by Neil Woods
As we left the hospital Jackie mentioned she needed to leave early. I told her not to worry, she could head off and I’d organise the evidence drop. To be honest, I needed the time alone. Something about what we had just done felt dirty. I needed a solitary walk to process all this, and began trudging back through town to our drop-off point.
I wandered past the council estates and boarded-up shops, weaving my way through the shambling smackheads, broken-down drunks and packs of predatory kids in hoodies. Then I caught a glimpse of my own reflection in a betting shop window. My breath caught in my throat. That wasn’t me. That wasn’t Neil. That was a fucked-up, overly skinny, sallow-cheeked skag addict. I hadn’t realised how deep I had gone.
That’s when I heard her.
‘Sex for sale… Sex for sale… ’
She was threading an unsteady path down the high street, clutching a can of K Cider, nothing but tracksuit bottoms and crop top against the evening chill, her straggly blonde hair pulled back in a tight bun. She couldn’t have been older than twenty-one. Once upon a time she must have been a very pretty girl. I had rarely seen a junkie so desperately rattling for a fix. Sweat was pouring off her as the can of cider shook in her hand.
‘Sex for sale… Sex for sale… ’
She was shouting like a market trader flogging baskets of fruit. I watched as she staggered down the street, and other people walked straight past her – as if they could pretend there wasn’t a young woman trying to sell her body for a £10 wrap of skag shouting in their faces.
I was overcome by a wave of pity and rage. My entire being screamed to just take that girl by the hand and drive her to a hospital, a rehab centre, anywhere she might get some help. Had I not joined the police to help the vulnerable? Was she not exactly the kind of person I should be reaching out to? Why were we throwing thousands of man-hours and millions of pounds at catching dealers, while leaving this poor girl walking the streets?
But of course I couldn’t do it. I had to protect my cover. In fact, it was worse than that – in the eyes of the law she was a criminal, a drug addict. The only contact I could ever have with her would be if I arrested her and slung her into a concrete cell to sweat out her rattle, surrounded by other people whose disease had turned them into outlaws. All I could do was watch as she swerved erratically along the road, shouting her grotesque bill of fare.
‘Sex for sale… Sex for sale… ’
Then, just as she was passing me, she paused, and for a split-second our eyes met. She looked me up and down, then almost questioningly cried, ‘… cheap sex for sale?’
I almost burst into laughter right there on the street. For all my patronising flights of fancy about wanting to help her, all she saw in me was a street junkie so ragged and destitute that he wouldn’t even be able to afford the prices she was selling at. I smirked with quiet gallows humour, and moved off down the road. But that image of desperation, pain and squalor stuck with me. I found that woman flashing into my mind again and again for years after.
Cammy got busted. He wasn’t shoplifting or dealing; it was just a couple of cops who thought he looked sketchy, searched him and found a tiny wrap of heroin in his shoe. It was leftovers, barely enough for a shot, but on top of him already being on bail, the whole gang were sure he’d go down for a couple of years.
But then, only the next day, who should rock up to the benches but Cammy himself? We all leapt up to congratulate him on getting out, but he was ashen-faced.
‘It’s all fucked man. I’m totally fucked.’
‘What are you on about, mate, you got off,’ scoffed Davo.
‘No man, you don’t understand, it’s the cops, it’s the fucking cops.’ Cammy slumped onto the bench with an expression of utter despair.
‘What happened, mate?’ I asked, in horror that one of my colleagues might have given Cammy a kicking at the station. It turned out to be so much worse.
‘They took me in this room, and said I had to tell them where I get my gear. Of course I’m not gonna fuckin’ tell them. I’m no rat, and it’s not worth my life if any of the cunts I buy from finds out – I’d rather do the time inside… But then they say, well if you don’t tell us, we’re going to spread the word around the streets that you did anyway.’
He looked up in terror. ‘If they do that, I’m dead – I’m fucking dead.’
