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In November 1969 I was a highly rated officer in
the Metropolitan Police and I was going places. I had spent ten years in the
force and risen to the rank of detective sergeant. I wasn’t a meteor but I
was on the way up at a time of slow promotion. I had made hundreds of
arrests. My evidence had helped convict many career criminals. I had won
commendations. I had developed several first-class informants, including
trusted members of south London’s most powerful underworld clan, the
Richardsons. I was respected by my colleagues as a significant thief-taker
and was tipped by my superiors to reach very high rank.
But on the evening of 28 November 1969 my world
fell apart.
I had advance warning of what was about to hit me
when I took a call from a journalist on the Daily Express. He told me
that on the front page of the overnight edition of The Times there
were banner headlines alleging that I was corrupt. He said the Express
was running a ‘spoiler’, to steal the thunder of the Thunderer, and would I
comment. I calmly said ‘no’ but inside I was shocked. Even so, I managed to
ask the Express man to read out what The Times was saying. It was
devastating stuff but I could not take it all in. There was no alternative
but to drive to one of the all-night newspaper stalls that used to exist on
Fleet Street and get a copy. I bought one and I went back to my car and read
the entire story. I was relieved to see that only part of it was about me,
but that part alone was more than enough to bring my career to a screeching
halt. The headline made my heart race: ‘London policemen in bribe
allegations. Tapes reveal planted evidence’.
I skimmed through several paragraphs about Robson
and Harris, both of whom I knew but did not work with, until I reached a
section containing what were claimed to be extracts from conversations
between me and a small-time professional criminal, to whom The Times
had given the pseudonym Michael Smith. It seems that two of its journalists,
Garry Lloyd and Julian Mounter, had been working with this villain for a
month, in order to test his claims that he was being leeched off by even
more policemen than the three named in this article. The reporters had been
watching ‘Smith’ as he met his alleged extortioners in pub car parks and
other south London locales. They had photographed these meetings and also
tape-recorded these encounters. One of these supposedly wicked men was
myself although, even this article acknowledged that I appeared to be less
malign than my two colleagues from Scotland Yard. It said that I had met
Smith by myself and that I told him, in the manner of a friendly uncle, how
to deal with the other two detectives who had allegedly fitted him up with a
stick of gelignite and were demanding information from him in exchange for
lifting the threat.
I could scarcely believe this. Yes, I believed
that I might have said all these things - or something like them - to the
man they called Smith but whom I knew to be Michael Perry. But I was furious
to see myself accused of accepting money from him, which I never had. I was
also appalled at the fact that I had been tape-recorded. It wasn’t so much
what I had said, but the way I had said it.
On the full tapes I could be heard repeatedly
saying 'f' and 'c' words. Nowadays - thirty years later - you hear these
words all the time, even in mixed company. They are used every night on
television and radio, in plays and documentaries, even in regular print.
Everywhere’s full of it. But in those days, using such words wasn’t really
acceptable, so what worried me most of all at this point was that, if ever
my mother and my children listened to the tapes, they would hear me
swearing. I always tried to avoid using bad language but, after ten years of
incessant dealing with crooks and villains like Perry, I was used to talking
down to them. ‘Effing and blinding’ was one way to do it.
So I was only swearing to put this dirty little
ratbag of an eighteen times convicted thief at his ease, and to make him
feel there was common ground between us, so he would feel relaxed, maybe let
drop information about his current crimes and future schemes, and
incidentally, betray his confederates, or - far better - criminals much
bigger than he was. Of course, what I would say to him as we sat in a
private car beside a south London pub would not read so well in a
middle-class drawing rooms or a gentlemen’s club or in the office of (my
ultimate boss) the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, or, heaven
forbid, before a jury at the Old Bailey.
****
But concerns about the indelicacy of my language
were only a fleeting luxury for me at 11 o’clock that Friday night, with the
nation’s most influential newspaper baying for my blood, and all hell sure
to break out in a few hours when The Times landed on the doormats of the
great and good. I had urgent work to do.
Chucking my copy on the passenger seat, I drove
straight down to Camberwell Police Station. There was no-one else around
except for a couple of night-duty uniformed officers, who had no idea what
was in tomorrow’s papers. I went straight to my office, cleared my desk and
emptied my locker. Then I went round all the other CID rooms, digging out
any documentation that might help me disprove the Times allegations
or that might just land me or my partners in more trouble, if it fell into
the hands of any adversaries bent on sending us to jail. Then I packed
everything up into bags and holdalls, put them in the car and drove home, to
snatch what sleep I could, before facing a stormy Saturday and the hurricane
of the week to come.
