Death Comes Knocking: Policing Roy Grace’s Brighton

by Graham Bartlett

  The users Siggsy and Mike were targeting were given special treatment to help them break this futile cycle. Their possession and use of drugs was not subject to criminal sanction provided they went to, and stayed in, treatment. Yes, I had to defend falling arrest rates; yes, the numbers of drug seizures fell (although the volume increased thanks to Paul’s focus on the bigger fish); but we cut crime, saved money and saved lives. Not bad going – and I slept soundly at night.

  Some sections of the press questioned whether this top cop had gone soft. A government minister made specific mention that the government did not support my views on decriminalization. Thankfully I convinced my bosses that this approach would, in the long run, be more effective and humane than our traditional approaches. As time went on, my critics started to see sense in what I was doing. Brighton was hailed for all the right reasons.

  In early 2008 a strong batch of black heroin was hitting the streets. So called as it turned that colour when prepared for injection, it was 70 per cent pure; its lethal strength was wiping people out. Addicts are typically used to purities of around 30 per cent or less, the remaining mixture being cut with compounds such as citric acid, caffeine and sometimes brick dust. Often these adulterants kill as much as the drug itself. The death toll had suddenly doubled and, as the coroner put it, taking heroin had become like Russian roulette; users had no idea what they were taking.

  Op Reduction made tackling whoever was behind this its number one priority. Through a variety of overt and covert methods, Paul and his team soon identified a gang from Liverpool who had infiltrated the drug market in Hove. Using locally known and trusted street dealers, the Mr Bigs quickly had a supply network established.

  Planning the arrest of these peddlers in death was agonizing. As the users were dropping like flies, the temptation was to hit the dealers hard and fast. That would have been foolish. Swift arrests do not always lead to swift justice. We would probably have been able to nail only the lower ranks of the street dealers and there would be plenty to fill their shoes. We had to hold our nerve despite the risk of more deaths.

  The evidence against the main dealers had to be unassailable. We had long since abandoned the hope of a convenient ‘cough’ in an interview, where the accused fills in all the gaps. This used to happen in the old days when villains considered their arrest a fair cop. Those days had long gone and police had to battle for every piece of the jigsaw. We now assumed the accused would keep silent and employ a range of tactics to block our discovery of more evidence. Without a fully built case, all an early arrest would achieve was a few hours’ inconvenience to the suspect and the police showing their hand.

  However, one sunny May lunchtime, expert detective work and careful planning culminated in an explosive action drama erupting close to the tranquil Hove Lawns.

  The evidence was finally in place, the conspiracy to supply drugs all but proved. Paul was bouncing with anticipation, ready to strike. Unbeknown to the targets, who were no doubt cursing the painfully stop-start seafront traffic, their plans for the day were about to be rudely disrupted.

  It’s easy for unmarked police cars to hide in plain sight; there’s nothing like a heavy traffic jam to act as camouflage. The network of streets around the coast road allow cop cars to invisibly race into position, surreptitiously surrounding the preordained location where the arrests would take place.

  The targets were showing no sign of sensing anything wrong. It had to stay that way. The crawling traffic gave the firearms commanders the upper hand; the strike had become a ‘when’, not ‘if’.

  The timing had to be right, the safety of everyone paramount, the element of surprise total. The threat of force must be overwhelming. A firefight was not an option. The targets had to know resistance was futile; they could not attempt to flee.

  Through carefully rehearsed procedures, everyone knew what had to be done. The operation was handed over from the Silver to the Bronze commander, the sign that the strike was moments away. Bronze’s fine judgement was now critical. Not too soon, not too late. Once he gave the order, it was the point of no return. Training took over. Everyone was poised, psyched up to swoop.

  ‘Strike,’ came the crisp command.

  A cacophony of shouts, racing engines and the sight of scruffily dressed men donning chequered baseball caps and thrusting machine guns and pistols at them, stunned the occupants of the stationary saloon. Even if the villains did manage to muster some courage and try to break through the blockade of police cars, they had no hope.

  ‘Armed police! Get out of the car. Put your hands on your head.’ Bystanders fruitlessly looked round for the TV cameras or a gaudily dressed director bellowing ‘Cut’ through his megaphone.

  All they saw was crestfallen drug dealers spread-eagled on the tarmac, awaiting their trip to the cells, guns pointed at their heads and their wrists bound together with cable ties. A quick search revealed £1,000 in cash stuffed in one dealer’s pockets.

  A few short months later, the evidence overwhelming, justice was dispensed at Lewes Crown Court. Following their guilty pleas to conspiracy to supply heroin Liverpudlians John Lee and Karl Freeman were jailed for ten and nine years respectively. Their minions Darren Hogarth and George Wood each received two-and-a-half-year sentences for supplying heroin and crack cocaine.

  A good outcome, if ever there can be one, given how many deaths these four were directly responsible for.

  There are still drugs in Brighton. People still deal, people still die.

  About a year before I retired, I took part in a BBC TV documentary with comedian Russell Brand, who was exploring the merits of an abstinence-based approach to drug rehabilitation. He was fascinated by the work we were doing in the city and the impact it had. Managing the hundreds of autograph hunters who besieged us as he interviewed me walking around some of the hotspots was a challenge in itself, but we got our message across clearly – users need help, pushers need jail.

