The Iceman: The Rise and Fall of a Crime Lord

by Wilson, Jim

  The books of Stirton’s mail-order pornography business Love Boat showed strong profits but the accountant who was supposed to have prepared this healthy balance sheet denied having done so. These accounts could have helped secure a mortgage for Stirton’s Mugdock home. Police long suspected the porn business was just an early vehicle for laundering cash.

  Janice Leonard confessed to the police that she had used bogus accounts to obtain a mortgage for her Uddingston home when the cash to pay the loan had actually come from her boyfriend Anderson, Stirton’s business partner.

  The most recent figure to be put on the total value of that day’s haul is £5.6 million. Police hailed Operation Maple as a huge success but it was a long way from over.

  The new Proceeds of Crime laws were different to conventional criminal laws. In theory, the crooks need to illustrate that their wealth is legitimate. It was a major legal shift and people like Stirton were squirming. The well-spoken fitness fanatic and marathon runner hired Richard Keen, one of Scotland’s most skilled QCs, to fight his corner.

  During the first court hearing weeks later, it emerged that the seized Shell garage of Stirton and Anderson had an annual turnover of £12 million, with £6 million of that coming by way of cash. Despite selling some of the cheapest fuel in Britain, it seemed hard to explain how almost £16,500 in banknotes passed through the till every single day of the year. Crown lawyers told how they would have to keep the identities of witnesses secret for fear of retribution were they to be unmasked while Stirton’s legal team attacked ‘the flagrant disregard’ of their human rights. Following lunch, it was agreed that the garage and the pub would be returned to the pair under strict conditions.

  In March, Stirton was arrested in Edinburgh after flying in from a trip to London. He and Anderson appeared in court on criminal charges of extortion and money laundering but they were later dropped, a development which was a sign of things to come as the early confidence of the police began to ebb away.

  Stirton and Anderson’s legal team got to work. The first blow for the Crown case was the revelation that criminal convictions, which they had attributed to Anderson, did not exist. The pair’s costly legal team then set about the task of unpicking Operation Maple as Scotland’s flagship Proceeds of Crime case became bogged down in a legal quagmire.

  More than four years after those triumphant raids, the case against Stirton and his finances continues to limp through the legal system. Since the raids, Stirton has fallen out with the McGovern brothers over their suspicions that he had ripped them off. This sparked a bitter feud that still threatens violence. He and Anderson have already rejected an offer to settle the case by jointly handing over just £175,000 on the condition that they would not be able to sue over the process. Critics fear the case, which was meant to highlight the new legislation’s sweeping powers, has only exposed its inadequacies. In recent years, there has been greater emphasis on confiscating the fortunes of convicted criminals rather than attempting to seize assets from those only suspected of crime.

  Another issue that Stirton’s lawyers pounced upon relates to the true identity of ‘Louise Rivers’, which was discovered to be a pseudonym – something that had not been declared to the court at the outset. The Crown lawyers said that this had been an ‘innocent oversight’ and the reasons for anonymity were that ‘it would put at risk her own safety and that of her staff if she practised under her own name’. Stirton’s lawyers were to withdraw attempts to establish her real identity perhaps because, by then, there was no need.

  Away from the Court of Session in Edinburgh and unknown to the legal team, a plot to unmask the enigmatic accountant had already been hatched. In order to find out who she was or, at the very least, the name and location of her true employers, an apparently ordinary package was sent to her through the post from Scotland. Contained within the parcel was an electronic tracking device. As that day’s post was collected from the branch of Mail Boxes Etc. in Buckingham Palace Road, the transmitter was sending its signal. Someone in Scotland was determined to find out who she was and they had gone to extraordinary lengths to locate her.

  Her pursuers’ audacious scheme to track down the mysterious accountant failed after the bug was intercepted before reaching her workplace and a senior judge, Lord Macfadyen, has since ruled that it would be a criminal offence to reveal her – or his – identity. Louise will continue her work of asset stripping Scotland’s untouchables without fear of reprisals.

  45

  Jamie Soprano

  The surveillance officers tailing Jamie Stevenson in the summer of 2003 did not instantly recognise his route as he left home heading into the city. Folklore’s surveillance offensive against the gang boss had only been launched a few weeks earlier and Stevenson’s regular haunts and habits were still uncharted. Their target picked his way through the lunchtime traffic into Glasgow’s southside before turning into Mansionhouse Road, a tree-lined avenue in the Langside neighbourhood.

  The tailing officers speculated that he was perhaps heading to the popular Boswell Hotel for a meeting but, on reaching the hotel, Stevenson did not turn left into the car park but instead turned right into the drive of the imposing sandstone mansion opposite. The handsome, discreetly extended building was the Priory Hospital, the only private clinic in Scotland specialising in the treatment and management of acute psychiatric disorders. Stevenson was going to see his therapist.