I woke up at YY. I was surprised at how calm I
felt. My brain was working fairly well and I knew speed was everything. I
got straight onto Victor Lissack, the best lawyer for policemen in a fix
like mine. He was an energetic solicitor who was well-connected at Scotland
Yard, something I thought might come in handy in the tense days ahead. I
also knew him personally through our shared interest in police boxing. On
that miserable rainy morning he came drove all the way to my home in
Orpington, Kent, on the outer reaches of south-east London. I told him I was
innocent and I wanted redress. Lissack then mapped out a strategy for a
robust defence. He issued a statement on my behalf repudiating all the
allegations against me. He then announced that soon we would issue a writ
for libel against The Times and its reporters. We also retained a
leading QC, Sir Edward Gardiner (who was also a Conservative MP), and, as
promised, my statement of claim was served on the newspaper that same day.
Sorting the legal side was fairly easy. Dealing
with my police bosses at Scotland Yard was far more tricky. Of course, they
were furious with The Times for springing the story on them without
warning. Obviously the Commissioner would have preferred it if the
newspaper’s editor could have had a quiet word in advance, so that an
internal investigation could have been carried out prior to publication. At
the time so would I, because the Yard would surely have found a way to
discredit the entire story before The Times could put it out on the
newstands. Instead, for reasons I now appreciate (having become as cynical
as any investigative journalist about the manoeuvres of the British
establishment), the newspaper withheld its findings from Scotland Yard until
ten o’clock on the eve of publication because it feared that ‘the whole
matter could be hushed up and might not have come to light at all’. I can’t
say I admire the Times reporters - after all, they started the domino
tumble that ended with my going to jail eleven years later - but I have to
agree with what Garry Lloyd said at the trial of Robson and Harris: ‘During
our inquiry we had knowledge that we were inquiring into a “firm within a
firm”. When you are dealing with a firm within a firm you do not know who is
the managing director’.
As merely a junior member of this ‘firm’ (the
true nature of which I shall explain later) I was grateful for any help its
senior partners might now give me. At first things looked good. When The
Times did at last tell Scotland Yard chiefs about the dreadful scandal
that would ruin their weekend, the job of preparing an interim brief for
Commissioner Sir John Waldron fell to Chief Superintendent Fred Lambert.
This was mere chance - Lambert happened to be the most senior detective on
call at the time - but it was a stroke of luck for me, for I quickly found
out that Lambert was straight. That was all I wanted: a straight man to do a
straight investigation. Better still, after delivering that first brief,
Lambert was told to carry out the full inquiry which, I was sure, would
exonerate me.
Of course, I knew that I would have to be
suspended from duty for a while, if only for political reasons, to save the
face of the Commissioner himself. This duly happened five days after the
Times exposé. Robson, Harris and I were all suspended, together with a
dozen other detectives that the Times had tape recorded, but still I
wasn’t worried. Among the detectives whom Lambert had recruited to his
special squad were people who were my friends and neighbours, so I was
getting accurate up-to-the-minute information on their progress.
Unofficially I knew exactly what was going on, and even officially at one
stage I was told that I was ‘out of it’ because there wasn't sufficient
evidence to take me to court. Yes, there were a number of tape recordings
with me chuntering on about ‘a firm in a firm’ and how I could help this
petty criminal if he could help me - the usual silly talk of coppers trying
to delude a villain into shopping his confederates - but nothing worthy of
putting me on trial. It was this conversation that had caused the Times
to include me in with Robson and Harris. Their ‘hard’ approach with threats,
together with my ‘soft’ approach with promises, made a potent mix for a huge
scandal. Which is what happened.
Indeed, it was looking far better for me than
just escaping prosecution. Doubts were emerging about the authenticity of
the tapes. Lambert had sent them to be examined by the country’s leading
tape expert: the chief engineer at the firm which had manufactured them,
EMI. If he had come back and said they were original, intact and unedited,
he would have been a leading witness for the prosecution and I would have
been hanged, drawn and quartered. But instead, he reported that, in his
considered opinion, the tapes had been interfered with. He was adamant, they
couldn’t be relied upon because of signs that they had been edited,
including crayon marks on the back where mysterious things were occurring,
such as sounds which could not have been made by the human voice box:
truncated, guttural noises which could only have been produced by slicing
through a genuine human sound with an editing razor or a pair of scissors.
This meant that, if ever I did face trial, the man from EMI would be a
witness in my defence.
