‘Let’s look at the facts. First, violent crime. The maximum sentence for crimes like rape and attempted murder is life imprisonment. Yet in 1994, 95 per cent of these offenders did not get a life sentence – even for their second conviction.
‘If the prisoner is still dangerous, he will not be released. The safety of the public must come first.
‘I believe that these sentences need to be much stiffer. Career criminals should not receive the same punishment as many first-time offenders.
‘Finally, honesty in sentencing. I propose to abolish automatic early release from prison. Everyone else will serve their sentences in full. No more cases of a criminal being sentenced to ten years in prison and walking out after four or five.’
After saying these words, he released Haase and Bennett. You couldn’t make it up! It took two months for the press to get wind of the story. Thomas Bourke’s sister Jo Holt had known about the release before it happened and got busy briefing the media. Neil Garrett’s brother, who was furious that Neil was being labelled a grass by Haase and Bennett, also got revenge by tipping off a brave journalist on the Liverpool Echo. The local reporter in turn sold the story to one of the nationals. When the bombshell dropped, it exploded like a ton of TNT. The scandal sent shockwaves around the nation. The Sunday Mirror, the newspaper that broke the story, splashed it across the front page under the headline ‘Two-Faced Howard – Heroin dealers jailed for 18 years . . . then HE frees them after 11 months in secret deal’.
On pages four and five, the exclusive revealed: ‘The scandalous secret the home secretary didn’t want you to know’. The main news story was followed by a strong comment piece on the leader page stating that ‘Heroin kills at least 1,000 British youngsters every year’ and ‘The pair were secretly freed in a strange deal involving the home secretary, the judge and HM Customs – an action that defied all the tough words’.
When the Sunday Mirror discovered the truth, a senior Home Office official tried to persuade the paper not to publish. Bourke’s sister Jo Holt tipped off Sky TV. But ominously, Labour MP Peter Kilfoyle revealed that the home secretary had called him minutes before he was due to go on Sky TV and asked him not to do the interview. Howard told Kilfloyle that lives could be in danger. Not knowing the truth, the fair-minded Kilfoyle deferred to his wishes – a decision he now feels angry about.
Peter Kilfoyle said, ‘These two villains were on the streets, bold as brass, up to their old tricks, but I deferred to the home secretary’s privileged information and did not go out and get involved in publicising what was happening. We had a situation where a self-styled tough home secretary extraordinarily pardoned these truly vicious serious criminals.’
Furious Haase and Bennett then launched their own PR-limitation exercise by threatening the reporter at the Liverpool Echo who was tipping off the nationals. He was put in fear of his life, began drinking heavily and fled Liverpool to live under a different name.
But still the story refused to go away. The exclusive was picked up by The Observer and the Sunday Telegraph and followed up the next day in The Independent. Unfortunately for the home secretary, the story also made the front page of the middle-England agenda-setting Daily Mail. The headline screamed: ‘Howard in Drug Gang Deal Shock’. For Howard, it was a total sickener.
Merseyside Police and Members of Parliament vented their anger and surprise. One senior officer told the Liverpool Echo, ‘I was absolutely flabbergasted when I heard they were out. Deals go on but this is an extreme case.’
Everyone started to put the boot in. Labour deputy leader John Prescott branded the decision ‘a disgrace’. He added, ‘It’s not exactly an example of the Government being tough on crime. The home secretary seems to be more prone to letting prisoners out than keeping them in.’
Even anti-drugs group Turning Point poked fun at the supergrass system. A spokesman said, ‘You don’t have to win the Lottery to get in the cash these days – just inform for Customs or the police. It is a murky world and I think a very slippery slope for society where drug dealers are rewarded for turning in their own.’
Knowsley North MP George Haworth demanded assurances that the public were safe from the convicted drug barons. The Labour Home Affairs spokesman said, ‘Given the recent history of armed violence on Merseyside, which is often associated with drug barons, I find this decision surprising to say the least. For that reason, I am writing to Michael Howard seeking an explanation.’
