by Howard Marks
The prison authorities had no objection to my getting married and even went so far as to let me out, escorted by two prison guards, to a Welsh Congregational Chapel in South London to perform the deed. The wedding was most definitely shotgun: Judy was five months pregnant, and my daughters Myfanwy and Amber were the bridesmaids. Johnny Martin was best man. After the wedding, I begged the two guards to allow me to attend the reception. They would be very welcome guests, and I promised not to escape. In a chauffeur-driven Cadillac, Judy, a guard, and I were driven to the Basil Hotel. Champagne and congratulations flowed. Judy and I were allowed to spend some time alone in a hotel bedroom. The guards and I got drunk.
I got on with most of the guards at Brixton and encountered little or nothing in the way of sadism or cruelty. The coveted position of A Wing tea-boy was offered me, and I took it. There were lots of perks. I was allowed out of my cell for most of the day. The screws brought me little presents of harmless contraband: Danish blue cheese and dirty magazines. I was given social visits of a couple of hours rather than the few minutes allotted by prison rules. Remand prison regulations were less stringent than they are now. A prisoner was allowed a meal and some alcohol to be delivered to him from outside on a daily basis. It was easy to smuggle in dope with the food. I still had quite a lot of cash that the authorities hadn’t confiscated. Almost all the wholesale dealers who had owed money for Colombian marijuana I had given them on credit paid up in full. Johnny Martin, who had been interviewed by HM Customs, but not arrested, looked after the cash stash.
Ernie felt guilty for having allowed uncool American gangsters access to the British stores of Colombian weed. If he had controlled them, there would have been no bust. Ernie offered to pay all my defence costs, however high. He told Judy she would never have to worry for money. All his connections and wealth were at her disposal.
Judy had to take up Ernie’s offer sooner than we thought. Her sister, Natasha, had been busted attempting, without our knowledge, to do a scam on her own. She and her boyfriend were caught off the Mexican coast with a small boatload of marijuana. They were languishing in filthy Mexican jails. Ernie got on the case and got her released. It did take a while, but during that time, Natasha and her boy-friend were imprisoned together in a luxury apartment with a balcony and all modern conveniences. While inside, Natasha conceived and gave birth to a baby boy. She called him Albi. Ernie definitely had excellent connections in Mexico.
On November 23rd, 1980, my adorable daughter Francesca was born. I had petitioned the Home Office to allow me to attend her birth, but they refused.
She was the only child of mine who was welcomed into this world in my absence. It made me angry not to be there, but her birth gave me the strength I needed to face the future. Tough times and a long period in prison seemed at hand. Then one of my heroes, John Lennon, was gunned down in New York, killed either by a lunatic or by the CIA. His death echoed his profound definition of life: ‘that which happens when you are making other plans’. The tragedy saddened me but also increased my fighting spirit. Judy sent me a book on yoga, and I began a discipline to which I’ve always adhered when incarcerated: half an hour a day of yoga positions and ten minutes of meditation.
Gradually, Bernard Simons brought in the written depositions of evidence against me. There was quite a bit. A key found in my pocket on the day of my arrest opened a door at the falconry in Pytchley behind which lay a few tons of Colombian weed. Accounts of whom had been paid what throughout the entire deal were in my own handwriting. There were sightings of me meeting co-defendants in London and Scotland. A suitcase of money had been found under my bed. These were difficult to explain away, but explained away they had to be.
As any lawyer and any acquitted crook will endorse, guilt has nothing to do with whether one actually committed the offence in question. Guilt is a technical relationship between charge and evidence and must be established beyond doubt by the prosecution, who have to persuade a jury that the evidence is consistent with only the prosecution version of events and not any other. A great deal of the evidence against me was consistent with my having organised an importation of fifteen tons of dope. With what else was it consistent?
Dreams become of enormous importance in prison. McCann came to me one night in the middle of a nightmare.
‘Use the Kid, you stupid Welsh cunt. I fucking used you.’
