Druglord

by Graham Johnson

  COOK: What about that first version of his statement? . . . Exploiting the side text . . . the prosecution think that . . .?

  There then follows an astonishing bargaining session. The gist of the deal is as follows: Nelson seems to have negotiated a draft agreement with the prosecution. If Haase and Bennett assist the prosecution – inform on the Turks and make a statement against them and go in the witness box – then they will get a whopping 60 per cent discount on their sentence. The prosecution have told Nelson that the maximum sentence Haase and Bennett will get will be fifteen years, from which they can immediately deduct nine years in keeping with the 60 per cent discount and thus serve six years. The sentence could be as low as ten, in which case a discount of six years could be given, thus serving only four. The deal is based on Nelson’s skilful manoeuvre in getting Haase and Bennett only prosecuted for the lesser charge of distributing in the UK, not importation.

  Nelson, Haase and Bennett then begin to play hardball with Cook. Nelson states his desire for a total 100 per cent reduction. Haase and Bennett talk up the risk of revenge for grassing the Turks and demand to know exactly who in Customs will know that they are informing – thus weighing up the risk of leaks. Haase pushes the envelope further, wanting 60 per cent off for simply going against the Turks and an additional portion off for information on guns (the fake plants). Cook seemingly agrees that, ‘Guns and everything else will seriously knock it down.’ (Obviously, Cook does not know that the gun plants are fake.)

  Nelson appears to refer to the gun plants (though he has no knowledge that they are phoney) as a bonus that will help reduce the sentence further and get Haase and Bennett protection: ‘If it is that valuable, then obviously you’ll be treated as a confidential informant and given some sort of protection.’

  Bennett seems to tease Cook, dangling the gun plants as bait, but demanding ‘walk out [instant freedom] in return’: ‘A walk out’s more beneficial to me; there’s no other solution . . . a walk out is a walk out and is open to more possible [better gun plants].’

  Here is an abridged version of the tape:

  JH: John Haase

  PC: Paul Cook

  TN: Tony Nelson

  PB: Paul Bennett

  TN: . . . Assist the prosecution [on] the actual facts . . . just say guilty for a start . . . that will assist your sentence . . . We can then reach an agreement . . . giving prosecuting evidence . . . 60 per cent off. The prosecution, they’ve got an overwhelming case against you. As I said to Paul [Cook] today, your three points [guilty/statement/witness box], put them together . . . we will give it to them . . . The prosecution will then underplay what they will describe as your activities in a certain way.

  JH: Yes.

  TN: Which will carry a lesser sentence than that which you will be available for at the moment. Recent case law for importation is 30 years. But they will have you down as distributors – bagmen in this country. For that sort of offence, the prosecution wouldn’t be disagreeing with our Counsel in chambers.

  PC: I’ve got the stated case law somewhere but in the rush up here I can’t find it.

  JH: Go on . . .

  TN: Prosecution is telling us top line is fifteen years. Sixty per cent of fifteen is six, right? . . . Sorry, 60 per cent off is nine . . . But if the information was as valuable and as serious as we think it is – and having discussed it with some people [it seems it is] – then they may go back to the prosecution and say, ‘Well, forget the discount.’ Then we’re back to between ten and twelve . . . so . . . we’re looking at five going on six as a rough guideline. The longer the trial is, the better to find out how valuable the information is. Now, confidential information could be given, could be extraordinary . . . then if it is that valuable then obviously you’ll be treated as a confidential informant and given some sort of protection . . .

  PB: I’m not grassing. [Turning to Cook] You’d know and [to Nelson] you’d know . . . but who else?

  PC: My boss.

  PB: Your boss . . . who else? You two would know . . . The finger comes right from above.

  TN: I’ve been pressing for a walk out, are you with me? I’m setting our starting point and our finishing point is a walk out on this, all right . . . What the prosecution says is what we’ve just said. But what the judge says . . .

  PB: As we’ve said to you from the beginning . . . your views mean nothing to me . . . What your job is outside means nothing to me. But a walk out’s more beneficial to me; there’s no other solution . . . a walk out is a walk out and is open to more possible. Four years is no problem but a walk out is more beneficial to all parties.