Michael Howard defended his decision, describing it as a ‘wholly exceptional case’ and adding that it would have been ‘inconceivable’ to ignore the call of Judge David Lynch. In a confusing statement, Howard went on:
He said that were it not for the special circumstances of the case in terms of the lives of the men and safeguarding future operations, he would have passed a sentence of five years instead of the eighteen years which he has passed. I think we have to look at this in the context of the real world. If I would have taken any other decision, I would have been open to the most serious criticism.
When contacted by reporters, Judge Lynch said, ‘I cannot speak to you.’
Two days later, on Wednesday, 11 September 1996, the Haase scandal was still going strong in the national newspapers. Daily Mirror reporters Frank Corless and Patrick Mulchrone were the first journalists to track down the recently freed prisoner to his Liverpool ‘lair’ and ask him for a comment. Haase responded with a threat – ‘Get away; I’ll hurt you’ – followed by a string of four-letter-word abuse. He then landed a kick on terrified Corless as his grinning girlfriend, Debbie Dillon, looked on.
Michael Howard let it be known that information Haase and Bennett had provided ‘proved to offer quite enormous and unique assistance to the law-enforcement agencies’. But things got worse for him when a serving police officer wrote to the media revealing the Bakerman link, which thus far had remained a secret. The anonymous source mentioned the bribe and the Strangeways gun. He also said the police had found out about the secret deal on 8 August 1995 – the day before Cook wrote his letter to the judge.
On 25 May 1997, the Sunday Mirror added fuel to the fire in revealing how, within days of his release, Haase had twice made contact with shady Simon Bakerman. The paper hinted at awkward questions. Another embarrassing article appeared in the Sunday Mirror on 8 June 1997 about Bakerman’s dad Warner getting off the cannabis rap.
Meanwhile, Haase and Bennett were worried that the underworld might turn on them for being grasses. They reassured gang-bosses that they had not informed on anything other than phoney gun plants, conveniently forgetting Thomas Bourke. They ‘bigged up’ the bribe story until everyone was convinced their behaviour had not contravened the underworld code. Haase and Bennett were free to go about their business. Gangsters were briefed to stay on message. One told the Liverpool Echo:
John got people to hide the guns here, there and everywhere in Liverpool while he was behind bars awaiting trial. Police and Customs spent two years doing cartwheels round the city finding them. He’s no supergrass – the number of arrests proves that. He tricked the system into letting him off a lengthy stretch in jail. Police and Customs were happy because they got a load of guns to boost their figures.
Customs boss Phil Connelly defended his role of lobbying for Haase even though he suspected he was being conned by saying that he didn’t know that so much leniency would be granted.
PHIL CONNELLY: I actually don’t care if people get convicted. My job’s to catch them. You can’t get yourself wound up about convictions. Your job’s to catch them, and once they’re caught, it is up to the courts.
We’d got the heroin. That’s important at the end of the day to me. We probably feel the way a police officer feels about it. We’ve got the stuff and we’ve taken the stuff off the street. I couldn’t feel remorse or regret about Haase and Bennett because I was aware of what was going on and that they’d produced all this information. Whether it’s right, I don’t know.
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p; ONTOP TO DEATH – HAASE’S SECOND CRIME SPREE
As soon as Haase was released by Michael Howard, he was bang at it again. But now, under the impression that he was a government-sponsored untouchable, the Liverpool Mafia godfather branched out his crime empire to cover five specific money-spinning rackets. Class A drug dealing was still the core business but the other divisions included extortion and protection rackets, mass cigarette smuggling, illegal debt collecting and wholesale gun-running. On the side, when he had time, he also ran profitable lines in money laundering, kidnapping, armed robbery, fencing stolen goods, hijacking and contract violence. Haase’s multitude of sins was masked by a legit front in the form of a security company called Big Brother. In ’90s Britain, security consultants had become the building blocks of modern organised crime. Bennett also got busy again, setting up his own deals as well as remaining partners with Haase for security reasons.
