Michael Gillard - Untouchables. Dirty cops, bent justice and racism in Scotland Yard

Dirty cops, bent justice and racism in Scotland Yard

Michael Gillard and Laurie Flynn

This electronic edition published in 2012 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Bloomsbury Reader is a division of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square,
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First published in Great Britain 2004 by Cutting Edge Press
Copyright Michael Gillard & Laurie Flynn, 2004
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ISBN 9781448209033
eISBN: 9781448202645
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Michael Gillard is a Sunday Times journalist specialising in public sector corruption and organised crime.
Laurie Flynn is the author of the 1992 Bloomsbury book Studded with Diamonds and Paved with Gold miners, mining companies and human rights in Southern Africa, and researched and produced many World in Action television documentaries.

At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed all right-thinking people will accept without question. George Orwell.

This was not an easy investigation to complete. It challenged many of the orthodoxies of the time around the relationship between Scotland Yard and its watchdogs, including the media.

We thank the National Union of Journalists who backed us against police and other pressure. Lawyers Louis Charalambous and Robin Shaw also had our backs, as did our agent, Leslie Gardiner.

Thanks Marcello Minale for the inspired cover and Ewan and Rosanne Flynn for research and indexing. Special thanks, however, goes to MJ for Sig and a lot more, and to Mamta Singh with her great laugh.

Wed also like to thank Bloomsbury for their encouragement and professionalism, in particular Stephanie Duncan and Miranda Vaughan Jones, whose enthusiasm for this project was infectious.

Of course, many people on both sides of the thin blue line have shared their files and often painful experiences with us. Thank you too.

Regrettably, there was a long list who refused to engage. Among them: retired Met Commissioners Lords Paul Condon, John Stevens and Ian Blair; retired senior officers John Grieve, Roy Clark, Brian Moore, Chris Jarratt, John Coles, Dave Woods and former BBC reporter Graeme McLagan.

This book is dedicated to the memory of our friend Paul Foot and to the victims of police crimes and government intransigence, whom he did so much to help.

1. One of the many faces of double agent supergrass, Geoff Brennan

2. Supergrass Hector the Selecta Harvey

3. Duncan Hanrahan with one of his jailers on the supergrass wing in Basingstoke, which he says the Untouchables dubbed the Dorchester Suite

4. Supergrass DC Neil Putnam who gave evidence against five colleagues from the East Dulwich SERCS office

5. Flying Squad supergrass DC Terry McGuiness (right) who says the Untouchables told him they werent interested in the police fit-up culture

6. Supergrass DC Kevin Garner (left). His evidence helped convict three Flying Squad colleagues

7. Evelyn Fleckney, drug dealer, lover and informant of DC Robert Clark, who later turned supergrass against him

8. Star Yard informant David Norris. Murdered April, 1991

9. Commissioner Sir Paul Condon awards DI John Redgrave a long service and good conduct medal in June, 1996. Did Condon know his Ghost Squad was investigating Redgrave at the time? After his retirement in 2000, the Labour Givernment made Condon a Peoples Peer. He now investigates corruption for the International Cricket Council

10. Big Schmile, Michael. Commissioner Sir John Stevens awards Undercover 559 a long service and good conduct medal after the Untouchables ruined his life and undermined Merseyside Polices corruption probe

11. Commander John Grieve, joint architect with Roy Clark of the Ghost Squad

12. Stoke Newington boss Roy Clark before he left to set up the Ghost Squad and the Untouchables. He then became director of investigations for the new Independent Police Complaints Commission

13. Untouchables Commander Andy Hayman, who tried to undermine our investigation with a secret smear letter to The Guardian. He then became the chief constable of Norfolk Police

14. Ghost Squad chief D/Supt Roger Gaspar after giving evidence at Brennans trial in 2001: I always suspected he thought I was a soft touch.

15. DS Chris Smith, the Ghost Squad officer corruptly paid 10,000 by Brennan for moonlighting work. Smith later joined Esher Investigations and was secretly filmed in April 1997 offering his services to retired detective, Alec Leighton.

16. DCI Dave Cancer Woods, whose illness was faked so he could run the Ghost Squad intelligence cell

17. D/Supt Tony Fuller, who became boss of the Untouchables covert arm, the Intelligence Development Group

18. D/Supt Chris Jarratt (left), with his then best friend Keith Pedder, the detective who investigated Rachel Nickells murder and was later wrongly targeted by CIB

19. DCS David Wood, who replaced Gaspar. Wood then became Northern Ireland Deputy Ombudsman, executive director of complaints

20. Ira Thomas, a victim of Stoke Newington policing. Wrongfully convicted for shooting Freddy Brett in 1998.

21. Erkin Egg Guney, freed by the Appeal Court in May 2003 after serving seven years. Scotland Yard suppressed information on police corruption that showed his drug conviction was unsafe

22. 1988 W.O.G.S on tour to Cyprus. Brian Moore has always denied any link to W.O.G.S. Here he is iun themiddle with his arms around Terry McGuiness (left) and DC Yan Stivrins (right). Like Moore, Stivrins later joined the Untouchables

23. (l to r) DS Gurpal Virdi, Superintendent Ali Dizaei, retiored DI David Michael, founder of the BPA, and Inspector Leroy Logan.