  In 2012, given Peter James’ passion for Brighton and Hove, his concern for the people who live in and visit the city – particularly the vulnerable – and his determination to use his profile for the good of others, he volunteered to chair a Commission to examine whether the city was doing enough to reduce the impact of drugs on its people. As the city’s Police Commander I acted as an advisor.

  Peter’s leadership and vision, supported by the international drugs expert Mike Trace, enabled twenty recommendations to be put before the City Council and other services which, if adopted, would enable the city to start to reduce the number of lives that drugs wrecked, and stem the misery drugs cause.

  An unforeseen by-product of the Commission’s recommendations was my being asked by the BBC to make another documentary after I’d retired. This one was to examine the Drugs Consumption Rooms operating in Frankfurt. These are supervised places where users can take their own heroin, safe in the knowledge that the equipment is clean and medics are there should things go wrong. I was asked to consider whether they would be a solution in Brighton. The horrific sights I saw of people struggling to find a working vein in their ulcerated bodies will stay with me forever. Grace visits this same Consumption Room in You Are Dead in his search for Sandy.

  Frankfurt’s problems were far greater than ours and for them these Consumption Rooms have been a godsend. In the twenty years since they were established, the yearly drugs death rate has plummeted from 147 to 30. Things aren’t so bad in Brighton and providing the principles of Operation Reduction are sustained, these controversial facilities will not be needed.

  Through all the hard work, the city has now lost its drugs death top spot. Crime is right down and dealers don’t stay free for long any more. The struggle goes on and I doubt it will ever be over, but if we continue to treat addiction as an illness and remain ruthless towards the dealers we will save lives. And that must be good.

  15: LIVE OR DIE – YOU DECIDE

  The classic 1950s image of the British bobby is that, portrayed in Dixon of Dock
Green, of a portly, ruddy-faced, cheery fellow who helps the elderly across the road and clips the ears of miscreant children. Not many postcards depict the other side. Not many souvenirs show elite muscle-bound police marksmen bursting from unmarked cars and shooting gunmen dead in a rapid fire-fight.

  I’m glad UK police officers aren’t routinely armed. It would change the dynamic of British policing forever and would drive a wedge between the service and the communities. The small but highly mobile and flexible Tactical Firearms Unit is charged with bringing the most critically dangerous situations to a safe conclusion. That is all we need in my opinion.

  It’s worth noting that in 2013–14 there were around 125,000 police officers in the UK yet only approximately 6,000 of those were authorized to carry guns. Furthermore, shots were discharged by police in only two of the 14,864 firearms operations that year. In contrast, according to the Brazilian Forum for Public Safety, between 2009 and 2013 that country’s police killed 11,197 people. That, to me, demonstrates the status quo is more than satisfactory for the time being.

  In 2009 I’d risen to what, in my eyes, was the dream job. I was Brighton and Hove’s top cop. Its Divisional Commander, the Chief Superintendent of Police.

  It had not been an easy climb and neither should it have been. Running the policing of a city as diverse and complex as this required experience, tenacity, patience and grit. I had been a police officer for twenty-six years serving at every rank in Brighton and Hove. I drew on every moment of that to equip me for this privilege. Crucially I had spent eighteen months as the Deputy Divisional Commander and a year as a Detective Superintendent.

  The pressure was relentless but during my four-year tenure I relied on a brilliant team of senior colleagues and an exceptionally brave and dedicated 650-strong army of men and women who risked life and limb for the safety of others.

  A photograph of my inspiration, my dad, resplendent in his Special Constabulary uniform, stood adjacent to my computer screen, watching my every move with his enigmatic smile softening his chiselled features. During my toughest and loneliest moments of command I would hear him silently implore, ‘Come on, Graham. Pull yourself together. People are relying on you and you have a duty to get through this.’

  Beside Dad were pictures of Julie and the children, by now eleven and growing into charming, intelligent and loving kids. It’s a cliché but they were my rock, my raison d’être. The four of them kept me grounded, reminding me that there was a life outside the job and that was very important. Julie always showed unerring support for me. The fact that, despite my overwhelming workload, I tried to make time for all of the children’s special events meant that unlike some of my colleagues I managed to remain central to the lives of my family. This created a bond from which, now they are grown up, Julie and I still reap the benefits.

  Two years on, the policing challenges in February 2011 were as routine as they ever got. Although the city was enjoying a drop in the number of house burglaries, people were having their phones and wallets stolen at a greater rate than before and our neighbourhood policing teams were getting to grips with that.

  However, we soon became worried about a spate of armed robberies of small post offices happening in Hove and just north in nearby Burgess Hill. All the descriptions of the perpetrator were very similar. Thankfully no-one had been hurt but there had been seven in all and they showed no sign of abating.

  A few years previously, I witnessed the life-changing effect that being caught up in two armed robberies in a couple of weeks had on a colleague’s wife. Her breakdown and inability to return to work underlined to me the heartless disregard robbers have for their victims. They just see them as an irritating barrier between their greed and the loot.