But despite being master criminals, Haase and Bennett’s crime spree was inevitably doomed. In local parlance, they were ‘too ontop’ to get away with it for too long. For the next three years, between 1996 and 1999, they winged it and milked it for all they could get – but then it all came crashing down again. What occurred in between was a rerun of history – a complex entanglement of organised crime, grassing and deals with the authorities. But this time the betrayal got personal and poisonous. The partners turned on each other as well as everyone else, and supergrass Paul Grimes turned on his old pal Haase.
Meanwhile, Haase and Bennett continued to be informants for Paul Cook, seemingly making a more or less complete transition from phoney grasses to real ones, as revealed by the contact sheets. They passed on information about rival drug dealers including names, dates and details of big deals. But inevitably they were using their status as a shield to deflect heat away from their own crimes. A different branch of Customs and the Merseyside Police soon grew wary and began investigating Bennett for cannabis smuggling, later widening the investigation to cover Haase. Paul Cook was told to back off to avoid a conflict of interest. The official reason was that his relationship might lead to media interest, bearing in mind the huge outcry over their release. But before police pounced in June 1999, Bennett managed to escape to a safehouse in Scotland. One of Bennett’s partners then claimed he tried to pull the old gun-planting trick again to wriggle out of the warrant for his arrest. Bennett’s right-hand man Barry Oliver said that Ben had persuaded John Haase to sell him some guns so that he could plant them in Scotland for the authorities to find. Haase went along with the plan, but in October 1999 Bennett’s courier was caught with the weapons during transit back to Scotland. Haase was later jailed for 13 years for being involved in the gun transaction. Shortly afterwards, the warrant out against Bennett for the cannabis smuggling mysteriously lapsed and he was walking freely around Liverpool. Oliver’s theory was that Bennett had sacrificed Haase in order to save himself from the cannabis charge, that he set up the gun deal so that the authorities could catch Haase red-handed.
The road to ruin began in the summer of 1996, as soon as Haase and Bennett were released by Michael Howard.
KEN DARCY: Haase came to see me two or three weeks after being released to say thanks and all that crap for helping with the gun-planting and that. Then he asked me if I wanted to do some graft, to move 100 kilos of pot in the boot of a car for him. I did and the next day it was shipped to Scotland, the whole lot in one go. Got paid well for that. Did this and that – some gear [heroin].
One night, he asks me to come and get some guns. I asked, ‘What are you buying guns for, John?’
He said, ‘To help Eddie Croker,’ who was still in jail, remember.
I thought, ‘Fucking hell! What a top fella trying to help Eddie the way we had helped Haase with gun-planting. Many people forget you when you are inside.’
I didn’t know at this point that Eddie was a grass, that he had turned QE [Queen’s Evidence] against the Turks, otherwise I wouldn’t have helped.
But Haase was bullshitting anyway – it wasn’t for Eddie Croker at all. He was buying guns for his own firm, or whatever.
Anyway, I went along because at the end of the day I’m a villain. I looked in this car owned by the lads who were selling the guns. They were from the Southend. They’ve got three handguns, three 9 milly, a .45, a .38 and a pump-action. These lads wanted a bit [a lot of money]. But we offered two and a half [grand] for the lot and they’ve gone, ‘Go on.’
John’s given me the cash from a suitcase. He’s followed me home and said, ‘Bury them. I’ll get them moved in a few days.’ He phoned me a few days later. ‘Can you bring them to the Heritage Market?’ he asked. That was his office on the docks.
Cleaned them up, put them in bin bags and took them down there with bags of rubbish on top. The boot fucking stunk. Took them in the back way of the Heritage Market and threw them in a skip. He was watching me from the stairs. Afterwards, the guns went up to Scotland.
Following Haase and Bennett’s release, No-Neck was promoted to a top executive position in the firm but he was denied an equal partnership. To his disgust, No-Neck was to remain effectively an employee, not a shareholder as he had expected. In real terms, this meant forgoing an equity share in Haase and Bennett’s growing property empire.
