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Authors: Graham Johnson

BOOK: Powder Wars
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The main news story was followed by a strong comment piece on the leader page. It read:
THE VOICE OF THE SUNDAY MIRROR
Heroin kills at least 1,000 British youngsters every year. Countless more lives are destroyed by the billion-pound racket.
Michael Howard is a Home Secretary who revels in his tough-guy image. The hardliner cracking down on crooks and soft-sentencing judges alike. Evil Paul Bennett and John Haase were major heroin barons jailed for EIGHTEEN years.
Judge David Lynch said the courts usually dealt with ‘pitiful wretches' caught up in the heroin twilight zone. ‘It is rare that courts deal with somebody so high up as you are and it must be marked by a heavy sentence.' Strong PUBLIC words. ELEVEN months later the pair were secretly freed in a strange deal involving the Home Secretary, the judge and HM Customs. An action that defied all the tough words.
When the
Sunday Mirror
discovered the truth, a senior Home Office official tried to persuade us NOT to publish. He suggested the freed drug tzars were giving ‘sensitive' help to the authorities and might be at risk.
Or was it another case of trying to spare Howard's blushes and keep YOU, the public, in the dark?
What's the story, Home Secretary?
The exclusive was picked up by
The Observer
and the
Sunday Telegraph
and followed up the next day in
The Independent
. Tragically for the Home Secretary, the story also made the front page of the middle-England agenda-setting
Daily Mail
. The headline screamed: ‘Howard in Drug Gang Deal Shock'. For Howard it was a total sickener.
Hysteria mounted again when it was revealed that Howard had recommended the Queen exercise the Royal Prerogative of Mercy. Merseyside Police and Members of Parliament vented their anger and surprise. One senior officer told the
Liverpool Echo
: ‘I was absolutely flabbergasted when I heard they were out. Deals go on but this is an extreme case.'
Knowsley North MP George Howarth demanded assurances that the public were safe from the convicted drug barons. The Labour Home Affairs spokesman said: ‘Given the recent history of armed violence on Merseyside, which is often associated with drug barons, I find this decision surprising to say the least. For that reason I am writing to Michael Howard seeking an explanation.'
Michael Howard defended his decision, describing it as a ‘wholly exceptional case', adding that it would have been ‘inconceivable' to ignore the call of Judge David Lynch. In a confusing statement Howard went on:
He said that were it not for the special circumstances of the case in terms of the lives of the men and safeguarding future operations he would have passed a sentence of five years instead of the eighteen years which he has passed. I think we have to look at this in the context of the real world. If I would have taken any other decision I would have been open to the most serious criticism.
When contacted by reporters Judge Lynch said, ‘I cannot speak to you.'
Two days later on Wednesday, 11 September 1996 the Haase scandal was still going strong in the national newspapers.
Daily Mirror
reporters Frank Corless and Patrick Mulchrone were the first journalists to track down the recently freed prisoner to his Liverpool ‘lair' and ask him for a comment. Haase responded with a threat: ‘Get away. I'll hurt you,' followed by a string of four-letter abuse. He then landed a kick on terrified Corless as his grinning girlfriend, Debbie Dillon, looked on.
But the real story was yet to come out. Why had two of Britain's biggest and most violent drug dealers suddenly been released 11 months into an 18-year stretch? What had moved a right-wing, hang-'em-andflog-'em Home Secretary to put his career on the line and plead for a Royal Pardon? Why was the deal shrouded in secrecy? Why had Howard tried to stop the story of their release from getting out?
Clues as to the answers to some of these questions lay in a series of shady events which occurred in Liverpool in 1994. Over a three-month period between February and May seven huge arms caches were mysteriously discovered by police.
They included 150 weapons, including Israeli-made Uzi submachine guns, AK-47 assault rifles and thousands of rounds of ammunition. One haul – the biggest ever on Merseyside – included 80 brand-new Italian Armi Technique 12-bore shotguns worth £30,000 still in their boxes. Another stash gave up ten sub-machine guns, five silencers, three magazines and 229 rounds of ammunition. The first find, in February, yielded 13 automatic weapons. On 31 March, buried wartime rifles were dug up in Formby. Four discoveries in April turned up pistols and a machine gun in Fazakerley, AK-47s in West Derby, a Czech pistol in Stanley Park and, among other weapons, an elephant gun in Ellesmere Port.
