to a theatre in the city where Jane’s son was with his aunt Liz and another child watching a pantomime. The police insisted they had to leave the panto immediately for their own safety.
During five months of torture, Jane’s attempts at reason had not worked and she knew that to back down now and surrender would be impossible. Trusting the police – and their all-powerful masters at the Crown Office – was all that was available to her, but it felt like a Hobson’s choice. Had Donaldson accepted the relationship was over after Majorca, then Jane would not have been driven into the arms of the police. Maybe he later realised that by forcing her hand, he had brought the police upon himself.
The two sisters were taken to different police stations where they provided detailed statements about every aspect of Donaldson’s 22-year reign of terror. The following night, 27 December, the police tracked him down and made the arrest. After being locked up for the weekend, he was taken to the city’s Sheriff Court on Monday, 30 December. Led upstairs in handcuffs, he stood in the dock facing a single charge of assault to injury but there was more, much more, to come. To his outrage, Donaldson was remanded in custody for seven days. He welcomed in 2014 behind bars.
Bail was granted at his next court appearance on 7 January. In the meantime, the domestic abuse unit’s officers had been busy building a bigger case against him. Of the scores of incidents revealed by Jane and Liz, the police prioritised those where other witnesses could provide the corroboration required to secure a conviction. They charged Donaldson with another seven assaults, two breaches of the peace and one of making threats, resulting in another court appearance on 13 January. This time, his lawyers managed to secure bail.
Jane was still struggling to deal with the feelings of guilt and angst for ‘grassing’, an ethos ingrained in too many a Glaswegian mind. It was during this time that she finally broke. She was in a mess – unable to effectively communicate, rationalise or fully function. Her entire body would shake uncontrollably. Partly this came from the absolute relief and release of taking such a momentous step after so many years of subjugation. Friends and family urged her to seek help and she was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. Her counsellor said that some military cases of PTSD he had treated were not as acute as hers.
The police had got themselves a very big catch indeed. Donaldson ticked two big boxes in terms of the priorities of political-led policing – domestic violence and organised crime. More charges were to follow.
Jane had taken the first step on an extremely dangerous path. She reluctantly put her faith in the police, the Crown Office and the judiciary, and could only hope that they would honour their part of the deal by delivering justice and doing so swiftly and fairly.
One problem – no one messes with Frankie Donaldson.
10
AFFAIR PRICE
While Frankie Donaldson brought the police upon himself by inflicting violence on his partner, the major woes of Barry Hughes were caused by cheating on his.
Hughes was under police surveillance when he left his wife and children at home for what he assumed would be a secret tryst in London with a former Miss Scotland. By chance, the Sunday Mail newspaper already had a team there kicking its heels on another story when a tip came through from a freelance with impeccable police contacts: ‘Wee Barry Hughes is up to naughties at The Berkeley Hotel with ex-Miss Scotland Michelle Watson.’
From a discreet vantage point, a photographer captured the beaming lovers emerging hand-in-hand from the five-star hotel in Knightsbridge. They returned to their opulent suite after a romantic lunch spent gazing into each other’s eyes and hammering his credit card in high-end boutiques.
Betrayed Jackie, his wife of three years, was devastated, telling the newspaper, ‘I had no idea. He told me he was away on business. I just feel humiliated.’
Watson, also aghast, said, ‘I was unaware that Barry had got back together with his wife because, as far as I was concerned, he was legally separated.’
When his affair became public, Hughes turned to his friends in the press in order to put a positive spin on the news coverage. This may have made him feel slightly better but, ultimately, he could do nothing to shape what was unfolding at home.
Jackie’s shock, pain and humiliation hardened into scorn. While the £750-a-night hotel suite and Miss Scotland’s shopping spree at Harvey Nichols and Harrods was expensive, the real cost, to be paid years down the line, would be much higher. Jackie kicked him out and called a divorce lawyer who filed court documents seeking a slice of his fortune. Crucially, they contained the assertion that Jackie was ‘financially dependent’ on her husband and that she had not done a single day’s paid work in the seven years since 2000.
She later forgave the infidelity – the gift of a new Bentley helping soothe the pain – and the divorce lawyers were muzzled. But, unbeknown to them both at the time, the damage was done. Jackie’s financial statements would come back to bite them, almost sending them both to prison.
The documents were a time bomb which lay in a file for three years until 2010, when police seized them during a raid on the family’s 11-bedroom home in a gated enclave in Kilmacolm, Renfrewshire. The raid became a circus. One enterprising police officer got a ticking off but deserved a commendation – for erecting a sign which stated: ‘Police: tackling serious and organised crime.’ Even worse than that were the police’s toilet habits. Indignant Hughes planted a story in The Scottish Sun in which a ‘pal’ complained about them using all his toilet paper, not flushing and leaving the house ‘smelling’.