So at this stage the police couldn’t find one
proper expert to say the tapes were genuine. On the contrary, all the
experts said they had been partly faked. And as there was no other evidence
against me - nothing from a credible witness to back Perry’s claims that on
the tapes I could be heard menacing him for money, or that a rustling noise
proved he had passed me crinkly pound notes - I was sure I was off the hook.
Indeed, as all my inside sources kept telling me I was in the clear, I held
a party to celebrate.
But for Robson and Harris, the case against them
was watertight, cast iron, ‘stone bonkers’, as we used to say. They had no
chance of getting off. They could have gone to court the day after The
Times had exposed them, for all the good any defence could do them.
There was no way out, they were completely trapped by what they themselves
could be heard saying: making threats, giving information to Perry and his
colleagues about some gold medallions that were available for stealing, and
threatening to turn him over. Right from day one they were absolutely done
for, and their case was bound to be wrapped up pretty quickly. Still, I am a
great believer in the old saying, ‘Either we hang together or we hang
separately’ - and certainly if the case against them could be made to fall
apart on some miraculous technicality, then I too would benefit.
And so we all kept in touch. They both came to my
home a couple of times and we also used to meet at the RAC Club in Pall
Mall, where Robson was a member. At that time it had the air of an
old-fashioned gentlemen’s club but in my experience it was an ‘Old Bill
joint’, full of senior crooked police officers, because it was so convenient
and handy for Scotland Yard. A quick walk across St James’s Park and you
were in a place where you could entertain visitors and impress them, sink
into deep leather armchairs, and have shuffling old waiters bringing you
another whisky. It was also a place where a lot of deals were done. Where
better to meet a bent MP or City gent who wanted to sort out some personal
embarrassment that had brought him to the attention of the fraud or vice
squads? A lot of these deals were done in the swimming pool or the steam
room. That steam room was perfect because, if you had to discuss something
very dodgy and corrupt, which could get you sent to prison, you could do so
without fear, as you only had a towel around you, and there was no place to
hide a tape recorder.
To paranoid guys such as we had become, ensuring
we weren’t being taped was a chronic and paramount concern, especially as
most of our discussions were about whether the Times tapes could be
successfully discredited or even deemed inadmissible. We seemed to be
‘hanging together’ pretty well until one day Robbo Robson came to see me and
said, “A terrible thing has happened. Late last night I had a visit from
‘X’, [the Scotland Yard Commander who was Lambert’s immediate boss]. He told
me that Harris had been in to see Deputy Assistant Commissioner Dick Chitty
(the operational chief of all Scotland Yard detectives), offering to shop us
both. He’s saying that he’ll go ‘Queen’s Evidence’ in return for walking out
of the whole thing”.
I was stunned. First, I could not believe that
Harris would do the dirty on his partner Robson. Second, I could not think
of anything that Harris knew about me which could do me damage. “That’s
exactly what Chitty asked him!”, said Robbo, “ ‘What do you know about John
Symonds?’, so Harris said that he’s been present when you and I were talking
about killing Perry, assassinating him. Harris has said that you’re planning
to shoot Perry from a block of flats opposite where he lives with his
mother’.”
Now I was even more stunned, because it was all
bollocks, all tripe. The idea of killing Perry had never crossed my mind.
But, if it had, I wouldn’t have told a soul, particularly someone as crude
as Harris. I hardly knew the guy, and everyone who did said how dodgy he
was. Of course, Robbo knew it was bollocks and he continued with his story.
“Well, Dick Chitty’s on our side, so he laughed
and said, ‘You need more than that’, so Harris said, ‘No, it’s true! Symonds
was an army officer, he’s a crack shot and he used to shoot in competitions
a lot and he’s got a rifle with a night sight, and I looked through this
sight and it brought everything up as clear as day. Robson and Symonds are
doing it between them. Symonds is going up on the top of this block of flats
with a night sniper rifle and pick Perry off through his window. Meanwhile
Robson is going to cover Symonds down below with the getaway car’.
“Then Harris tells Chitty, ‘They want me to help
out as well. I’m supposed to wait about, watching Perry’s flat, to see when
he’s in and tell them. Then Symonds is going to go on the roof and shoot
him’.
What a ratbag. He thought he’d had this brilliant
idea - to get immunity by turning Queen’s evidence and giving evidence
against myself and Robson. He was going to stand up in court and confirm the
account given by Perry and the Times, so there wouldn’t be just the
tape recording but back-up from Harris telling this cock-and-bull story
about me plotting to assassinate Perry. When Dick Chitty heard this, he
confronted Robson to see if there was any truth in it. Robson said it was a
pack of lies and came straight over to tell me.
