by Mark Ward
In a split-second, I decided to drive off as discreetly as possible without attracting attention, hoping that none of the police had recognised me at the wheel of the silver-grey Rover. I turned left onto McVinnie Road – in the opposite direction to the house that was swarming with coppers – and drove away from the scene.
Brother Billy owned The Eagle and Child pub close by, so I headed for there. I desperately needed to talk to someone I trusted who could give me honest advice.
As I turned right into the next road, I was horrified to see two police cars with their blue lights flashing coming towards me at high speed. It seemed that half of Merseyside police were chasing me.
I accelerated, overtook a van and took a sharp left into a quiet cul-de-sac. I thought that if I could dump the car there, I’d get to the pub on foot. I walked towards The Eagle, which was only about 300 metres away. I was frantically ringing the pub doorbell just as two police cars whizzed past but it was still only mid-morning on Merseyside and before opening time. I got no answer. I also tried to contact Billy by phone but there was no answer there either.
Alongside the entrance to The Eagle was a builders yard, where I took refuge as the wail of sirens continued to fill the sunlit noon air all around me. There was a massive pile of sand in the corner of the yard and the thought flashed through my mind: ‘I wish I could bury myself in there and hide for a few hours.’
Unable to make contact with my brother, I had to accept that the chase was over. As I walked round to the other side of the pub, there were four coppers waiting for me. I found myself surrounded by plain-clothed and uniformed officers and I knew the game was up. There was no struggle.
I’ll never forget the look on the face of the policeman who had the duty of handcuffing me. He was breathing heavily and bore the look of someone completely and utterly stunned. As he fastened the cuffs behind my back, he said: ‘What have you got yourself involved with here, Mark? You’re in big trouble.’
He cautioned me and said I was being arrested on suspicion of possession of a controlled drug with intent to supply. At least one media report subsequently claimed that police had found a quantity of drugs on me, but that wasn’t the case. The ‘possession’ on my charge sheet was in reference to the property registered in my name.
I was led away in the direction of where I’d left my car. As we walked, the copper told me he used to be a season ticket holder at Everton and had watched me play. It’s amazing the silly things that go through the mind in moments of crisis. I had a flashback and wondered if he’d been at Goodison and cheering for me on that day, in September 1993, when I scored against Liverpool in the Merseyside derby. No wonder he looked shell-shocked.
My head was spinning but I tried to remain as calm as possible. Back at my car, police were already conducting a search of the vehicle and found two additional mobile phones inside the glove compartment.
The Evertonian copper began to search me and took cash out of my rear trouser pocket. He counted the money in front of me and it added up to £750. He also retrieved my phone from my trouser pocket.
With three mobile phones and such a large amount of cash in my possession, it didn’t look good for me. A quip of ‘Footballer to Drug Dealer’ from one smarmy officer immediately hit home.
A crowd started to gather as I was put into the back of the police van. The journey to St Helens nick was one of complete calmness and no words were spoken. Although I knew I was in trouble, I kept telling myself: ‘Just tell the truth and it will be okay … stay calm, you haven’t done anything bad … you haven’t killed or physically harmed anyone.’
If I’d committed any crime at all, it was the fact that I’d rented a property and given access to others to use it in my absence. I was confident of satisfactorily explaining my minimal part in the whole episode. If the police had found drugs on the premises, they were most certainly not mine. And I had no part in putting them there.
At the same time, I also knew I couldn’t reveal the identity of the person I’d rented the property for. No way would I ever grass on him or his associates.
There was a welcome party awaiting me at the police station. The phones and money were produced on the desk in front of the sergeant. ‘That’s a lot of money to carry around,’ he said. I replied by saying that I was going to buy everyone a drink after the funeral.
The fact is, only one of the phones belonged to me. The other two had been left in the glove compartment of my car by the mourners I’d given a lift to church. I explained that I was carrying such a large amount of cash on me because I knew I’d be out and about for the whole day and, besides, I’d won the money legitimately on a Lucky 15 accumulator bet I’d placed on the horses the previous day.
I may have got lucky to have backed four winners and gained such a good return on my £30 stake, but my luck had now well and truly run out.
I didn’t know at that stage what police had found at the house, although I remember one of the officers sarcastically remarking: ‘What’s he been trying to do, raise money for Everton’s Champions League campaign!’
I was taken to a cell, told to strip off and put on a white paper suit. There was a box in front of me where I was instructed to place my funeral clothes, including the new black cotton Armani T-shirt I’d bought the previous day especially to wear for the funeral. As I undressed, I heard a copper say: ‘Fucking hell, with the time he’s going to be looking at, he may as well keep that stuff for his own funeral.’
The cell door was slammed shut behind me and I lay down trying to come to terms with my nightmare ordeal. The awful, long wait to find out what exactly had been found at the house was frustrating and I feared that I could be in serious trouble.
I found it impossible to sleep on what seemed like the longest night of my life. Knowing it was Dad’s birthday, I wondered how he’d have reacted to my arrest had he still been alive. He would have been furious with me, to say the least.
