Albion Dreaming (37 page)

While the teams of police officers were working on the case the scientists at Aldermaston were busy analyzing seizures of LSD from Britain and abroad, trying to make sense of the methods used by the acid chemists and the extent of their distribution network. Neville Dunnett from the police forensic laboratory at Aldermaston was designated the scientist in charge of analyzing the LSD
thought to be made by Kemp and Munro. Initially, Dunnett’s task was to analyze seizures of LSD made throughout the world since 1971 and to look for patterns of manufacture and distribution. A graph produced for a Home Office report on the Operation Julie LSD showed the ratio of LSD microdots as a percentage of all LSD seizures increased from 5 per cent in 1971 to over 80 per cent in 1975. This was the impact Kemp and Munro’s acid had on the world LSD market.
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As the spring of 1977 dawned, the police decided now was the time to act, before the principle conspirators managed to vanish into obscurity once again. The Seymour Road property had to be raided first because police found that Todd had cancelled the milk and the laboratory had ceased operation.

At 8.00 pm on 25 March 1977, a team of police smashed through the doors of Seymour Road, taking the occupants by surprise. “Ah, I suppose you’ve come about the television licence,” Todd calmly quipped, before asking the police if they had come to give him the Queen’s Award for Industry. Because the phone lines had been cut (and mobile phones had yet to become available), there was no quick or surreptitious way of Todd or his colleagues alerting their co-conspirators and the police were able to prevent news of the Seymour Road arrests from leaking out. A rapid search of the house revealed the top floor laboratory and the police were triumphant. Munro, Todd and Cuthbertson were taken into custody and settled down to their first night in the cells. As they did so, across southern England and Wales, police officers were gathering for the largest drug raid in British history.

At exactly 5.00 am on 26 March, over 800 police officers drawn from 16 police forces and 6 regional crime squads raided 83 locations in England and Wales. One hundred and twenty-two people were arrested, thirty-one of whom would later appear at Bristol Crown Court between 12 January and 8 March 1978, charged with a range of offences related to the conspiracy to manufacture and distribute LSD, as well as lesser charges of importing cannabis. The game was up.

The fall out from the Operation Julie arrests sent shock waves through Britain’s psychedelic community. The police investigation
was comprehensive and anyone believed to have been involved at any level with the LSD produced by Kemp or Munro was interviewed. Each of those arrested was questioned by pairs of police officers chosen either for their interviewing skills or for their specific knowledge of the prisoner’s role in the conspiracy.

At first, none of the prisoners was allowed access to a solicitor, despite their requests. Dick Lee was concerned that once those in custody had seen a solicitor messages might be passed to others involved in the Julie conspiracy and valuable evidence could be destroyed. This was a calculated move on Lee’s part. He knew the majority of those arrested were not hardened criminals and by restricting access to legal representation, they would feel even more alone and isolated, ideal conditions for softening them up for the rigorous interviews, which were soon to come.

A peculiar bond quickly arose between the Operation Julie police officers and those they had arrested. The prisoners had their clothes taken away for forensic examination and at first had to wear blankets for warmth and modesty. Several police officers took pity on them and brought in their own clothes for the prisoners. Food too was brought in for those who were vegetarians. Dick Lee was aware of this and the erosion of professional boundaries worried him. In time, he called a meeting at which he reminded his officers their relationship with the prisoners should show respect for their humanity but should not extend to acts of personal kindness.

Under questioning some of the prisoners, notably Kemp, Munro, Todd and Bott, gave the police the absolute minimum information. This situation was not true of the others though and many of those arrested quickly caved in, giving huge amounts of useful information to their interrogators. Several prisoners, either accidentally or in an attempt to receive more lenient sentences, implicated others in their statements and the police bounced one story off another to the point where those arrested were unsure what was true or false and who had said what. Dick Lee later told Steve Abrams that if David Solomon, arrested in the second wave of raids, had made no comment to the police, Solomon would have escaped conviction because they did not have enough factual evidence to convict him on. Even Richard Kemp, described
by his inquisitor as “the hardest man he had ever interviewed”, disclosed a great deal more than he needed to, giving details of LSD manufacture going back to 1971.

Even in custody, Kemp’s natural arrogance and self belief didn’t fail him. One interchange between him and Detective Superintendent Greenslade, gave some insight into his position:

This exchange demonstrated the fundamental culture gap between the two sides. The police clearly knew little about what LSD was, what it did or how it was used by the counter culture. To them it was just another drug, albeit one that had more of a visible effect through its links to music, festivals, fashion and alternate life styles. Greenslade’s attempt to sound knowledgeable by linking opium with LSD probably earned him Kemp’s contempt, as the effects of the two drugs bear no relation to each other. Greenslade and his officers were rooted in the hard-core police drinking culture, and failed to understand LSD or its culture. Their ignorance must have come across strongly in the interviews with the Julie conspirators.

During his interviews, Kemp constantly reiterated his position on LSD, telling the police he had donated large sums of money and acid to causes he termed “head politics”, head being slang for LSD user. The only such donation it’s been possible to
verify is his financial donation to Release, the counter culture drug and law information service. Kemp also claimed to have donated money and acid to the free festival movement, the main constituency besides the squatting movement for his product. Questioned by Detectives Spencer and Barnard, Kemp said of free festivals: “‘You people have ruined them. I don’t know why you don’t leave them alone. The majority just want to turn on. It’s a marvellous movement of unison when so many heads gather together.’ ‘Anarchy,’ Barnard responded. Kemp was sympathetic, ‘I’d like to turn you on. You don’t understand.’”
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Books written about Operation Julie by Dick Lee and undercover officer, Martyn Pritchard amplify the fundamentally different worldview of the police to the Julie conspirators. Each new breakthrough in the case is cemented with a trip to the nearest pub and alcohol use, its devastating effects on the health and relationships of thousands of people notwithstanding, is frequently lauded as a tool for celebration or commiseration throughout the police version of events.