The circumstances surrounding each find were tantalisingly similar. Many of the caches were found in abandoned cars, which seemingly had been specifically bought for the purpose a few days before. Police were directed to the secret locations with remarkable accuracy. In all cases, although guns were recovered, no arrests were made.
Nonetheless, the finds were sold to the public as a major coup in the fight against organised crime. Confidently, investigating officers immediately ruled out a terrorist link and said the guns were definitely heading for the criminal underworld. It was just the success Merseyside Police had desperately been looking for. The city was reeling from a recent spate of gangland shootings. The success of Curtis Warren's drug operation was causing friction between those favoured distributors who were growing rich on his business and those gangsters who were being kept out of the loop. The rivalry would eventually lead to the shooting of David Ungi on 1 May 1995.
Big photo calls were staged by the police in which serious-looking officers posed with the staggering array of weapons they had taken off the streets. The press conferences were reminiscent of the RUC displaying captured IRA weapons in Northern Ireland. It was unprecedented on the mainland. Experts, like celebrity cop John Stalker, were wheeled in to ominously explain how Merseyside had become a ‘staging post for gun-runners' but that the good news was that police were getting on top of it.
However, other experts, mainly underworld watchers, quietly noted that there was more than met the eye behind this little charade. Could it have anything to do with John Haase and Paul Bennett, they wondered, who at that time were awaiting trial on massive heroin charges? They could only speculate. Cryptically, Michael Howard had let it be known that information Haase and Bennett had provided ‘proved to offer quite enormous and unique assistance to the law-enforcement agencies'.
Zoom forward to 1996 after Haase and Bennett were released from prison. Speculation that they had turned informant reached fever pitch. Wild conspiracy theories abounded about secret deals with MI5. It was a fact that the domestic spy service had been ordered by then PM John Major to wage war on the now out-of-control Liverpool Mafia. Had they recruited John Haase?
On 25 May 1997 the
Sunday Mirror
added fuel to the fire with another explosive story. The exclusive revealed how within days of his release Haase had twice made contact with a shady 34-year-old underworld fixer called Simon Bakerman. Mind-blowingly, Bakerman was Home Secretary Michael Howard's cousin. The paper hinted at awkward questions which could be posed in the light of this new information. Had Bakerman acted as a secret go-between in the shady deal? The article went as follows:
Sunday Mirror
25/05/1997
MICHAEL HOWARD, HIS CROOKED COUSIN AND THE TWO DRUG BARONS HE SECRETLY SET FREE? However much Michael Howard might wish it, this is the case that simply refuses to go away.
Last summer, as Home Secretary, he authorised the release of two international drug dealers just 11 months into their 18-year prison sentences.
John Haase, 46, and Paul Bennett, 32, had admitted masterminding a £15 million heroin-smuggling ring from Turkey to Liverpool.
If the decision had been taken by a civil libertarian minister keen on alternatives to the prison system, it would have raised eyebrows at the very least.
That these men were freed by the only Home Secretary in living memory tough enough to satisfy the hawks of the Tory Party conference provoked astonishment bordering on disbelief.
At the time, Mr Howard explained that the two drug dealers had provided vital information to Customs investigators, who in turn had recommended to the trial judge that their sentences be reduced, and he was merely doing what the judge asked.
This is pretty rich coming from a Home Secretary who established his formidable reputation – not to mention landing himself in courts from Strasbourg to the Strand – by NOT doing what judges asked.
But that is in the past. Today, the
Sunday Mirror
reveals that within days of his release, John Haase had twice made contact with a small-time crook called Simon Bakerman. Bakerman, 34, is known to associate with some of Liverpool's most notorious criminals.
He is also Michael Howard's cousin.
He carries a photograph of the former Home Secretary in his wallet and often boasts of his family links to Mr Howard.