I had to be strong for my 22-year-old daughter Melissa and the rest of our family. Even then, I felt ashamed that I’d not only let myself down but being arrested was going to alter my whole life – whatever the outcome.
Friday the 13th is considered by some to be unlucky – and that morning in May 2005 certainly proved that way for me. Without managing any sleep the previous night, I felt dirty and tired. A duty solicitor called Paul Durkin came to see me. He knew I’d been a professional footballer and he was friendly enough, but his words were straight to the point and chilling: ‘Well, Mark, they have found four block kilos of cocaine and adulterants for the cutting and repacking of cocaine and other paraphernalia.’
Mr Durkin’s direct manner and revelations hit me hard. ‘You’re in shit street, mate,’ he continued. ‘They’ve analysed the blocks of cocaine and have taken 60 items from the address.’
He told me the three options I’d face in the police interview to follow:
‘Say nothing at all.
‘Answer some of the questions but refuse to answer others.
‘Or make a written statement and answer ‘no comment’ to the questions.’
Looking back, I would prefer to have said nothing at all but when you’re in a desperate, highly pressurised situation like the one I suddenly found myself in that day, you don’t always do the sensible thing. Foolishly, I chose to make a written statement.
I was brutally honest – far too honest for my own good, as it turned out – and wrote: ‘I had rented a property for a third party – for a stash.’
Mr Durkin was simply a duty solicitor and, in hindsight, I wish Lenny Font, the solicitor who later represented me, had been present from the beginning. When Lenny read my statement, he came straight to the point. He said that what I’d written for the police had given my defence team nothing to work on.
The statement I wrote at St Helens police station ultimately condemned me to prison for the next four years – even though I had nothing at all to do with what was found in the property and stated that I deeply reg
retted my very limited involvement in what was clearly a much bigger crime.
My police interview lasted about four hours, with breaks at half-hourly intervals. Most of the questions the detective sergeant put to me were pathetic and pointless.
‘Are you Mark Ward who played for Everton Football Club?’
‘No comment,’ I said.
‘How old are you?’
‘No comment.’
‘Do you have any brothers or sisters?’
‘No comment.’
He also asked me if I’d been forced to take any action against my will, or if I’d been the victim of extortion, kidnap, blackmail, assault … anything like that, to which I also replied ‘no comment.’
The ‘no comment’ response to every question put to me over the course of four hours became very boring, although I tried to inject a little humour into proceedings in between one of the breaks. I turned to DS Green, who was asking the questions, and remarked that he looked like Teddy Sheringham. ‘I never thought I’d find myself being questioned by another footballer in a police station,’ I said.
He wasn’t amused, though, and countered with the comment: ‘I never thought I’d be questioning Mark Ward about being a drug dealer.’
His comment was cutting and, as it was off the record, in between a coffee I pointed out to him that I was not a drug dealer. He was clearly annoyed that I’d chosen to answer ‘no comment’ to every question but I’d made my written statement and was entitled to keep my silence.
Not that my stonewalling tactics did me any favours. I had already given them all the ammunition they needed to charge and eventually convict me with my ill conceived written statement.
Honesty has often got me into trouble in the past. Our Billy and other members of my family used to say that if I was thinking something, I couldn’t help but say it out loud. I suppose I inherited this trait from Dad, who always called a spade a spade and suffered the consequences later. Mum once told me that in one of my school reports, the headmaster said I was ‘very impetuous’, and I have to agree that he was right there.
When the interview finished I shook hands with Paul Durkin who had organised Huyton-based solicitor Pat McLoughlin to represent me in the magistrate’s court the next day. He was very positive and confident that I would be granted bail, as I’d never been in trouble with the law before. I was banged up again but not for long. My cell door reopened about an hour later when I was formally charged with three offences:
Charge 1: Possessing a controlled drug of class A with intent.
Charge 2: Possessing a controlled drug of class A with intent.
Charge 3: Being concerned in the production of a controlled drug of class A.
Charge 1 was for the possession of cocaine; Charge 2 related to crack cocaine; and Charge 3 was for allegedly being concerned in the production of crack cocaine.
I was shattered by the charges. If there was crack cocaine present at 11 McVinnie Road, and the stuff was being manufactured there, I knew I was fucked – big-time. I felt totally defeated and was left reeling after the hours of interrogation. Nothing I had experienced in the past had prepared me for the turmoil that engulfed me in the custody suite at St Helens police station.
Yes, of course my problems were all self-inflicted and I had made an appalling mistake by getting involved and effectively sub-letting the property out to criminals for ill-gotten gain.
But I was not a drug dealer. The drugs were not mine and I was determined to fight my corner. While I knew I was looking at time in prison, I hoped my sentence wouldn’t out-weigh my crime. I have always been realistic when faced with bad situations and although I knew it looked dire for me, I just kept hoping that I would get bail and be able to extricate myself from this nightmare, once I was on the outside again.
I was put back in my cell but that night of Friday, May 13 seemed longer than the previous one. The trauma surrounding my arrest prevented me from getting any sleep, a factor not helped by the noise from the other arrests as the night progressed. The drunks babbling on and protesting their innocence – even arguing with themselves! – remained constant throughout the night.