  The Scots gang boss had started going to the Priory a year before in the summer of 2002 to discuss a range of mental health issues with the hospital’s expert counsellors. This imposing man was feared throughout the underworld, he was suspected of a series of murders and he was leading an intricate and international drugs-trafficking network. Yet behind this most serious and organised criminal lay a troubled mind. One source, aware of his treatment, said, ‘He had anxiety issues, anger-management issues, some problems sleeping, a little paranoia. Let’s face it – he was Tony Soprano.’

  The police team tracking Stevenson to his regular sessions at the Priory in the years that followed were also not slow to compare the Scots crime boss with the head of the famous but fictional crime family. The relationship between Soprano and his psychotherapist has been at the heart of the acclaimed US television crime drama since the first episode screened in 1999. Soprano, played by actor James Gandolfini, loves his wife, is devoted to his children and is a loyal friend. He’s a charismatic leader, a skilled manager and a brutish thug capable of barbaric violence. He leads an effective organised crime gang, lives under constant FBI surveillance and suffers panic attacks, anxiety and depression.

  A source with knowledge of Stevenson’s business and health issues says the comparisons between the TV mobster and the Scot are inescapable. He said:

  Jamie had little option but to seek professional help. The alternative would have been to give up what he was doing and I don’t believe he ever considered that. Given what he had been doing every day for twenty years, it’s no great surprise that he was anxious, angry and insomniac. And you’ve got to think Stevenson being paranoid was understandable. He wasn’t imagining it. People really were out to get him. They really were watching him.

  The sleep thing was a problem. He had a lot of trouble sleeping, particularly when he was away from home. That’s not great given the amount of travelling he was doing. He hated going away. He hated being far from his home. He knew he had to do it but he hated it. And I think that got worse as time went on.

  Another associate says it was not surprising that the pressures of Stevenson’s lifestyle took a toll on his health.

  He had a handful of guys who were trusted to do stuff but basically he was directing traffic across the board. Like his boy Gerry – he just didn’t have the mental furniture without Stevenson there in the morning to tell him to do this, go there, do that. Stevenson was like Alan Sugar in The Apprentice.

  In addition to all the stuff Stevenson was doing himself, people would be coming to him with their problems all th
e time. You see it in the transcripts of the Folklore tapes, guys are round his flat looking for favours, asking him to intercede in this or that and, more often than not, he would get involved. He took a lot on.

  Stevenson was right at the top, pulling the strings of these guys working for him but a lot of them would be doing their own things as well and he didn’t necessarily know what.

  Speaking to him, you would never have known because he seemed so confident and on top of things but, years of doing what he did, must have been taking its toll.

  Professor David Cooke, a forensic clinical psychologist at Glasgow Caledonian University, has spent years analysing the mental health of Scottish criminals and believes many suffer personality disorders. For one of his research projects, he studied hundreds of prisoners at the city’s Barlinnie Prison and concluded that between fifty and sixty per cent of them had psychological issues. He said:

  There is a high correlation between crime and personality disorders and a lot of work has been done on the reasons for that. Are there influences in their childhood or even before they are born which lead people to a life of crime? There is not a crime gene but there are genetic factors at play along with biological influences, sociological influences – the influence of parents and peers and so on. You can see how people accumulate risk factors through their lives.

  Professor Cooke believes antisocial personality disorders are common among criminals who are incapable of an emotional response to their actions but he also suspects that major criminals who have been breaking the law over many years do not share the personality traits that often help to end other criminals’ careers far earlier. He said:

  To be a good career criminal, you need to be organised. Many criminals are not. They might be impulsive and reckless – might like to boast about their achievements, drive fast cars and spend all their money. In short, they get caught.

  Career criminals operating over a period of time may be able to maintain a flatness of emotion. They will do things that would cause most people to feel guilt or remorse but will have no emotional reaction to their actions. This lack of emotionality may make them more immune to stresses and strains of life.

  While there are personality disorders that are common in criminals, it is far more difficult to identify the development of common psychological traits as criminal careers progress. There may be clear evidence of disorder way before they get into a life of crime but, equally, a long career in crime may generate forces and influences of its own.

  At the Priory, part of the chain of clinics famous for offering a haven for celebrities in rehab, Stevenson took part in group therapy and one-to-one sessions. Like Tony Soprano, whose sessions with Dr Jennifer Melfi are a vital part of the TV drama, Stevenson’s therapist was a woman.

  Renowned psychiatrist Glen Gabbard wrote a book, The Psychology of the Sopranos, after becoming a fan of the Mafia drama and, in it, he discusses the criminal’s psychological symptoms. He concludes that ‘Tony Soprano is split down the middle’ – vertically split, according to the textbooks. The division allows the two parts of his character – the doting dad and family man and the lying, violent criminal – to remain in separate mental compartments. Dr Gabbard writes:

  Keeping the impulsive or violent behaviour disconnected is an automatic response that helps preserve a stable sense of integrity. Splitting is a method of avoiding internal conflict, especially moral conflict about the consequences of our behaviour.

  The wall between Tony’s two lives has begun to crumble when he first seeks out psychiatric treatment.

