Powder Wars (32 page)

Mr Steer said that Haase, Oliver and Grimes were not arrested at that time and observations continued until 25 October 1999, when Haase was arrested at Lime Street station after stepping off a train from London. Two days later police searched the market office building at Stanley Dock belonging to Big Brother security. The search of Haase's office and the surrounding warehouse space lasted eight days.

At another hearing Liverpool Crown Court heard how Customs officers had placed Haase high on their list of targets soon after his surprise release from jail in 1996. Senior Customs officer Steve Rowton revealed how his unit had acquired an informant within Haase's organisation from early on. The statement clearly referred to Paul Grimes but did not name him for security reasons.

Rowton, who was a drugs and crime coordinator for the British Government based in Washington DC, had also worked on the Warren case. He told the court:

On 21 February 2001 John Haase was sentenced. In court, he looked relaxed. He had an air of confidence about him, born from the certainty that the case was a done deal. He was getting a six. No back answers. He stood up to receive the sentence, eyeing Judge Holloway and his barrister Lord Carlile mischievously. After all, was not this the same Lord Carlile who had agreed to the reduced sentence with his solicitor Tony Nelson in a quiet out-of-court settlement? Not only had the deal been signed, sealed and delivered, but Haase had seen it in black and white.

As the judge went through the formalities, Haase smugly concluded that it was all a game and that he, the one and only John Haase, was a major fucking player. He had bought his seat at the table through hard graft and was now able to look the likes of Lord Carlile in the eye and deal with them on an equal footing. He had arrived. John Haase was up there with the lords, the MPs, the ministers, the Michael Howards of this world and he was in a position to tell them what to do.

Then the sentence was read out. John Haase was jailed for 13 years. For Haase it was total devastation. He was dumbstruck. He felt he had been well and truly turned over. When he recovered his composure, angry, Haase shouted from the dock: ‘I didn't plead guilty for this.' But he was quickly sent down and taken to the cells below the court under escort. The sentence consisted of seven years for selling the guns and six years for money laundering.

In sentencing him the judge made reference to the infamous decision, which saw Haase freed 11 months into an 18-year sentence.

Judge Holloway said: ‘Mr (Michael) Howard is not given to bouts of light-headedness or light-handedness. One is entitled to assume that the Home Office investigated the details before agreeing to accept the Royal Pardon.'

Superintendent Dave Smith of Merseyside Police commented: ‘We realised Haase was starting up his operations and was beginning to be a threat to society again.'

Mixed fortunes awaited Haase's co-defendants. Heath Grimes, then 26, received four years and Walter Kirkwood, then 46, received three years. Barry Oliver snatched the only result – he walked after the jury returned a not guilty. Haase immediately vowed to appeal. His PR campaign kicked in at once. In a letter to the
Echo
from Strangeways Prison in Manchester, Haase cried: ‘I am devastated. I feel like my life is over.' But the stunt backfired when the headline ‘Whinger' was splashed across first editions. After pressure from Haase's camp, the critical tone of the piece was softened for later editions.

From his cell Haase protested to anyone who would listen that he had been stitched up. He argued that the deal he had agreed to, the six-year sentence, had been a false offering all along. He said that it had deliberately been made to coax him into entering an early guilty plea and stop him from going to trial. Haase said that the conspiracy had been hatched after he threatened to blow the lid on the secrets behind the deal which had freed him from prison in 1996. After he threatened to call former Tory Home Secretary Michael Howard as a witness, Haase claimed the deal mysteriously was put on the table. Haase believed the authorities would have been seriously embarrassed by a trial.

To back up his conspiracy theory Haase revealed the timetable of events in the run up to the deal, recorded in the diary of an associate.

Haase also faced stiff political opposition. In the Commons, Liverpool Walton MP Peter Kilfoyle called for an immediate inquiry into how Haase was released from the 18-year sentence in the first place, and accused the Home Office of naivety in their assessments of Haase.

Kilfoyle said: ‘I just ask you to consider whether more damage was done by allowing Haase and Bennett back out onto the streets, or what could be usefully achieved by pretending that you could handle people like these.'