‘What the fuck?’ I gasped in outrage, ‘were they fucking Drugs Squad? What department were they?’
This was beyond the pale. That kind of blackmail was such an egregious breach of ethics that my only thought was finding out who had done this and getting them booted off the force. But Cammy had other things on his mind.
‘I don’t know – it was just a couple of cunts in suits… but I don’t know who they’re working for, do I?’
‘What d’you mean?’ I asked in incomprehension, ‘they’re cops ain’t they?’
‘Fuck off man.’ Cammy looked at me like I was an idiot child. ‘They could be working for any gang in the city – fucking Colin Gunn, anyone. For all I know they’re working for Gunn and just testing me to see if I’ll snitch.’
Now the blood drained from my own face as I realised the true horror of the situation. The idea of my fellow cops blackmailing Cammy was awful enough. But to Cammy, there was every possibility that those cops were being paid by the gangsters to do their own spying.
My mind couldn’t even process the ramifications of all this. What the fuck was happening? Had the arms race of the drugs war spiralled so far that cops would spread the word that someone was a snitch, knowing it could get them killed? Had the gangsters got so paranoid about police tactics that they’d just started hiring the cops as employees instead?
I didn’t know which option depressed me more. Both represented a profound moral corruption of what our mission as police was meant to be. And both made me ask questions about my own role in this battle – and I didn’t think I had the courage to face the answers those questions demanded.
It felt like there was no solace whichever way I turned. Each night that I returned home from my life on the streets I would stand with my key in the door, frozen on the spot, terrified of what might be waiting for me inside. It became a traumatic evening ritual.
Between the situation with Sam and the pressure of the job, things were becoming impossible. So, with nowhere else to turn, and not feeling any support or comfort at home – I searched for it elsewhere.
Meghan was a kind, beautiful and intelligent woman. She was a uniformed police officer, but before joining the force she had worked as a teacher. As things spiralled from bad to awful at home, Meghan offered me not just sympathy, but practical advice and strategies on how to cope with my situation.
But, for all her kindness, the combined pressure of work and marriage kept building. Cracks and sores started appearing on my face and lips. Bouts of severe abdominal pain started to come and go with no rhyme or reason. I began suffering from severe sleep insomnia, just lying there night after night, my heart nervously racing.
I suppose the sores and fissures must have been quite good for my role as a street-level drug addict. But I was in a bad way. I booked a doctor’s appointment to see if there was anything to do about the stomach pain. She examined me, listened to my symptoms and declared very matter-of-factly that I was suffering from severe stress-related disorders. She advised me to take Milk of Magnesia and avoid stressful situations. She didn’t know the work I did.
Three days later I was sitting in the car with Simon, my Cover Officer, driving back to HQ after another day out on the street. I felt that familiar white-hot spasm of pain twist through my stomach, and doubled over, grimacing in agony, until the moment had passed.
‘What the fuck was that?’ demanded Simon.
‘Ah nothing mate, I’m just getting these weird pains in my belly. The doctor says it’s just stress though.’
The car jolted as Simon swerved and pulled to a stop. ‘Right,’ he said decisively, ‘the job ends now. We’re
pulling you out.’
‘No mate, you can’t do that,’ I pleaded. ‘We’re close. I only need a few more scores to put these fuckers away. Seriously, I’m fine.’
‘Neil, look at yourself. Your face is all fucked up – you’re covered in sores. It’s not right.’
Simon was doing exactly what he was meant to. His job was to look out for my welfare, even when I wouldn’t. But I didn’t want this investigation to end. I was too close and had worked too hard. I couldn’t let the gangsters win.
Eventually I argued Simon down. We sat down with Jim Horner and the EMSOU brass, and agreed to continue the case, as long as I was signed off by an Occupational Health Officer.
It took about thirty minutes.