As the Julie defendants slowly caved in under the constant questioning large caches of acid were being discovered across England and Wales, culminating in a stash of 100,800 microdots being dug up in a wood. This was the world’s largest seizure of LSD to date, more than had been seized worldwide throughout 1975. The Operation Julie investigators were making history. Almost immediately, in order to have his wife released, Brian Cuthbertson revealed the location of another cache of buried LSD containing over 600,000 microdots and after one of the conspirators informed on Kemp, police were able to remove 1.3 kg of LSD crystals from beneath the stone floor of Plas Llysyn, enough to make 13 million doses of acid. This caused considerable friction among the Julie conspirators because Kemp believed Solomon was the informer.
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The police seized a huge quantity of physical evidence. Besides what remained of the two LSD laboratories, vast amounts of personal possessions had been seized in the raids, including much that had nothing whatsoever to do with the LSD conspiracy. On 3 April, three detectives had firsthand experience of the
consciousness altering properties of LSD after removing a carpet from the laboratory at Seymour Road.

After completing the task and eating their evening meal, the trio began to feel peculiar and decided to go out, get some fresh air and spend the rest of the evening relaxing in The Angler’s, a local pub. As they settled down with a pint amidst the bright lights and general hubbub, realization dawned that the odd feeling was actually the onset of an LSD trip. Numerous LSD spillages in the Seymour Road laboratory meant the carpet was soaked with LSD and the three officers had inhaled enough LSD from the air to precipitate a trip.

Yet the trip they experienced on the Operation Julie acid was far from the parade of horrors the media and judiciary were to depict. As the officers’ senses became enhanced, they “... could clearly hear people talking at the far ends of the room. The filled pint glasses were feather-like.” They retreated from the pub and, “... walked out under the most brilliant moon (I’ve) ever seen. Our eyesight was sharpened so we could read the print on thrown-away cigarette packets as we passed.”

Though the detectives weren’t having a bad trip they knew they should report what was happening and get themselves checked out by the police surgeon. They were in a very jovial mood by this time, “... smiling and laughing about anything” according to one of the men. Their mood suddenly darkened when the police surgeon told them they would need to be examined at a psychiatric unit, remaining there until the effects of the drug had subsided. The officers reacted so badly to the news that their superiors believed they intended to barricade themselves in the room. Eventually they went to the Kingston Hospital but specifically asked for beds away from the windows “... in case it might give us that feeling which has affected others that they could fly. It was that scaring.” Although the officers were ignorant of the principles of set and setting it is obvious that while they were in the pub and outside the effects of the LSD they had ingested were not too disturbing. Yet once in the clinical surroundings of a hospital they became nervous and agitated, reinventing the urban myth that LSD users feel the urge to jump out of windows in the belief they can fly.
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Though the officers suffered no harm whatsoever from their magic carpet ride there was no reason for it to have happened. While in custody, Andy Munro had warned the police not to touch the laboratory carpet because of the spillages, yet the authorities’ ignorance of LSD’s dangers meant they failed to inform those searching the house of the risk. One of the officers later spoke to a minor defendant in the trial, Nigel Fielding, telling him that he’d had “... a profound experience and it had left him shaken to discover that life was a deeper and more subtle business than he had imagined”.
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Once the initial media furore had subsided, little was heard publicly of the Operation Julie defendants until the trial in 1978. But behind the scenes, at least one of the conspirators was trying to generate some public support.

A few weeks prior to his arrest, David Solomon met Lee Harris for the first time. Harris had recently launched Britain’s first commercial drug magazine,
Home Grown
and Solomon planned to write for him. His remand in custody had stymied that idea but Solomon believed Harris could be a vital ally in getting the defendants’ side of the story out to the counter culture in Britain and abroad.

On 29 April, less than a month after his arrest, prisoner F01468, wrote to Harris from prison. Solomon’s letter was written as though to an old friend, despite their relationship being only a few months old. He claimed, knowing his letters would be intercepted by prison staff, he was not “close to the hub” of the operation but was worried that accusation would be levelled at him during the trial; a prospect he imagined as, “... facing some High Court judge, a rough beast, with a gaze as black and pitiless as the sea, whose only regret is that he can bury me for no more than the maximum of 14 years.”
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Solomon suggested Harris might use
Home Grown
as a conduit for information about the case to reach the counter culture and the mainstream media: “I imagine you plan to give this affair complete coverage” he wrote, adding that such coverage would be extremely helpful. He recommended that Harris publicise the known facts about LSD and explain to the public that the drug’s Class A status
had evolved with no valid research being offered to suggest the drug was more dangerous than drugs of a lesser class or even alcohol or tobacco. This method of garnering support for the Operation Julie defendants was hardly the action of a criminal mastermind only involved in LSD for financial gain. Solomon’s attempts to argue his defence from a factual and ideological point of view were in keeping with his philosophical beliefs about the drug.