Two months later, on 17 April, the trial of Kenneth Darcy, the drugs mule who had been caught with one kilo of heroin at the same time Haase was arrested, was free to get underway. Darcy, then 42, was sentenced to six years in jail after pleading guilty to possession with intent to supply. David Hislop, defending, claimed Darcy believed he was simply there to watch Haase as he knew the man ‘had enemies'.

29

The End

Mission accomplished. John Haase was behind bars and his crime empire in ruins. A top-level drug- and gun-running racket had been smashed beyond repair forever.

Today Haase languishes in HMP Full Sutton in Yorkshire, a high-risk Category A inmate who frequently spends time in solitary confinement. In early 2004 he was temporarily moved to HMP Whitemoor in Cambridgeshire, on a disciplinary charge for being found in possession of a mobile phone. He refuses to work and is due for release in 2009. But aside from incarcerating target one, what else had been achieved by Paul Grimes' mission?

A hardcore of dangerous criminals had been taken off the streets including Walter Kirkwood, Ken Darcy and Heath Grimes. Dozens of other dangerous criminals from all over Britain had also been caught and convicted using intelligence supplied or originated by Paul Grimes during his period inside Haase's organisation.

Many of the suspects were monitored whilst doing business with Haase and his associates, unaware that they were being observed. Weeks, sometimes months, later police swooped upon the targets. Many never linked their misfortune to Haase. The total number of convictions which resulted from the operation is still a secret, known only to the senior Customs and police officers involved in the case.

What price had Paul Grimes paid? Today he is a penniless divorcee living in a shabby council house in a tenement block usually reserved for old-age pensioners. The flat was provided by the police as part of the witness-protection programme Paul is subscribed to. The logic is that old peoples' residences make good safe houses because security is often better than usual and OAPs are more viligant. Last year it saved his life. An elderly neighbour raised the alarm after three masked men clad in dark clothes were spotted hiding in a shadowy stairwell underneath the entrance to Paul's flat. The men were lying in wait for Paul to return from work; they were assassins engaged to eliminate him. On another occasion, there was a failed attempt to burn him alive when his house was firebombed. On two occasions his attackers hid in big communal rubbish bins ready to ambush him. They were unsuccessful.

For security reasons Paul spends four nights a week sleeping at the homes of a select band of trusted friends. The life of a witness in hiding is often lonely and grim. The hundreds of thousands of pounds Paul had made from crime in his early days has long gone. Paul has never asked for nor received any financial rewards for his undercover work. His lifestyle is frugal and basic and Paul often struggles to make ends meet. His small, dingy living-room is decorated with pictures of Red Indians, his only interest now, and the floor is littered with pirated DVDs of the latest blockbuster movies. Pride of place on the mantelpiece above the fireplace is a Royal Navy passing-out photograph of his late son, Jason Grimes.

For security reasons, Paul's life is regimented by routine. Every day he is obliged to ring in to his local police station to confirm that he is still alive and to report suspicious activity. Although, these days, he admits the system has lapsed.

Paul lives in constant fear of his life. With the help of his police protectors a job was deliberately chosen for him that keeps him on the move over a wide geographical area. Paul works as a mobile security guard and is often sent to different locations in the North West, Yorkshire and the Midlands. He frequently covers more than 1,500 miles in a single week. None of his work colleagues know his true identity.

Personally, life as an undercover informant has cost Paul his marriage and a string of relationships. He has been disowned by his brother, Stephen Grimes, and most members of his family. Most painful of all, Paul believes that his son, Heath, who he sent to prison, will never forgive nor talk to him again.

Was it worth it?

PAUL: The truth is I have lost everything. There is no doubt about that. And still I may yet lose my life. I am a real-life dead man walking, no two ways. Every car that pulls up, every knock on the door, creates a ball of stress in my shoulders. Every day I wait for the gun men to come.

Worse than that is the loss that I have suffered personally. My wife, my family and my son, Heath. Only God will be able to explain to me why the fight which I started to protect my sons from drugs has ended up costing me another son, Heath. That's fucked up. It's something I'll never be able to get my head round. But if you asked me to do it all again, would I? Too fucking right I would. Someone has got to stand up to these cunts.

End of story.