She opened her clipboard and read out a series of yes or no questions. Do you have thoughts of suicide? No. Do you self-harm, or think about self-harming? No. Do you use illegal drugs? No. At the end of the list she simply said, ‘I think you’re all right to continue working, just try and watch the hours.’ The boxes were ticked, and I went back to work.
As it happened, we only needed a few more buys off Stitz anyway. Each encounter was uniquely unpleasant in its own way. Stitz was a paranoid, hyper-aggressive bully, who maintained control by constantly acting as intimidating and violent as possible. I gritted my teeth, logging every detail as evidence. This case had become personal. I was going to make sure this guy was taken off the streets.
But as we moved into the arrest phase of the operation, I was to once again have my faith in the entire project shaken to the core.
The investigation had gone on for so long that our support team had to be rotated to take time off. Simon, my Cover Officer who had been so consistently dedicated and professional, was moved on, and command sent us a new guy.
I walked into the briefing room and shook hands with the newbie, who introduced himself as Charlie Fletcher.
Something immediately wasn’t right.
To this day I have no idea what gave it away. The way his eyes darted to the right? The way he ran his tongue over his teeth as I held out my hand? There was just something off. After years of undercover work you learn to trust your instinct.
Without saying a word I walked straight through into Jim Horner’s office.
‘I want him out.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ Jim replied in surprise.
‘This new guy. Something’s not right. I don’t want him in our briefings. I don’t want him knowing my identity. Tell him to wait at the station, and we’ll call if we need to – tell him anything you bloody want, but get him out of here.’
Jim started to respond. Then he looked at the expression on my face and trailed off.
‘All right Neil, if that’s your judgement. Wait here.’ He went through into the briefing room. When I came back out, the guy was gone.
Two years later Charlie Fletcher was arrested for being a spy for the Gunn crime family. He had been personally recruited by Colin Gunn to join the force, and paid £2,000 a month on top of his salary to pass on information regarding any relevant investigations. And he’d earned it. He’d smuggled out reams of intelligence that allowed Gunn to stay ahead of the law for years.
Had I not gone with my gut instinct in that briefing room, or had Jim Horner not taken me seriously, there is no telling what Gunn might have found out about this operation, or what might have happened to me or my family.
But when I talked to my superiors, they just shrugged. ‘Of course it happens, Neil. With so much money in the drugs business how can it not happen?’ This casual acceptance that the War on Drugs made corruption not only likely, but inevitable, was perhaps the final nail in the coffin of whatever naïve belief I had once held in the value of the campaign we were waging.
It was one thing for the police to be locked in a fruitless, destructive arms race with the gangsters, but at least we knew we were the police. I was a cop – that was the one thought that had seen me through. If the drugs war meant that even the idea of being a cop was under threat, then what was the fucking point of any of this?
We came down hard in a broad sweep of the city. Everyone got picked up: from Stitz to Chris from Pleasley and every other chancer I had met along the way. From the intelligence we generated, over sixty arrests were made.
Stitz got five years, Jason got four, and Emma three and a half. But crucially, through tracing Stitz’s phone records, the intelligence crew were able to begin serious investigations into the Colin Gunn empire. Gunn was eventually sentenced to thirty-five years for multiple murders, then had seven years added to his sentence for police corruption in the Charlie Fletcher case.
But despite these successes, for me there was no happy ending to this operation. Every single member of my little gang from the park benches was arrested and charged as well.
Cammy and Gary both got two years. Davo got five.
The idea that Davo, who was an addict but meant no harm to anyone, could end up with the same sentence as the knife-wielding career criminal Stitz, was sickening. But, in the eyes of the law, that little gang were criminals the same as any other. They were just more statistics for police department reports, EMSOU budget allocations and politicians’ soundbites.
Something felt so profoundly wrong in all this. We were fighting a War on Drugs – but against whom? Gangsters like Stitz and Colin Gunn were obviously the enemy, and we needed to take them down. But was the law so blunt a tool, and were the police so blind, that they couldn’t distinguish between violent murderous criminals and guys like Cammy?