My barrister was Lord Hutchinson of Lullington, QC, a socialist with a record of defending spies and anti-establishment trouble-makers. Russian espionage agents George Blake and Vassall had benefited from his advocacy, as had Penguin Books when they were prosecuted for publishing D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover. I explained to him my defence: In 1972, I had been recruited by MI6 to catch IRA arms dealer James McCann by sucking him into dope deals. I was doing very well until Her Majesty’s Customs and Excise messed up the British Secret Service’s plans by busting me in 1973. Bail was arranged. I skipped as arranged. The media, however, had somehow procured confidential information that I was an MI6 agent and this had blown my cover. Knowing no other life than that of a spy, I was instructed by MI6 to work for the Mexican Secret Service, who, strangely enough, were also interested in catching McCann due to their belief that he was aiding the Mexican terrorist group, the September 23rd League, in arms acquisition and fund-raising through dope deals. The Mexican Secret Service supplied me with a passport in the name of Anthony Tunnicliffe and all manner of front documentation. Against all odds, I managed to track down McCann in Vancouver, thereby continuing to do my bit for Queen and Country, as well as keep Mexico stable. I informed the Canadian authorities, but McCann wriggled out of their grasp. I found McCann again, this time in France. He again wriggled out of the authorities’ grasp, but not before I had found out that he was now working with Colombian narcoterrorists in South America as well as with heroin drug lords from the Golden Triangle area of Laos, Thailand, and Burma. I was given a complicated brief, answerable to both British and Mexican governments. I had to infiltrate the Colombian drug hierarchy and find out where the bosses were banking their money and how it was getting into the accounts of known members of the September 23rd League. Also, I had to ensure that McCann was caught red-handed, preferably in Ireland or Europe. All my espionage activity was done under the guise of my being a hippie marijuana-only dealer and smuggler. In order to fulfil my dangerous brief, I involved myself with two separate dope deals: Colombian weed to Scotland and Thai weed to Ireland. The Irish deal was done first. When the dope landed in Ireland, I informed MI6 how to catch McCann red-handed. McCann again outwitted the authorities and got freed by a Dublin court. Meanwhile, infiltration of the Colombian drug hierarchy was proceeding very well. I had even got my brother-in-law, Patrick Lane, to bank all their money. Soon, I’d know the whole picture, and the Mexican Secret Service would make me their hero. Then, as in 1973, HM Customs stepped in and busted me. They probably had something against MI6. Who knows?
‘That is your defence, Howard?’ gasped an astonished Lord Hutchinson of Lullington, QC.
‘Yes. Why? What’s wrong?’
‘It is, absolutely without doubt, the most ridiculous defence I have ever heard in my life.’
‘You mean you don’t believe it?’
‘Belief is not a factor, Howard. I am obliged to be your voice in court, even if your defence is idiotic.’
‘Almost all of it can be backed up with evidence, Lord Hutchinson. There’s plenty of newspaper reports to show I was an MI6 agent tracking McCann.’
‘And where might this Tunnicliffe passport be now? The one given you by this South American Secret Service. Mexican, was it?’
‘The Tunnicliffe passport is British, Lord Hutchinson. I expect MI6 provided it to the Mexican Secret Service for my use. It’s covered with Mexican entry and exit stamps, some of which prove I wasn’t even in Scotland when the marijuana was imported. Any suggestion that I was actually on the beach supervising the importation and transport of the dope is ridiculous.’
‘It’s a pity, dear boy, that no one from the Mexican Secret Service is prepared to come to London to testify that you did work for them.’
‘Lord Hutchinson, my immediate superior, Jorge del Rio, a member of the Mexican Government, is only too happy to come and testify on my behalf.’
‘Hmm! Interesting. I am looking forward to working at the Old Bailey again.’
Most books were allowed into Brixton prison, but those on terrorism weren’t. Solicitors could bring in photocopies of anything they wanted. Day after day, an embarrassed Bernard Simons brought me books on South American and South East Asian revolutionary groups to, as he put it, ‘refresh my memory’. The prison authorities had no objection to guide books being read by prisoners.
‘What are you doing with all these travel guides to Mexico, Marks?’
‘I’m going there on my holidays once I get acquitted, Governor. They can’t keep an innocent man locked up for too long.’
‘I’m glad to see you’re keeping your sense of humour, Marks. Enjoy your reading.’
‘Thanks, Governor.’
There was one really awkward bit. Despite my maintaining in my defence a position of never having met any of the Florida gangsters, HM Customs Officer Michael Stephenson was claiming that late one night he observed me leaving one of the gangsters’ rooms at the Dorchester Hotel. This observation had to be neutralised. I had a friend who, for a short time, was a boy-friend of Rosie’s. He was Welsh, went by the name of Leaf, and kept a pub, the Oranges and Lemons, at St Clement’s, Oxford. Leaf came to visit me in Brixton prison.
‘Leaf, do you remember I stayed with you once in Oxford, last year?’
‘Aye, of course I do. I wasn’t that drunk. I remember it well.’
‘Can you remember the date?’
‘Hell, no. I wasn’t that sober, either.’
‘It was a Friday night, right?’
‘It might have been, Howard.’
‘It was. Because after we all got up on Saturday, we watched the rugby match. Now do you remember? Wales lost to Ireland.’
‘That’s right. Will I ever forget it? We lost by 21 to 7 at Lansdowne Road in bloody Dublin. Jeff Squire was captain. Mind you, we beat them this year at Cardiff Arms Park, but only by 9 points to 8.’
‘Last year’s match was on March 15th.’
‘Could well have been. I can easily check it. I’ve got all the Welsh rugby matches on video.’
‘I’ve already checked it, Leaf. Would you be prepared to testify on my behalf at the Old Bailey about where I was that night?’
‘I’d bloody love to.’
The trial started on September 28th, 1981, the same day, many years previously, that marijuana had first been rendered illegal under British law. I was facing a maximum of 18 years in prison (14 for marijuana and 4 for false passports). Patrick Lane wrote me a poem:
Dear Brother: Five hundred days stand between us, and
All the distance I have managed to create.
No word has passed, no smile exchanged, no touch of hand,
And yet, as Dawn intrudes, we still relate.