Hughes spent that night in a police cell (his view of the toilet facilities is unknown) and the following day appeared in court facing three mortgage fraud charges relating to different properties and two of
obtaining money unlawfully. After returning from a holiday in Spain, Jackie then stood in a court dock charged with three counts of deception, including money laundering and mortgage fraud.
Many people may have a vague notion about the courts and justice system being creaky and inefficient. We’ve all heard anecdotes about chaotic jury service and read the news diet of bungled prosecutions resulting in nasty criminals getting off the hook. But many people would be surprised at how venal and inept it really is. The first thing to understand is that the criminal justice system appears to have been created by lawyers for lawyers. Justice seems to be a mere afterthought. So, when criminals with deep pockets want to play games, there is no stopping them. One of the favourite tactics of the wealthy and well-connected is to ‘churn’ a case, which is to come up with spurious excuses to cause as many delays as possible. Open-and-shut prosecutions, which should take months, disappear into a black hole for years. The longer a case remains in limbo, the greater the chance that witnesses can be nobbled, lose heart, forget their evidence or die. This cynical exercise in attrition causes cases to collapse due to a time bar or weary prosecutors making a mistake or simply giving up. At the very least, the churn culture, orchestrated by greedy defence lawyers, gives criminals free rein to get on with their real business without any distractions.
Hughes first appeared in court in July 2010 but was not convicted until February 2014. For 1,309 days he tied the process up in knots. Hughes initially hired lawyer Paul McBride QC, a razor-sharp legal Mr Fixit with his finger in many pies. McBride’s USP was that he could pull strings with his high-level contacts in the Crown Office. If the price was right, he could get charges to disappear or, where that was impossible, secure favourable plea deals. Unfortunately for Hughes, McBride died in Pakistan in 2012 while on a mission to negotiate the return of an alleged £50-million fugitive fraudster. It has never been explained whether McBride was there with the authority, official or unofficial, of his friends at the Crown.
When Hughes was finally convicted in 2014, he and Jackie stood together in the dock. Even without McBride, the defence lawyers managed to secure a deal. The motivation of the Crown was to get a result. Given that four years had elapsed, they seemed willing to do so at just about any price. The terms of the deal were that Hughes – possibly through pragmatism rather than spousal chivalry – plead guilty to some charges while all those against pregnant Jackie were dropped. Hughes had lied to get a £430,000 mortgage by claiming his wife earned £160,000 from an interior design business. The £129,000 profit from selling that first house became laundered money, acquired through the initial fraud. Hughes then told another lender the same lie in order to get an £858,000 mortgage. The big lies about Jackie’s bogus earnings were nailed thanks to the forgotten divorce document – in which she truthfully stated she had earned nothing since 2000. Hughes’s cheating had come at a heavy price.
Sheriff Alan Mackenzie then jailed him for 43 months, saying, ‘The fact remains that the deception you engaged in was not only audacious, involving extravagant claims to secure very substantial loans, but was also repeated.’ Hughes appealed successfully against the jail sentence and a Scottish Sun photographer was arranged to capture him strutting cockily from HMP Barlinnie after a few weeks, his sentence reduced to a £45,000 fine.
When Jackie gave birth shortly afterwards, Hughes clicked his fingers and another photographer was in place for the family leaving hospital with their new arrival. The paper carried a photo of Hughes stepping into a £235,0000 Rolls-Royce. Not a single word accompanying the photos referred to his criminality.
Hughes then let it be known to the same paper that he casually paid his £45,000 fine with a debit card, as if it were a mere speeding ticket. All of this was PR with the intent to gloat, and it left a foul taste in the mouths of anyone with knowledge of what Hughes really is – a violent, knife-carrying, money-laundering fraudster with major gangland connections.
A few months prior to these pro-Hughes stories, I had joined The Scottish Sun as Investigations Editor. My job was to go after major organised crime figures along with corrupt politicians, bent lawyers, dodgy judges and crooked cops. The newspaper’s relationship with Hughes did not sit comfortably with me. One wonders what Sheriff Mackenzie and the dozens of hard-working police officers and Crown lawyers who brought Hughes to justice thought about it.
Then one day I got tip from a contact telling me to look at Jackie’s Twitter account. The Hughes family had taken an expensive holiday to Dubai. Jackie – perhaps believing Barry’s oft-repeated claim of being ‘legit’ – had plastered their holiday snaps online. They flew business class on Emirates, stayed in a £1,600-a-night suite at the seven-star Burj Al Arab hotel and had been collected from the airport in a chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce. One snap showed them chatting to their personal butler. The estimated cost of the lavish trip was equivalent to around double the annual salary of an average worker.