For all his good work for the cause, for the wonderful job he had done of the gun-planting, No-Neck had thought he was made for life. He assumed that Haase and Bennett would make him an equal third partner. After all, not only had he paid his dues and won Haase freedom, but it would right the great injustice he felt he had suffered in 1992 when Haase had squeezed him out of his money-spinning 10-ki-a-time heroin-dealing partnership with Bennett. In addition, the icing on the cake was the £250,000 he had put in Haase and Bennett’s ‘backbin’ the minute they walked out of prison. He’d done it right – that was pure tribute, just like back in the old country. If nothing else, No-Neck figured, that supreme gesture of selflessness, deference and loyalty would buy him a seat at the table.
NO-NECK: Was I fucking wrong or what? Fucking right, I was. I was sucked in like everyone else. I thought I were going to get graft and that, right. I said to him, ‘Are we going to be partners like you and Ben are?’
You know what he turned around and said to me? He said, ‘No, I want to keep everything like it is.’ That meant just Ben and him. Then that twat turned round and said, ‘Anyway, you don’t deserve it. The bird [The Supervisor] has done more graft than you this year.’
And I said, ‘How did you work that one out, John?’
He said, ‘She sent a van-load down to Holyhead.’ [Referring to the gun plant.]
And I said, ‘Who kept all the hard-cases [the tax men] away from your house and from Ben’s house? Who stopped Ben’s kid from getting kidnapped [by the tax men after the missing 50 kilos]? Was it the bird who fronted Tommy Gilday?’
This is how much of a fucking rat he is. But I just swallowed it and got on with it. After that, over a three-year period, I did a lot of graft but I was just annoyed that I wasn’t an equal partner.
The ink on the Royal Pardon was barely dry when Haase set to work renewing his heroin and cocaine contacts. The Turkish Connection was re-established with a vengeance – but with Kaya and Ergun in prison, he could only manage to buy small loads off low-grade operators. However, in 1997, Haase set to work planning his quantum leap back into the big-time. His strategy was simple: to increase his heroin-dealing volume back to 1992/’93 levels.
Astonishingly, he turned to the Turks he had betrayed to help him. Devious Haase banked on Kaya and Ergun not knowing about his secret deal with Customs and the fact that he had sneakily tried to persuade them to go guilty on behalf of the prosecution, as well as forcing Croker to make a statement against the Turkish mob. It was insult to injury, kicking a man when he was down, a treacherous double betrayal. But only someone like Haase, with more front than New Brighton beach, combined with a lifetime’s supply of prison cunning, could pull it off.
C
heekily he went to see Kaya in jail to ask him for an intro to some heavyweight dealers back in Turkey. But Kaya had been forewarned. The sharp-minded Suleyman Ergun had learned of Haase’s betrayal and tipped Kaya off. In true Turkish mafia fashion, Kaya said nothing but did not refuse Haase an audience – he kept his enemy close. Kaya welcomed his old partner with open arms and gave him two heroin connections. One was based in north London. The other was his own brother Yalcin, based in Turkey.
Kaya was playing a cute game. He was stringing Haase along. On the one hand, he wished to get Haase exactly where he wanted him, and on the other hand, he was hoping that Haase would be able to repay some of the £1 million debt that the Turks were owed from his future heroin profits. To show their gratitude, Haase and Bennett started to drop off parcels of £10,000 cash to various kebab shops in London connected to The Vulcan, from where they were passed back to Kaya’s family.
Haase and No-Neck flew to Turkey to see Kaya’s brother Yalcin to set up a heroin deal. They stayed with the Turk’s family, who greeted them with open arms. But the proud Yalcin couldn’t stomach the pretence any longer. When Haase gave him £40,000 as a down payment on a heroin deal, Yalcin pocketed the money and ‘fucked them off ’. He didn’t let Haase know directly that they thought he was a grass. He fobbed them off with an excuse and sent them packing. On their return to Manchester airport, Haase and No-Neck were stopped by Customs. Haase was let go but No-Neck was found with two false passports on him. He was later convicted, fined and sentenced to community service.
Druglord Page 29