  This run of crimes was certainly unusual enough to capture the attention of the public, the police and those who feared they might become victims. They are rarer now than in years gone by as the risks of being caught have escalated in direct proportion to the advances in technology and forensics.

  Those who still choose to put themselves in jeopardy by committing this old-fashioned crime tend to be desperate, drug-addicted and living on the margins of society. Over the years, armed robbery had become less of a way of life, more a desperate last-ditch attempt for survival.

  Burgess Hill is one of the many commuter towns that have sprung up in the last 150 years alongside the main London to Brighton railway line. It’s a popular place to live for those working in the capital or Brighton, which is ten miles away, but who are either disinclined or financially restricted from settling in either.

  On a dark Tuesday evening during the frantic run-up to Christmas, a local convenience store close to Wivelsfield railway station, on the outskirts of the town, was crammed with commuters and residents making use of its small sub post office to send last-minute parcels and cards to loved ones.

  Out of the blue, in burst a man wearing a beige stocking over his face. Pulling a small handgun from his pocket he bellowed at horror-stricken staff, demanding cash. Pushing one person to the ground, he grabbed the money that a terrified colleague threw at him. Gathering it up, he scurried out, sprinted past the railway station, through a small housing estate and disappeared into the patchwork of fields that lay beyond.

  He netted in excess of a thousand pounds and, while no shots were fired, staff and customers were severely traumatized by the ordeal. Thankfully, because of astute and alert witnesses, a very precise picture of the man started to emerge which would be critical in the weeks to come.

  Frustratingly, while this description provided a valuable tool to eliminate possible suspects, no amount of investigation or publicity threw up his name. Detectives worked tirelessly to shed light on who this robber was before he struck again.

  Following a lull over the Christmas and New Year period there were two further attacks, both in the centre of Burgess Hill and both in areas and premises swamped with CCTV. This was the sign of a desperate man becoming even more reckless – a recipe for disaster.

  The first, late one Friday afternoon at a bank close to Burgess Hill’s main railway station, yielded nothing. The man burst in disguised this time in dark clothing, a scarf around his face and wearing a black beanie hat, waving his gun around. He stood inches from the counter staff, yelling his demand for cash to terrify them into submission.

  Despite his brazenness, the staff had been trained well. The moment his intentions became clear, in a reflex response, they flung themselves to the floor and triggered the metal shield that created an impenetrable barrier between the cashiers and the public area. Bewildered, he was not quite quick enough to react to the security shutter as it flew up. He was just too slow in pulling his hand away before the razor-sharp steel clipped it as it engaged. The DNA yielded by that fleeting graze was the breakthrough that the detectives were waiting for. While the robberies happened in another town, I was putting huge pressure on my investigators to speed up the forensic results and get the man off the streets. However, even with me breathing down their necks, the answer did not come quickly enough.

  The following Monday, again just before closing time, the Burgess Hill main post office became his next target. Dressed in identical clothing he again threatened staff and customers with his black handgun, shouting his demands. This time he was luckier and a few hundred pounds were handed over by the petrified postal workers. He fled as quickly as he’d arrived and, despite the area being flooded with cops, he vanished.

  Finally, the DNA result came back. We learned that, with a likelihood of one billion to one, our man was Michael Fitzpatrick, a forty-nine-year-old career criminal whose graduation to armed robbery had been typical if not predictable. Out on licence from prison, Fitzpatrick had a string of previous convictions ranging back through his adult life. It started with minor theft, drugs, a bit of violence that escalated to armed robbery and conspiracy to murder. But nothing as brazen and desperate as this. It was from these arrests that we had his DNA. A further arrest would almost c
ertainly mean an immediate recall to prison. Unfortunately, as in the fictional Darren Spicer’s case, that is inevitable for far too many habitual offenders.

  Looking for such dangerous people is more complex than TV dramas would have you believe. It’s not sexy, it’s not always exciting, but it is ruthlessly efficient. Gone are the days whereby a maverick DI would meet a snout in the pub, walk round the corner, kick a door in and get his man – if those days ever existed at all.

  The key to any police investigation is information. Without this the police are impotent. The hunt today is fuelled by the investigative detectives who focus on building the evidence and the intelligence officers whose sources can be more nebulous. Both work together in a quest to predict the target’s next steps. ‘Brains’ beavering away in darkened rooms pull together the information to guide commanders and operatives alike, advising them where their suspect is likely to be, when, with whom and the danger he – or she – poses. There is no scientific formula but professional judgement is key.

  Manhunts where the quarry could be armed are even more complex. The intelligence gathering is similar but the arrest phase must take place with trained and accredited firearms officers and commanders literally calling the shots. I often ran operations such as these and would ultimately be the one accountable for the outcome. However, each and every officer below me would be responsible for their own actions, including firing their gun. A commander could never instruct anyone to shoot, other than in truly exceptional circumstances. That was always down to the officer concerned.

  Not Dead Yet gives a taste of how manhunts happen. The close protection operation of Gaia Lafayette and the hunt for her stalker were driven by Grace with separate but interdependent structures in place to allow the whole complex plan to come together.