It made no sense. I’d joined the police to protect the weak and vulnerable – and to fight against those who victimised them. Yet the most vulnerable people I had ever met were now being turned into criminals and sent to prison. If we were fighting a war, then these were the exact people we should be fighting to protect. And if we weren’t, then what were we fighting for at all?
But I couldn’t just blame the system. I had to take some personal responsibility. These people had trusted me; I had used and manipulated them – and I had put their lives at risk. When they wound up in prison, it would be common knowledge that they were the ones who had led an undercover cop to the gangsters. I made sure that Jim Horner wrote an official letter requesting that they be sent to minimum security prisons on the other side of the country, where they would be unknown.
I had devoted my professional life to fighting the War on Drugs. I was now discovering that, like every war, the people who suffered most weren’t the combatants, but the civilians caught in the crossfire.
Once again though, I wasn’t quite ready to follow these thoughts to their conclusion. I was still a cop. I was a soldier in this war, and I wouldn’t let my comrades down. I would march and keep order, and do what I could to keep fighting.
But nothing I had seen so far could prepare me for what was to come next. I was about to discover the grotesque, terrifying reality of what the arms race of the War on Drugs truly meant.
CHAPTER 13
NORTHAMPTON
THEY WERE USING gang rape as a method of control and intimidation.
For years this gang had kept entire districts of the city terrorised with beatings, stabbings and shootings. Now they were intensifying the violence. The threat to women was made grotesquely clear through a series of savage, brazen public attacks. Any man who spoke to the police, or stepped out of line, would know they were putting their wives, girlfriends or sisters at risk.
Police forces and hospitals began receiving appalling cases of these ‘punishment-rapes’. Knowing that most sexual assault cases don’t even get reported, we could only assume the situation on the street was exponentially worse. Reviewing the evidence of these investigations gave one a sickening sensation akin to vertigo.
I had never seen Jim Horner like this. There was none of his usual roguish humour or clownish schtick. Even the most hardened officers had been shocked by these developments. Jim sat with an expression of hard-lipped severity and introduced me to our n
ew targets.
This was a gang I had heard of. Anyone working in UK law enforcement would know their reputation as one of the most infamous mobs in the country.
The Burger Bar Boys took their ridiculous name from the fast food joint on Soho Road, Birmingham that served as their unofficial headquarters. Their decades-long turf war with rival gangsters the Johnson Crew had left a string of bodies in its wake. But they had exploded into the national consciousness with the murders of Letisha Shakespeare and Charlene Ellis, two innocent teenage girls gunned down in a gangland drive-by shooting gone horrifically wrong.
The Letisha Shakespeare case, as it was known by the press and public, ended with four gang members being sent down for between twenty-seven and thirty-five years each. But even that high-profile investigation had almost collapsed due to witness intimidation. Out of the 355 statements the police had originally taken, only ten people had agreed to testify. Such was the terror the Burgers exerted over the population of Birmingham that an unprecedented level of anonymity was granted to witnesses who testified.
Now the Burgers were expanding into Northampton. After a brief but brutal war with the local gangs, they had taken over the city’s drugs trade. Northampton had already been in the grip of a crack and heroin epidemic, but within a year crime rates had shot up and overdose deaths were through the roof. The city was slipping into the same state of terror as those parts of Birmingham the Burgers controlled. My mission was to drive them back.
Once again, I was being asked to take over an ongoing investigation that had ground to a halt. Pat Shaw, my former partner from Derby, had been leading an undercover team in Northampton for a couple of months. But the unit couldn’t seem to penetrate anywhere above street level, and certainly nowhere near the Burger Bar Boys.
After my experience in Leicester, I didn’t like the idea of taking over another investigation not knowing what mistakes had already been made. Before I agreed, I laid down a condition: I wasn’t going in blind. EMSOU would have to set aside their methods and let me see every piece of intelligence they had.