I unearthed new information about how much taxpayers’ money had been paid to the couple’s lawyers during the four-year fraud saga. The Scottish Legal Aid Board admitted that they had handed over £95,000 to Jackie’s legal team and £81,000 to Hughes’. Furthermore, he was still raking in legal aid to contest an ongoing Proceeds of Crime case. Solicitors love to complain about hardship whenever legal aid budgets fall under political scrutiny – their most emotional argument being that cuts deny justice to the poor. Such claims are nonsense. The £176,000 paid to Hughes and Jackie was obscene. How could the police and Crown present evidence that he is a multimillionaire criminal while, simultaneously, another branch of the state deems him to be so hard up that taxpayers should foot his monstrous legal bills?
I spoke to the Labour MSP Graeme Pearson, who was well known to Hughes and his sort from years spent as a detective then police chief. Pearson nailed it with his comment: ‘It’s bizarre in these circumstances that he continues to receive legal aid at great cost to the taxpayer. How can someone like this receive legal aid when many ordinary, hard-working people are unable to? It defies logic.’ Scottish Conservative justice spokeswoman Margaret Mitchell agreed, saying, ‘It is becoming increasingly common for criminals who’ve made fortunes from illicit acts to be able to get off by paying almost nothing. This undermines the whole justice system, making it a laughing stock among the criminal community.’
The brutal and critical report, published in The Scottish Sun on 26 October 2014, exposing the gross misuse of public money, was not the kind of fawning coverage that he was used to. He was not happy with me, I was told. I didn’t care, I replied.
Two months later, as his Dubai suntan was fading, Hughes declared himself bankrupt with personal debts of around £10 million. Most of this money was owed to the tax man, and the decision by Hughes to go bust, hand-picking his own trustee, appears to have been a pre-emptive move in the Proceeds of Crime case being waged against him.
A few weeks afterwards, I had an odd encounter involving Hughes. As I stood in a city-centre Sainsbury’s queue with a lunchtime sandwich, Hughes strode in the door and stopped just level with where I was standing. My fist clenched by side, my nostrils invaded by his pungent aftershave, I tensed in anticipation of having to whack him with my baguette. He clocked me and, without speaking a word, turned and left. Given the type of people I had investigated, I was careful never to have my photo online. I suspected the Hughes associate who had spent years passing me information had clocked me going into Sainsbury’s. Perhaps he wanted to know what I looked like up close. I was concerned enough to mention it to a handful of trusted friends and colleagues. If he started taking it personally, I could have a problem.
At the beginning of 2015 I produced a six-day series about organised crime in Scotland. One day was devoted to female criminals and their typical roles, which often involve mortgages, company directorships and administrative issues. Under the headline ‘GIRL POWER’, we explained how the Crown was using a novel tactic of jointly putting gangsters and their wives or girlfriends in th
e dock. This gave the prosecutors leverage which often resulted in the men striking a plea deal in exchange for the mother of their children being spared prison. One example cited was the case of Barry and Jackie Hughes. He was incandescent with rage and, at 8.30 a.m., phoned the mobile of my boss, Gordon Smart, who was then editor of The Scottish Sun.
Smart told me that the call from Hughes had been ‘45 minutes of fury’. I was surprised; most editors would have nothing to do with a gangland thug such as Hughes, let alone give them 45 minutes of their time. It was only much later that I discovered Hughes had said plenty more about me during the call.
11
MAÑANA, MAÑANA
For the first time in his life, Frankie Donaldson had lost control. For the first time in his life, someone had stood up to him. After 22 years of silent subservience, Jane Clarke was free, vocal and defiant. She was going to need all the strength she could possibly muster.
An anonymous call came through on my mobile: ‘Donuts got lifted for battering his missus. He’s been doing it for years. He hates you anyway, so do a story to really annoy him.’ Donaldson’s dislike of me originally stemmed from the 2001 story about the foiled plot to ‘put a hole in Donuts’ and, over the intervening 13 years, I had written a few others which helped drive his ludicrous legal outing to stop the press from using his nickname.
A year before learning about his domestic violence arrest, a journalist colleague had imparted fresh intelligence. He rhymed off a series of stories that particularly irked Donaldson, but I was perplexed because other reporters had written some of those on the offending list. The colleague went on to confirm the story about my car being torched – rather, someone else’s car because mine had not. While not hugely taken with the caller’s enthusiasm for me to pursue Donaldson just to stoke his illogical hatred towards me, I could not ignore the tip. I asked the Crown Office for details of the arrest but received a typically terse response. With no meaningful details, the story was parked.
Acid Attack Page 6