  PC: Yeah, but it is just not possible, with the best will in the world. I’m just explaining . . .

  JH: Then why are you explaining that it would be more beneficial to you if we did [give evidence]? I’m gonna get a four before I even go upstairs. I’m gonna get a four whatever the charges. I’m happy with a four but it’s gonna stink anyway.

  PC: It’s their way.

  PB: But it’s gonna stink . . . out of order, course it is.

  JH: Beneficial later on . . . [to Bennett] told you what would happen later on, didn’t I?

  PC: It’s not the case of a ‘want’ thing – it’s the case of the legal machinery . . .

  PB: Interesting legal machinery – you said 60 per cent off for everything, putting us down for one thing. Now you put us down on something else, serving [distribution]. It would have worked out better if we done that, whatever.

  PC: I’m just explaining. It could be four; it could be six. No one knows.

  PB: It’ll still stink. That’s out of order. [To Haase] I told you what would be beneficial, didn’t I? We’re interested in the legal machinery – the 60 per cent . . .

  [Cook talks about The Vulcan]

  PC: If you do walk out with a four or six, you would have to have pleaded guilty and give evidence – against the Turks.

  PB: I don’t want that – Croker will do that. Will [Croker] do that?

  [Bennett talks about Croker giving evidence after they have talked to him]

  TN: I dunno, but he’ll have to do some sort of . . .

  PB: He’ll do that.

  JH: He will do that. When we’ve finished dealing with him next week, then we’ll go and get a statement off Croker.

  PC: We want that so . . . But priority is Kaya. You said you would go against Kaya to get extra years off.

  JH: That’ll be before Croker . . .

  PC: You can speak about that.

  JH [to Tony Nelson]: I would go in the witness box . . . and I testify against this one or that one . . . everything else. [But] then I’m getting a deal for nothing, aren’t I? . . . Just going into the witness box is enough for a four or a six . . .

  TN: I appreciate that.

  JH: [What about] all the other things – the guns and everything else . . .?

  PC: It’s gonna help. Guns and everything else is going to seriously knock it down, isn’t it?

  JH: Not if I’ve gotta go in the witness box. How’s that a proper deal if I’ve got to get in the box? If I go in the witness box, the idea is I’ve got a deal going on . . . the idea is that’s your gain. You’re gonna go down . . . what are you gonna do?

  PB: Buttons . . .

  PC: Yeah, it should be prepared. What’s wrong in that?

  JH: Witness box, that should be 60 per cent right away.

  PC: I agree, but what you are saying is you’ve pleaded guilty full stop. Yeah – if you have to give a statement, you can’t just give a statement expressing views. You can’t give a statement unless you say what’s in your statement. Can’t just give evidence and then refuse to [back it up]. That’s not going to shorten your sentence upstairs, you have to say [it].

  PB: Croker against Kaya and Onay. Croker can say those things personally.

  PC: He would have to say what you could say. Fifty or forty-nine kilos in his house. He’s got to say where he got them picked up from – who off – from you?<
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  JH: Yes.

  [At this point, they talk about getting Bennett to accept a bigger charge than Haase]

  PB: Have they [the prosecution] given you mine [my statement]?

  PC: They’re ignoring your statement.

  PB: So we’re . . .?

  PC: No, we can obviously discuss what we’re giving them . . . carrying [trafficking] . . .

  PB: Carrying?

  JH: No.

  PC: That you . . . the drugs . . . deliver . . .

  JH: Him, pleading guilty in court. I don’t know. What’s gonna come up in court? Why prosecute one and not the other? . . .

  PB: Yeah, you can say the person who sent me is the . . . but it’ll burst into news . . . this that and the other . . .

  [There is a conversation about docks/Customs officers and ‘people who’d mess around with politicians and everything else’]

  PC: Downstairs in the house . . . that’s shaky evidence. If Kaya is pleading guilty . . . then he’ll be part of defence evidence . . .