A few days later, I had a visit from another
detective, Mike Smith. He had known both Freddie Lambert and myself for
years and was acting as a middle man. He told me that if I had any thoughts
of killing Perry, I should drop them because there was ‘information’ that I
was plotting to do this. He refused to name the source of this information
but I already knew it was Harris, so I told Mike I was flabbergasted by all
this effort to talk me out of something I had never intended to do. “It’s
never crossed my mind”, I said, “but between you and me, if I was going to
kill anybody, it’s going to be that bastard Harris!”
Whoops! As soon the words left my mouth I knew I
shouldn’t have said them because in effect I had just let Lambert know how
much I knew about the state of his inquiries. This was a mistake because it
may have lent weight to the theory that I really was capable of organizing a
conspiracy to murder not just Perry but Harris too. And maybe I had given a
crumb of hope to those people - in the police, the press and the law - that
wanted to get me locked up. Till now they had no hope because the evidence
wasn’t there. But I wasn’t going to lie down. I was the only one fighting
because I was innocent, I’m not saying I was an angel, but I was a very
practical and highly-thought-of CID officer. I was in the fast track and
considered to be going places. I would have been a chief superintendent or
much higher but now my future had been swiped away.
Then suddenly I heard some very good news. One of
my close friends on Freddie Lambert’s team told me that the inquiry was
over, Lambert had cleared me, and I was going to be reinstated. Dear me! At
this point I’d never felt so happy in all my life. All the stress and strain
was over, and now I was going to be a rich man because I could sue The
Times for libel.
But my joy was short-lived, for the next thing I
hear, Lambert’s suddenly been taken off the enquiry. All I knew at this
stage was that he had upset someone above him in the Scotland Yard
hierarchy. Someone in the top brass was not happy with his findings, so the
only way to overturn them and change the course of the enquiry was to sack
Lambert.
This move had appalling consequences. Lambert
never recovered. After that he was a broken man. But for the three of us
named in the Times we would have to wait two and a half years before
facing the music in court. Yes, after two and a half years, it wasn’t going
to be just Robson and Harris on trial at the Old Bailey. It would be me too.
But it wasn’t just the sacking of Lambert that
did for me. It was the choice of his replacement. If it had been any
run-of-the-mill chief superintendent, someone would merely do the
hierarchy’s bidding but without zeal, enthusiasm or commitment, I would
still have been all right, because there was no real evidence against me.
But that wasn’t what the hierarchy wanted. It wanted me ‘done’ in order to
distract from its own corruption, which was a thousand times worse than
anything I had been accused of by The Times.
So now, to do its dirty work, the Yard appointed
a man whose name alone reeked of corruption to most other coppers who had
worked with him. To the public, no doubt, Detective Chief Superintendent
William Frederick Moody was a citizen above suspicion. Among his neighbours
in the affluent riverside suburb of Molesey he was a suitably well-heeled
adornment, though maybe they wondered how a mere policeman could afford such
smart new cars. To his brethren in Freemasonry he was a generous donor,
though maybe they questioned how he could spare so much for the Masonic
charities as well as his own lodge’s ceremonial knees-ups. But to his
colleagues in the Metropolitan Police he was a byword for being ‘bent’, on
the take, a rotten apple - any of the many clichés in English common usage
for being a crooked cop.
Now all of a sudden things start going wrong, Off
goes Lambert, in comes Moody, in comes his equally crooked boss Commander
Wally Virgo, the enquiry’s changed around, all the statements that cleared
me get lost, and the police team that have uncovered there was no continuity
of handling in the tapes, try to cover up that fact and create a continuity.
All the gaping holes in the Times case which Lambert has exposed are
stitched up again until miraculously I’m confronted with a seamless garment
that appears to prove I was leeching off Perry.
So why Moody? Why did he have to take over? Why
did his bosses appoint him - or rather why did they allow him to appoint
himself? Why was it so important for him to hi-jack the entire inquiry? What
did he have to hide? What did he have to lose? The answer to the last two
questions are: a huge amount of money, and, everything. But to explain all
this I must first tell you the terrible truth about Scotland Yard throughout
my service. At the time few outsiders would believe it. And even today,
after all the scandals which have hit the Metropolitan Police in recent
years, it is still difficult to accept just how evil the ‘greatest police
force in the world’ had become by the 1950s and ‘60s.
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