My thoughts were for my family and friends, especially my daughter Melissa, who I knew would be distraught. I’d only been able to make one call from the police station and that was to Billy. My brother was great, just like always. Although gutted, he reassured me that he and the family were trying to get me the best possible legal representation. Billy assured me that he was going to put up his pub as surety for my bail the next day. He didn’t question what I’d got involved in. He just said that he and all the family were right behind me and that they would be in court to see me the next day.
When Saturday eventually arrived, I felt even more dirty and unkempt – those two days in a police cell were a horrible life-changing experience. I was put in a prison van to go less than 100 yards across the road to the magistrate’s court. I could hear the other arrested lads in the van talking to each other about whether they would be granted bail. The consensus was that the magistrates don’t give bail out ‘because they’re all knob heads.’
My solicitor came to my cell below the courts and told me he was putting in an application for bail. He was hopeful based on my clean background and believed that this should be regarded as a positive in my favour.
However, he also pointed out that the charges against me were very serious and I may have to make a bail application at the Crown Court, because – as the lads in the prison van were saying – the magistrates hardly ever grant bail.
I felt very nervous as I was led into the court. As I climbed into the box I was asked to state my name and address. I scanned the courtroom and to my left I saw Melissa, her partner Kevin, Billy with his wife Julie, Uncle Tommy and Auntie Helen. I remember the haunted look on their faces, especially Melissa’s. I knew she was hurting very badly just seeing me in the dock and knowing I was at the mercy of the magistrates.
I sat down to be amazed by what I heard. The prosecution explained what, at that time, they believed to have been found at the property – including four kilograms of cocaine plus half a kilo of ‘crack’ that was being prepared and found in the freezer. The prosecution originally claimed that the estimated street value of the drugs found at 11 McVinnie Road was somewhere between £1.5 million and £2.5 million. It was only later that the true extent of their find was revealed.
Police also discovered a vacuum press, a cutting agent and drug paraphernalia when they entered the premises.
The female prosecutor went on to describe the house as a ‘drugs factory.’
I just wanted to stand up and yell out ‘that’s a load of bollocks’ when the woman then said that the prosecution was opposing bail on the grounds that I may interfere with witnesses and abscond.
My solicitor told the court of my unblemished background and made the point that, as an ex-professional footballer who had played in the four major cities of London, Liverpool, Birmingham and Manchester, it would be very difficult, if not impossible, for me to abscond anywhere.
When he’d finished defending me, I started to feel more confident that it would all blow over and I’d be free to leave the court and fight my case from the outside.
I was led away to the cell for 10 minutes but then brought back to hear more bad news. The magistrates were refusing bail and remanding me in custody until May 19. I looked across at my daughter and the rest of the family and the sight of Melissa’s tears rolling down her face will haunt me forever.
I had handled pressure, on and off the field, all my adult life as a fairly high profile professional footballer for Oldham Athletic, West Ham United, Manchester City, Everton and Birmingham City. I’d played in more than 400 league games at the biggest and best grounds in England over a league career spanning some 13 years. Now, more than ever, I needed to show the same strength that had characterised my playing days to get me through whatever was to follow.
Before I knew it, I was being loade
d onto the meat wagon, along with other criminals, for the journey to the notorious Walton jail.
As the van turned into the prison entrance, I wondered what kind of reception awaited me – not only from the inmates but also the screws. I knew the shock news about the ex-Premier League footballer nicked on a serious drugs charge would lead to big headlines. The press had been present in court that morning to report on my shameful appearance, so news of my imprisonment was bound to spread rapidly.
I kept telling myself to remain focused, be strong and not show any weakness – just as I did throughout my playing career. I knew lots of lads who had been sent to Walton, so I was aware that I had to keep my wits about me. I thought I might become an easy target. But I’d never let anybody bully me on or off the field and it wasn’t going to happen now.
Walton is one of the largest prisons in Europe with a capacity of 1,600 prisoners. It is over-populated and, consequently, has a strict regime.
As the gates closed behind the prison van to accept its latest guests of Her Majesty, I was moments away from being known as Prisoner WARD NM6982.
31. PRISONER NM6982
I COULDN’T believe it when they told me on arrival at HMP Liverpool – or Walton Prison, as everyone calls it – that I’d be put on A-wing, where the most dangerous prisoners serving life sentences were all kept.
Why lifers’ wing? Surely that’s for the evil bastards – the murderers and rapists – not me? I wondered if being sent there meant I really was looking at a long-term sentence.
A surge of anger came over me – and, yes, there were feelings of grave injustice too. Sure, I’d been a fucking idiot in agreeing to rent a house for criminals who, as it turned out, were using the place to manufacture hard drugs.
But I wasn’t a druggie. And I didn’t sell drugs to anybody either. I was no more than an accomplice but it still felt as if the whole world had turned against me.
It’s amazing the things that go through your mind in times of emotional crisis. I even started to question whether they had put me in with the lifers because the prison screws were all Liverpool football fans out to punish me in the worst way possible!