  However, in his 2002 book, Houston-based Gabbard decides Tony Soprano is not a psychopath despite his capacity for lying and violence.

  In the latter half of the twentieth century, the term ‘psychopath’ fell out of favour. ‘Antisocial personality disorder’ became the preferred diagnostic label for corrupt people who had no regard for the laws of civilisation. This terminology has been widely criticised, however, because it casts too broad a net. Because of these criticisms, the term ‘psychopath’ is currently making a comeback. It now refers to a person prone to criminal behaviour who has a sadomasochistic style of interacting with others based on power and a total absence of remorse for any harm he does. In fact, a psychopath enjoys the suffering. He is not capable of loyalty and loving emotional attachments.

  Only their own needs matter to them. They are profoundly detached from all human relationships and from emotional experience in general. A psychopath would not do well in Tony Soprano’s Mob family. Loyalty to others and a deep bond of attachment are absolutely necessary to survive in that family.

  46

  In the Dock

  The day after the Folklore raids, on 21 September 2006, Stevenson and Carbin joined six others in the dock of Glasgow Sheriff Court to face charges including accusations of heroin trafficking and money laundering. They included Stevenson’s wife Caroline, forty-eight, Carbin’s partner Karen Maxwell, thirty, William Cross, forty-five, and three others. All would eventually be granted bail apart from Stevenson, who was held on remand at Edinburgh’s Saughton Prison.

  By the time the indictment was formally heard at a preliminary hearing in January 2007, now at the High Court in Glasgow, the eight accused had been joined by two others and they faced a total of twenty-two charges. The most serious alleged they plotted to import heroin and cocaine and tried to launder the proceeds of crime. Additional charges alleged that Stevenson had a forged passport and that Carbin had had small amounts of cocaine and cannabis in his home when it was raided a year earlier.

  Stevenson and his nine alleged accomplices arrived for the next hearing in February knowing that his legal team had all but secured a deal. Both sides, for different but equally compelling reasons, wanted to avoid what was certain to become one of the longest and most expensive trials ever staged in a Scottish court.

  The Crown, faced with a trial lasting months, a large number of accused, a complex mass of evidence and an unpredictable jury, were keen to settle – provided a deal could be forged that would seem like a fitting end to a flagship police operation. In addition, the public airing of the covert techniques used to amass the piles of secretly recorded transcripts was to be avoided if possible.

  Meanwhile, Stevenson’s legal team were privately acknowledging the welter of evidence that their client was a major drugs trafficker and so were equally keen to prevent a jury hearing the damning, secretly taped conversations. Stevenson and Carbin were insistent that any deal would rest on the dropping of all charges against their partners, Caroline and Karen. Putting the women in the dock had been a priority for the Folklore team. The police knew that, according to the rules of underworld chivalry, the men would never allow their partners to be convicted. It was a powerful bargaining chip for the prosecutors.

  Just before Christmas, Derek Ogg QC for Stevenson and Carbin’s counsel Paul McBride had opened talks with experienced Crown prosecutor Sean Murphy to propose a package deal for both men. They suggested that, in return for dropping all the drugs charges and the allegations against their partners, the pair would admit the money-laundering charges. To their surprise, the leading lawyers were told within days that the offer, their first, was broadly acceptable.

  One senior source at the High Court said:

  There seems to have been no fight, no bluffing and very little negotiation. The offer was made and it was more or less accepted straight off the bat. Given what the Crown had in terms of evidence, that was surprising. If you were representing those two you would not be looking forward to taking them in front of a jury.

  Exactly where do you start trying to explain where they got these huge sums of money from? Where they got £400,000 of luxury watches? Why they were all over the world meeting criminals? And, most of all, why they were on tape, in their own homes, talking about importing tonnes and tonnes of class A drugs? Good luck.

  At more meetings through January the detailed wording of the charges to be admitted was ground out and, b
y the end of the month, Murphy, an experienced advocate depute, was confident of striking a settlement capable of being justified to his bosses and the public. Convincing the detectives, who had spent four years building a case against Scotland’s biggest-ever drugs cartel, would prove more difficult.

  Another lawyer with knowledge of the case said Murphy made the right decision to drop the drugs in return for making the jailing of Stevenson and Carbin a certainty. He said:

  There was definitely evidence the defence teams would have struggled to explain. The case that these guys were major drugs traffickers was there but it was a way off being bombproof. They weren’t caught next to drugs. And nobody could place them next to drugs. That’s a problem.

  The lorry driver Robert McDowall was a big part of it and, even if he hadn’t had his memory problem at the line-up, he would have been a gamble for the Crown. You’ve got problems when your star witness is a drugs smuggler, a gunrunner and whatever else.

  There would have been a lot of questions about who was pulling his strings, about when and how the police got involved with him, about whether he was an agent provocateur. It would have been a long, complicated trial and juries get tired. Good defence lawyers – and these guys had very good defence lawyers – would undoubtedly have done some serious damage but whether they would manage to get them off . . . Who knows?