  JH: Well, I’m not giving them everything . . . what they want – everything – I’m not giving them.

  PB: No slip-ups . . . with Kaya.

  TN: That’s assuming Kaya goes not guilty.

  PC: I think he will.

  TN: If he goes not guilty, then the statements wouldn’t be used.

  [They talk about finding out how the other co-ds are going to plead]

  JH: What we’re going to have to do is debrief in the next few weeks. Then we must go down and arrange the court cases between the lot of us . . .

  TN: Obviously, get their solicitors involved. Better I speak to their briefs.

  JH: Inform them that we want to see the lot of them . . . in Liverpool . . .

  TN: Can’t stop you . . .

  JH: That’s what we’re gonna have to do . . . arrange the court cases between the lot of us.

  TN: It would be better for your statement if that was the case.

  JH: Get in touch with them all and find out.

  PC: The sentence would alter . . . if so, if that was then taken into consideration . . .

  TN: What we want if we go down that route is for the judge to think JH and PB have shown remorse. Remorse, (a); the evidence, (b); the initial conviction [Onay] . . . (c); and on the information we’re giving them . . . (d).

  JH: Quite a lot . . . just on the transport alone and other things. Talk to the prosecution about the evidence . . . It was like when you was in last week; they think they know me. They’re not getting all that. No way! They won’t get what they want.

  PB: As soon as [this is over], after this, I’m out, I’m away [reference to moving abroad]. So I’ve got to be footloose, as well as everything else. That may mean nothing to you but. Even though I’m innocent [of grassing, because I haven’t yet given my agreement] . . . talking about people knowing – we know who they are . . . top people . . . – wouldn’t mess around in politics and everything else. [This may be a reference to Simon Bakerman and the risk of him finding out they are informers.] You worry about who’s involved, don’t you? Do they know my picture?

  PC: If I can just come back to the 60 per cent. The Appeal Court is quite right on this – that takes into account all three aspects.

  TN: Guilty plea, information, statement. We’ve never spoken of less than five years, have we?

  JH: We have.

  TN: The prosecution haven’t.

  [They talk about getting away from Liverpool if they fulfil all three criteria]

  JH: It’s not worth all that.

  [JH then talks about people they can give information on, and guns and where they are coming from. They talk about the Turks and punishment for grasses and Haase says that the Turks are sticking together. He is clearly worried about punishment in Turkey. Bennett says that he will continue to inform until there is a leak and the underworld finds out that he is a grass.]

  PB: All I’m saying is, I’ll say something, until someone knows it’s me.

  This tape is unique because it is one of the only recordings of a secret plea-bargaining meeting. Prison officers later discovered the illegal recorder – possibly during a meeting at Strangeways police station – and confiscated the device along with several of the tapes. Haase explained to the prison governor, contemptuously and with a snide reference to Customs, ‘Well, you can’t really trust these bastards, can you?’ Customs officers went ballistic, fearing their potentially compromising conversations had been recorded. They threatened to call off the deal. Haase convinced them that there were no other copies. He was lying. Copies had already been smuggled out of prison and buried. Not realising they had been duped, the officers resumed the plea-bargaining talks.

  Despite the complicated discussions, several clear outcomes emerged. Haase and Bennett were considering grassing up the Turks in person if enough time was scrubbed off their sentences. At this stage in the negotiations, Customs were not completely on board, so to effect a compromise Haase and Bennett agreed to inform on the Turks vicariously – by ‘persuading’ Eddie Croker to do their dirty work for them and make a statement against the Turks. For the prosecution, this wasn’t as good as Haase and Bennett ratting on their co-defendants in their own words, but it was a start. Later, Haase and Bennett agreed to help further by trying to convince Ergun and Kaya to go guilty in a series of specially set-up prison meetings. For this, they were given credit in Paul Cook’s secret report to the judge.

