Powder Wars (24 page)

The speculation mounted. Questions were tabled in the House of Commons. Fleet Street reporters were dispatched to Liverpool to get the facts. But the astonishing truth of how Haase sprung himself from prison would evade them all.

20

The Great Escape

The truth is that it was a very clever con. John Haase paid members of his gang and underworld associates to plant the guns and a quantity of drugs so that he could tell the authorities where they were and claim the glory – and a sizeable chunk of time off his sentence for cooperating with the law.

Normally, informants would tell the police or Customs about real crimes that are being or about to be committed. In Haase's case he carefully choreographed the planting of evidence so that it appeared that crimes were in progress. But in reality they were stunts. Phoney set-ups, make-believe incidents carefully staged to convince the police that they were stopping the bad guys. But no one was ever caught.

Despite 19 ‘raids' in which more than 150 weapons were ‘seized' there was not one single conviction. Police invariably arrived at the location of a tip-off to find a deserted ‘safe house' or an abandoned car with a holdall full of guns in the boot. All fingerprints had of course been wiped clean. All of the vehicles had mysteriously been purchased for cash a few days earlier by untraceable men, who despite numerous appeals in the press, never came forward.

And that's just the way John Haase planned it. Because no one had been dobbed in he could retain his street credibility. He would be able to convince other members of the Liverpool Mafia that technically he was not a grass. He was still a stand-up guy who could be trusted. Not only that, Haase knew he would be revered as the gangster who had conned the Government into releasing him.

This explained why Haase had been able to walk back onto the streets of Liverpool within days of his release without a care in world. Instead of being shot, Haase was congratulated by members of the Liverpool Mafia who lined up to meet him at a series of rug-joint parties.

In fact the only people Haase ‘grassed up' in his numerous put-up jobs were corrupt law officials – a crooked prison officer, a corrupt CPS manager, a rogue solicitor and a bent copper. This super-selective targeting of ‘enemy' fall-guys clocked up extra brownie points on the street. The villains were happy that Haase hadn't actually grassed any villains up. The break-out was a triple-whammy success. The most audacious escape plan since Steve McQueen went over the wall on a liberated German motorbike. Haase became an instant underworld legend.

One of the gangsters who supplied weapons to Haase for his scheme was the notorious Glasgow godfather Paul Ferris. In his book,
The Ferris Conspiracy
, he explained how his gang sold £20,000 worth of firearms to an envoy sent by Haase specifically for use as plants.

PAUL FERRIS: A guy from Liverpool visted Rab on behalf of John Haase. Haase was on remand accused of dealing in a large quantity of heroin and set to go down for a very long time if found guilty. His friend reckoned he could have his sentence reduced in return for a consignment of illegal weapons.

Rab and I debated the implications. I pointed out to him that McGraw had been running this trade for years. The people selling the guns would get paid top dollar, the police could kid the public they were getting guns off the street, no one was arrested or jailed and Haase would get better treatment. It didn't resolve all the dilemmas but on balance it was reckoned to be within the code.

Haase's friends bought £20,000 worth of weapons, including 50-calibre tripod-mounted machine guns, machine pistols, handguns, a rocket launcher and some plastic explosives. The bundle was handed into police. Haase was originally jailed for 18 years – not a great result. After 18 months, Michael Howard, the Home Secretary, announced that Haase was to be released immediately for helping Customs and Excise smash a Turkish drugs ring. Haase claimed that the early release was for the weapons, the Turkish story being the official cover-up.

Haase's devious operation nearly came to light after a close brush with the law. Some of the guns were transported from a location outside Manchester to Liverpool by two stunning-looking women who were close to Haase. The idea was that a couple of dolly-birds, who looked like they had been on a shopping trip to Manchester, were unlikely to get a pull off the police. But the ladies' sports car was stopped almost immediately for speeding on the East Links road. The boot was crammed full of assault rifles and hand-grenades. The scantily clad girls did their best to distract the traffic cop away from the boot, flashing their legs and cleavage. It worked. He let them go with a ticking off without searching the car.

In another extraordinary incident, the operation nearly came crashing down amid fears for public safety. Haase's men planted a cache of explosives and several small arms in a car near a pub called Black George's on Park Road in Liverpool 8. The pub was run by the Ungi family and Haase hoped the find would implicate them, and at least mean they were in for a bit of harassment.