He told the
Sunday Mirror
: ‘I see Michael's mother all the time. I last saw Michael when he came to my mum and dad's house for tea after Chelsea played at Liverpool last season.'
His mother Freda Bakerman told us: ‘I am related to Michael through my father. I do keep in touch. We're a very close family. I speak to my aunt, Michael's mother, three or four times a week.'
In 1985 Bakerman was given a six-month suspended prison sentence at Liverpool Crown Court for attempting to obtain money by deception.
He inflicted injuries on himself to convince his parents he had been beaten up over a £2,700 debt, then phoned his mother and pretended to be held hostage in a warehouse – all in a desperate attempt to con money out of them.
It is not, of course, Mr Howard's fault that family duty requires him to take afternoon tea with a convicted criminal.
After all, we can choose our friends, but we cannot choose our relatives.
But there is more. The
Sunday Mirror
has discovered that the decision to release the two drug dealers was taken by Michael Howard alone, without reference to his Prisons Minister, ann Widdecombe.
She might have expected to be consulted, but the files marked Top Secret landed only on his desk.
The unanswered questions surrounding this case continue to mount. The drug dealers' release was first uncovered by a crime reporter on the
Liverpool Echo
newspaper.
Before he could write it, he suddenly quit his job and now lives in another part of the country under a different name following a visit from Haase and Bennett.
Before the
Sunday Mirror
broke the story last September, we were placed under enormous pressure by the Home Office not to publish it.
When Sky News ran an item on the case, they were called by the Home Office and asked to pull it.
And just hours after we spoke to Simon Bakerman, we received a threatening telephone call from a prominent Liverpool underworld family warning us not to publish anything about his criminal past.
Mr Howard says Haase and Bennett were released because they provided vital information about other criminals.
Underworld figures in Liverpool say this is laughable, and they have a point.
Two supergrasses who have committed the ultimate sin of informing on their criminal colleagues would be in hiding, in disguise, in fear for their lives – not, like Haase and Bennett, strolling the streets of Liverpool without a care in the world.
As a credible contender for the leadership of the Conservative Party, Mr Howard cannot afford to have the smallest question mark hanging over his judgement.
If the decision to release these two men was justified, it should be easy for Mr Howard to prove.
Let him now announce the name of a single criminal who has been arrested, charged, prosecuted, convicted or jailed as a result of information provided by Haase and Bennett.
Until he does, the
Sunday Mirror
will continue to ask the awkward questions that Michael Howard seems unable to answer.
More awkward questions were raised when it was revealed that Bakerman's father Warner had serious charges in connection with money laundering against him dropped. Another embarrassing article appeared in the
Sunday Mirror
. The story went:
Sunday Mirror
08/06/1997
RELATIVE OF EX-MINISTER HOWARD GETS OFF DRUG RAP
Former Home Secretary Michael Howard's role in authorising the early release of two convicted drug dealers has taken a new twist.
Mr Howard sparked outrage last year after rubber-stamping the release of heroin barons John Haase and Paul Bennett 11 months after they got 18-year jail sentences in 1995. He said they gave vital information to Customs in Liverpool where they had run an international smuggling ring.
Last month we revealed how a cousin of Mr Howard, Simon Bakerman, was in contact with Haase days after his release. Today, we can reveal that Bakerman's father Warner was arrested in a drugs bust in Liverpool but charges were dropped.
Accountant Warner, 62, was held after the discovery of a consignment of cannabis in a lorry-load of oranges. A local underworld figure said: ‘He had heart problems and the next thing was let go – but he soon seemed fine.'
A Customs spokesman confirmed: ‘The charges were dropped before it reached the committal stage.'
We asked Mr Howard how many arrests there had been based on Haase and Bennett's information. We also asked why Ann Widdecombe, then Prisons Minister, was not consulted over their release and if he was aware that Simon was associated with Haase and Bennett. A spokesman said: ‘Miss Widdecombe was not consulted because her duties did not involve sentencing of prisoners, and Mr Howard was not aware Simon Bakerman was connected to Haase and Bennett.
‘You could not expect him to tell you of arrests resulting from Haase and Bennett's information.'

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