I cannot sleep whilst you, awake across the Globe, await
The turn of Fortune’s wheel, and take her dare,
To chance your luck against the odds as they rotate
And play for both of us and all the precious ‘ours’ we share.
In Time and Space and Circumstance we’re Night and Day
Upon the circle, although the axis is the same.
But all around your friends and family hope that they
May share with you and help you play, and win, this game.
In one brief span, as the world turns, the sun’s warm kiss
Touches many loving hearts that beat with yours: you will get this.
Only three of us pleaded not guilty. Prentiss’s defence was that he had committed the offence under duress. This defence works if the jury believe that a more serious offence was avoided by the commission of the offence charged. Prentiss was going to say that he imported fifteen tons of Colombian marijuana because if he didn’t, the Mafia would kill him. Hedley Morgan would maintain that he didn’t know the money he handled derived from sales of dope. I was a spy whose theatre of operations was dope deals.
The Crown took six weeks to present the prosecution before Judge ‘Penal Pete’ Mason. John Rogers, QC, was the Director of Public Prosecutions’ counsel. Hiding behind bags of weed, address books, passports, files, witness statements, and telephone gadgetry, he humourlessly laid out the case: ‘This was crime on the grand scale … It is no surprise that a man of the defendant’s background and intelligence set up the UK side of the organisation just like a high-powered business … He warmed to his work … Mind-boggling quantities of cannabis and money. The whole of this smuggling operation was like a military operation … An intricate web of bluff and counterbluff and false names … Marks had so many identities one wonders how on earth he remembers who he was … The organisation had to be very slick, very smooth and carefully planned to succeed, and it will not surprise you to learn that those involved are extremely intelligent people.’
This led to the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph heading their stories: OXFORD MASTERMIND IN A £20M DRUGS RING and THE GRADUATE CONNECTION.
Peter Whitehead was the Crown’s key witness. He had been put into a most difficult position. His ethics were such that he would not wish to be responsible for putting anyone in prison. But he didn’t want to end up in the nick himself. He saw a way out without directly incriminating me and took it. The price he paid was to be a prosecution witness. Peter behaved most honourably when he testified but he had left some question-marks about what I had done. Lord Hutchinson tore into Peter and eliminated most of those. Although Lord Hutchinson’s cross-examinations were brilliant and although my junior barrister, Stephen Solley, had analysed the prosecution evidence in the most thoroughly competent and conscientious fashion imaginable, we had achieved only one victory: casting doubt on the observation made by HM Customs Officer Michael Stephenson of me in the Dorchester Hotel. By the time Lord Hutchinson had finished with him, Stephenson wasn’t sure he’d ever been to the Dorchester. He’s never forgiven me. The rest of HM Customs were already prematurely celebrating their victory. I was going down.
Lord Hutchinson thought so too and had a word with Penal Pete. Plea-bargaining does not happen in British justice, but indications of the judge’s likely course of action can sometimes be obtained. Lord Hutchinson went to determine whether Penal Pete would be likely to give a maximum of seven years’ imprisonment if I pleaded guilty. I could handle it. I’d get parole. Penal Pete refused. He wanted to give a much longer sentence.
For a whole week, I gave my evidence after first promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I had plenty of documentation establishing I was a Mexican spy, but confirmation of my MI6 activities was then only to be found in old newspaper headlines. Through perfect legal manipulation, Lord Hutchinson managed to get the newspapers read by an enthralled and sympathetic jury. I was a spy all right. All the newspapers were unanimous in that opinion. One even quoted MI6’s lawyer as confirming I was an agent. John Rogers rose to cross-examine. His lack of effort astonished me. He had no idea which questions to ask and merely mouthed empty rhetoric about what a bad but brilliant person I was. At one point, he was definitely on my side, saying: ‘It is conceded that you worked for the Secret Service until March 1973 …’
Now the jury definitely knew I was a spy. Occasionally, Rogers went for me: ‘You are using a little bit of the truth and then glossing it … You fanned your legend, didn’t you? You encouraged the Marks religion to grow, that you were a secret agent on the run from the police, and made as many smokescreens as you could, while indulging in very highlevel drug trafficking … Let me challenge you to name this MI6 controller you say recruited you for the Mexicans.’
I had no problem answering that one and gave the name of Anthony Woodhe
ad, the husband of Anna of AnnaBelinda, the man who had ripped me off for a million dollars. I don’t know what repercussions he experienced, but I expect he could afford them. My cross-examination was at an end.
Leaf was the first defence witness. He was so obviously telling the truth that the jury were left in no doubt that HM Customs Officer Michael Stephenson was wrong when he testified that he saw me at the Dorchester Hotel. The last defence witness was Jorge del Rio, a bona fide senior Mexican Government law-enforcement officer. Because of the sensitivity of his testimony, the Old Bailey court was cleared and the Mexican’s evidence was given in camera. The Mexican confirmed that he knew me as Anthony Tunnicliffe, that he was introduced to me by Anthony Woodhead, that I was employed by the Mexican Secret Service, and that I had been paid large amounts of cash to infiltrate Colombian drug organisations. The jury loved it. Officers of HM Customs and Excise were beginning to look a bit worried.