Corrupt detectives across Britain are pocketing tens of thousands of pounds
by sharing reward money with a network of ‘fake’ informants, The Observer can
reveal.
The scam involves the recruitment of petty crooks who appear before senior
officers and confirm that they provided the original tip-off which led to a
subsequent seizure or arrest. They then got their reward, which can range from
several hundred to several thousand pounds. The money is later split with the
detective concerned.
The practice came to light during the Old Bailey trial of former Detective
Constable Austin Warnes, who pleaded guilty last week to charges of conspiracy
to pervert the course of justice.
Warnes had played a key role in a plot to assist Simon James in winning custody
of his young son. James had hired private detective Jonathan Rees from the Law
and Commercial agency in south London to plant a significant quantity of cocaine
in a car belonging to his estranged wife, Kim, a former model. The plan was to
get her sent to prison, leaving the child in the father’s sole care.
Warnes, a long-time cocaine addict who moonlighted for Law and Commercial, had
agreed to assist the plot by passing false information to local police that Kim
James was involved in high-level cocaine dealing. The plan failed because
anti-corruption detectives had been monitoring Rees’s agency, following concerns
that he had been making illegal payments to a number of serving police officers
in return for confidential information. Bugging devices alerted them to the
James plot.
Following his arrest last September, Warnes had originally claimed that the
tip-off about Kim James came from his registered informant, who was later
revealed to be reformed gangster turned bestselling author Dave Courtney. At the
Old Bailey trial, Courtney revealed that, far from being an informant, he had
been involved in a “100 per cent corrupt” relationship with Warnes for 15 years
which involved recruiting fake informants, obtaining information from the police
computer and sabotaging numerous court cases.
An investigation by The Observer has revealed that Warnes’s unscrupulous
practices went far deeper than those admitted during the trial. Officers in
other police forces, including Essex and Greater Manchester, have been
investigated for allegedly sharing rewards with informants.
Warnes fed his own drug habit by regularly stealing drugs during raids. Warnes
also assisted Courtney and dozens of other professional criminals in the south
London area to avoid capture and evade charges by providing them with
information about police investigations. In order to cover himself and not face
questioning about why he was accessing police files, Warnes would say one of his
informants had knowledge relevant to the case.
“The information he provided was invaluable,” says Mick, a one-time armed robber
and one of those who benefited from Warnes’ corruption. “He would be able to
tell you what statements the police had obtained, who they had interviewed,
which properties were under surveillance, which phones were being tapped - the
lot. Worth its weight in gold. You would pay between £5,000 and £10,000 a time,
but it was well worth it.”
Documents obtained by The Observer show that, in one case, Warnes intervened
after an attempted kidnapping. One of the suspects, an associate of Courtney,
had gone on the run. Warnes telephoned the officer in charge and said he had an
informant that might be able to help in the case but would require all the
information. The officer in charge of the kidnap later noted: “The impression
gleaned from the information requested and questions asked was not one of an
officer keen to assist but more of an officer bent on obtaining information for
his own purposes.”
Warnes would regularly brag about fitting people up and applying pressure to
ensnare people. He would carry out surveillance before making arrests to ensure
they were carried out in the most compromising position possible. If a villain
had a mistress, he would be arrested at her address rather than at home in order
to increase the level of hassle if he pleaded not guilty. If he had a small
child, the raid would take place late on Friday evening and fake drugs would be
planted in his wife’s possessions.
This would lead to the wife being held in custody and the child being taken into
care over the weekend. “By the end of the weekend, it would all be looking so
grim he’d have to plead guilty. He said he collected fag ends - you can get DNA
from traces of saliva - to plant at crime scenes to implicate people he didn’t
like,” says Mick.
The Old Bailey heard that Warnes had bragged about his ability to help with
matters concerning the “IRA, driving offences, drugs, anything,” witness Brendan
McGirr said. The court also heard from club owner Lee Smith, who admitted paying
Warnes £500 per week in order to be warned if his venue was to be raided.
Rees and Simon James were convicted of conspiracy to pervert the course of
justice. Both men were sentenced to six years. Warnes was sentenced to four
years. James Cook, who had been filmed planting the drugs in the car, and
Courtney were both acquitted of all charges.
Courtney, a one-time friend of the Kray twins, has made 10 court appearances in
the past 15 years and has now received 10 not guilty verdicts in a row. “I have
always had faith in the British Justice system,” he said outside the court.
“That not guilty verdict was both for the charge I faced and the accusation that
I was a grass. I have never been an informer.”