  13

  GUN-PLANTING

  Using a bank of 18 stolen mobile phones, Haase and Bennett began coordinating the biggest con to date on the British judicial system. The pair were in prison on remand, so legally they could only communicate with underbosses on the outside such as Chris No-Neck during official visits. The stolen mobile phones were therefore essential to the military-style operation. They were smuggled into prison by a corrupt prison officer and paid for from a roll of fresh £50 notes which Haase carried around the wings. He was able to fiddle free airtime on the phones by keying in a special code when the contract credit hit max. That way, Haase was able to spend hours talking to his henchmen, carefully detailing where gun caches were to be stashed.

  Mobile phones are strictly prohibited within prison, and inmates used them in secret in their cells. Bennett became frustrated. He needed to answer calls immediately, to thoroughly stay on top of the gun plants and to ensure split-second timing wherever he was in the prison – in the gym, in the toilets, in his mates’ cells. He quickly devised an ingenious method. He stashed the phone in a Michael Jackson-style ghetto blaster which he carried on his shoulder like a break-dancer, the speaker containing the mobile phone next to his ear. When the phone rang, he was able to hear it. There was a secret panel in the plastic casing through which he could answer the phone and talk. If he was being watched and couldn’t take the call, sometimes he would disappear back to his cell to call the person back.

  On the outside, The Bank Manager Chris No-Neck was in charge of putting Haase’s instructions into action. He was busy selling the missing 50 kilos of heroin and soon raised £1.25 million for the war chest to spend on gun-planting and alleged bribes. That’s why he was known as The Bank Manager to some members of the gang; he had his hands on the purse strings. He stashed most of the money close by in the house of a straight-goer – a gangly teenager who had no connection to crime. He was dubbed The Bank Clerk, as it was his job to run around the city dropping off money from the main war chest to pay for underworld services rendered.

  The first proper gun plant occurred in October 1993, when Customs recovered four machine guns, two moderator silencers, one stun gun, one revolver and one hundred and sixty rounds of nine-millimetre ammunition as a result of Haase and Bennett’s information. But the scheme did not move into top gear until after Christmas in February 1994 and continued until June ’95. Haase and Bennett were staging bogus plants for a full 21 months, and no one in authority realised enough to raise the alarm.

  Haase arranged to buy many o
f the guns himself. After all, he was in the perfect place – prison. He put out the word to his friends within the penal system that he would buy anything and everything that could fire a bullet, and soon gangsters from London, Scotland, Sheffield and Manchester were queuing up with batches of Kalashnikovs, shotguns and pistols. Once they had shaken hands on a price, it was a simple case of getting his people in Liverpool to talk to their people, wherever they were, do the meets and pick up the parcels.

  In Liverpool, a notorious gangster called Tommy Gilday was also supplying the gang with guns. Two of the city’s most violent crime families – sworn enemies of Haase – also agreed to forget their differences and help Haase if the price was right. The real names of the other hand-picked gun-planters are known to the author, but cannot be revealed for legal reasons. They include two brothers who are protection racketeers and restaurant owners, another gangster called George, a villain called Ray, The Iceman and Curtis Warren’s former right-hand man Johnny Phillips. Phillips later died in mysterious circumstances, allegedly killed by a professional hit-man team called The Cleaners. Ironically, he had fallen out in an unrelated feud with one of the crime families involved in the gun-planting.

  One phoney cache consisted of 80 brand-new Italian shotguns. The deal to buy them was helped along by gangster James Turner, a Park Road hoodlum who had helped Haase in his feud with the Ungi/Fitzgibbon crew. He said, ‘I know where the guns came from. I got offered them. Came off a wagon, brand new. But he got them. I said, “John [Haase], do you want these?”’ Chris No-Neck bought them on behalf of John Haase and they were planted in a McDonald’s car park. Astonishingly, a nationally-known crime boss from London had sussed a way of sourcing a large amount of recycled guns from a police depository. These were guns that had been used in crimes and then confiscated by police, probably deactivated at an official proof house and then stored in a secure facility. Somehow, the London gangster was able to smuggle them out or buy them at auction, reactivate them and sell them to Haase. Another gangster in Scotland, who owned a workshop and had connections to Glasgow’s top hit-men, began to supply very high quality guns.