But the plan backfired when the car was stolen by joyriders before the police could seize it. A massive operation was mounted to find the car and eventually it was spotted by a patrol car being driven at high speeds by a teenager and his pals through the streets of Walton.

The joyriders were awestruck when they were suddenly roadblocked by nearly 20 police, an armed response unit and a bomb disposal unit. The explosives were found in the boot untouched. The kids hadn't even noticed it and were never told. There was a collective sigh of relief.

Other clues were missed. Haase insisted that he conducted all the negotiations with his Customs handlers in person. The deal was brokered at a series of secret meetings and phone calls at the prison where Haase and Bennett were on remand. Also present were Haase's solicitor, Tony Nelson, and a Customs officer called Paul Cook. During one of the meetings Cook outlined the number of years Haase could expect off his sentence in return for quantities of weapons seized.

Little did he know that Haase was taping the meetings using a mini-digital recorder strapped to his leg. It was an insurance policy in case the authorities reneged on the deal. Later prison officers discovered the illegal device and confiscated it. But Customs officers went ballistic, fearing that potentially compromising conversations had been recorded. They threatened to call off the deal. Haase insisted that there were no other copies in existence other than the electronic files on the tape that had been seized. He was lying. Copies had already been smuggled out of the prison and buried. Not realising they had been duped, the officers resumed talks.

Haase continued to feed the authorities the locations of the phoney arms caches. But the Customs and Excise and police remained blissfully unaware that the weapons and drugs stashes they were finding had been planted especially. In a top-secret report, Customs and Excise innocently documented each find and praised Haase for his cooperation.

The report was penned by Haase's Customs handler, who cultivated him while they were on remand for the 55 kilos of Turkish Connection heroin from 1993 to 1995. The report submitted by a Customs officer to the trial judge revealed how Haase approached Customs shortly after their arrest in September 1993, indicating that they wished to be considered as informants.

The Customs document, signed on 9 August 1995, states that both Haase and Bennett ‘indicated through their solicitor that they wished to cooperate with the prosecution'.

The Customs officer added:

In conclusion, he stated:

The report played down the low number of arrests – two related to growing cannabis and another in connection with three illegal firearms. The report stated:

But, despite the arms finds, criticism of the releases followed, particularly as there were never any arrests of note made by the authorities. This, according to the document's author, was because:‘. . . the need to take the weapons off the streets was seen as the main priority. Situations did not arise where extensive observations could be undertaken.'

But the Liverpool underworld knew the truth. One gangster told the
Liverpool Echo
:

The Customs report confirms that three arrests were made, supposedly from his tip-offs – two related to growing cannabis plants and another to do with the seizure of three guns. However, no convictions are mentioned in the report.

Another claim was that:

The report stated:

The double murder suspect, who was convicted days later, said he was fitted up by Haase. The report stated that Haase and Bennett helped smash a banknote forgery in southern England and exposed a corrupt CPS official.

The report continued:

Liverpool MP Peter Kilfoyle revealed how he had been gagged from talking about Haase by Michael Howard. He told the Commons he was about to do a television interview about the release of the two, when he was called by Mr Howard who asked him not to comment as it would put their lives at risk.

Kilfoyle said:

Kilfoyle said a senior source within Merseyside Police confirmed that the police now believed Haase had planted the guns. Mr Kilfoyle said it has been further alleged that all the weapons were bought for £82,000 from decommissioned stock held in a Midlands Police depository and North Wales store in Liverpool. ‘I am very careful with these allegations because so many have been made. But only something that requires further investigation is being raised in the course of this debate.' Mr Kilfoyle also said there was a very strong case that Haase and Bennett were behind the Strangeways incident to win favour with the authorities.

‘There are grave concerns that Customs and Excise have been misled by two practised liars in Haase and Bennett who manipulated their handlers.'

Customs minister Dawn Primarolo said Customs officers behaved appropriately throughout.

For all the hullabaloo, for all of the outrage, for all of the political posturing – at the end of the day none of it really mattered. The deed had been done. The bottom line was that John Haase was now firmly back on the street. Free to renew his war on society. Free to rebuild his criminal empire. If he so chose.