Five members of the disgraced South East Regional
Five members of the disgraced South East Regional Crime Squad have been jailed for a total of 32 years at the Old Bailey for their roles in a tangled web of police corruption.
Last February Det Con Bob Clark and Det Sgt Chris Drury, both 38, were jailed for 12 years and 11 years respectively as a top judge blasted their bosses over the lack of supervision within the elite unit.
Mr Justice Blofeld said the crooked pair were simply able to manipulate their senior officers and they were effectively above the law.
He said they took the view the law was for ‘lesser mortals’ than themselves.
And Mr Justice Blofeld said the case – the biggest scandal to hit the Met since the 1970s – presented an ‘all too unhappy picture’ of the workings of ‘Number Nine’ SERCS, based at Dulwich, in the early and mid 1990s.
The pair ‘recycled’ drugs back onto the streets for cash through Clark’s informant lover Evelyn Fleckney.
The glamorous grandmother, Britain’s first woman drugs baron, was herself jailed for 15 years in 1998 for controlling a lucrative cocaine, ecstacy and cannabis empire from her home in Tunbridge Wells, Kent.
She plotted her revenge against Clark from her ‘rat infested cell’ after he betrayed her by denying the affair during her trial.
The officers’ jail sentences could not be reported until the conclusion of the second trial of fellow SERCS officers, DS Terance O’Connell, 43, DC Thomas Kingston, 43, and DC Thomas Reynolds, 39.
Today (fri) the three, all from Kent, were convicted of a cynical plot in which two kilos of high purety amphetamine sulphate were stolen during a raid on a south London drugs dealer in July 1995.
James Jones had told the trial how he thought it was his ‘lucky day’ when two kilos of a six kilo haul of ‘speed’ worth pnds stlg 7,000 went missing during the swoop at his home in Cedars Road, Clapham, southwest London.
The jury convicted Kingston and Reynolds of conspiracy to supply a quantity of amphetamine sulphate, a class B drug, between July 1 and July 31, 1995.
O’Connell alone was found guilty of doing acts tending and intended to pervert the course of justice by lying in a statement about the removal of two packages of amphetamines during the raid.
The case against the three had largely relied on the evidence of former colleague Neil Putnam, who with Fleckney, testified at the Clark trial.
Judge David Paget, QC, today jailed Reynolds and Kingston for 42 months each while O’Connell was sentenced to two years jail.
Once a hard-drinking wife beater Putnam ‘broke ranks’ and blew the whistle on the culture of corruption, flourishing within the crack unit, after he ‘saw the light’ and became a devout Christian.
In February Clark and Drury were both convicted of a range of charges including conspiracy to supply cannabis and perverting the course of justice.
The verdicts and Mr Justice Blofeld’s sentencing remarks could be reported for the first time today.
(fri)
He told the shame-faced pair:
‘This case has enabled everbody who has listened to the evidence in this case to have an insight into the workings of SERCS, stationed at Dulwich, in the early and mid 1990s.
The presents an all too unhappy picture.
‘You Clark were the prime over in the criminal activities of this squad and you Drury were an enthusiastic lieutenant.
‘I do not consider the primary motive for either of you was personal gain but power and power.
Both of you by your behaviour displayed a considerable degree of arrogance.
‘I have come to the conclusion that both of you took the view the law was for lesser mortals than you.
You did whatever you wanted whether it was inside or outside the law.
‘Each of you had the capacity to be first class officers and that is the tragedy of this case.
If you had been properly supervised in this highly elite squad it is highly unlikely you would have behaved in the criminal way you did.
‘The evidence has shown that your superior officers did not supervise you in the way they should.
There is little indication that they were they were themselves effectively supervised either.
‘You were allowed to do what you liked and more importantly how you liked.
‘
Mr Justice Blofeld told Clark he was able to manipulate his superior officers, adding:
‘You were able to manipulate or influence Fleckney in order to further your criminal behaviour instead of being an ordinary decent law-abiding police officer like the vast majority of serving police officers.
‘You used your trusted and responsible position to further your own ends.
You were well aware of Fleckney’s personality towards you and you manipulated her affections and personality in order to do what you did.
‘
Both men appeared shocked as they were told the lengths of their jail terms.
The since disbanded squad consisted of a detective chief inspector, two detective inspectors, four sergeants and the rest detective constables.
Clark was the ‘prime mover’ in the tangled web of crooked dealings which began after he embarked on an affair with his informant Fleckney.
The trial heard how trusted detective Clark and Tunbridge Wells based drugs queen Fleckney, 43, romped in top hotels, such as the Conrad International at Chelsea Harbour – the cop booking himself in using the name Bart Simpson.
They also holidayed in the Canaries, and lavished gifts on eachother throughout the early 1990s.
Mother-of-two Fleckney called herself the Chairman of the Board and ran an empire dealing in cocaine, cannabis and ecstasy stretching from Bristol in the west to Hastings in the East.
But alongside her drugs activities she acted as an informant, manipulated by Clark for some four years until her arrest in 1996.
Blonde Fleckney tipped her ‘handler’ Clark off about the activites of rival drugs rings and her information undoubtedly took dangerous criminals off the streets.
But Clark and Drury ‘succumbed to the temptation of financial gain’ by giving Fleckney some of the cannabis to sell back onto the streets.
The crooked SERCS detectives were confident they could get away with it because the drug dealers they fleeced were hardly going to complain.
In return for tipping Clark off about other major crooks in London and the south east Fleckney was allowed to control a lucrative drug dealing empire from her home in Royal Tunbridge Wells.
The gran whose ecstasy, cocaine and cannabis was peddled by smaller dealers in nightclubs across the country was finally brought to justice in March 1998.
Before she was given a 15 year jail term Clark was called as a defence witness.
But he would not admit his sexual relationship with Fleckney and, while languishing in what she was to describe as a ‘rat infested prison cell’ she went to the police anti-corruption unit CIB3 and detailed the sordid revelations.
Fleckney – who used the pseudonyms of author Jack Higgins and actress Pauline Collins – became a regular fixture, at regional crime squad bashes to celebrate so-called successes after she provided information to help crack rival drug rings.
But corrupt policemen seized drugs, including cocaine, cannabis, and opium, only to pass them back to Fleckney to sell on for their gain.
In February Fleckney, wearing dark leggings and a white poloneck jumper, was given a four-and-a-half year jail term to run concurrenty with the 15 year term, after admitting a range of drugs offences dating back to the 1980s.
And Putnam was jailed for three years and 11 months after he admitted a catalogue of crimes relating to drug dealing, corruption and perverting the course of justice.
He has since been released and now lives in a secret address.
Twice commended Clark became a police cadet almost straight after leaving school in 1978.
He was based at the Flying Squad when he was arrested in June 1998.
His father had been a successful policeman, reaching the rank of superintendent.
One of Clark’s younger brothers is a Royal protection officer.
Drury, born and educated in Ashtead, near Leatherhead, joined the force in 1981.
He was stationed initially at Croydon Police Station before moving to Kensington where he first worked as a detective.
ends
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