Operation Russia

Detectives Sold Drugs Captured In Raids
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Detective 'gang' sold drugs seized in raids

A DETECTIVE who used his affair with a woman trafficker to sell drugs stolen in police raids through her network has been jailed for 12 years, the longest sentence imposed on a corrupt officer for 30 years.

Four other members of the same regional crime squad have been jailed for terms ranging from three-and-a-half to 11 years in two trials at the Old Bailey. Former Det Con Bob Clark, 37, and his "lieutenant", ex-Det Sgt Chris Drury, 39, were jailed for 12 and 11 years respectively in February, after a lengthy trial, for conspiracies to supply cannabis and perverting the course of justice.

Reporting of their convictions was banned until yesterday, when a subsidiary trial ended in the conviction of three more officers. Clark faces an inquiry under drugs legislation into his profits from drug dealing. All five convicted men were Metropolitan Police detectives seconded to the regional crime squad at east Dulwich, south London, to tackle major drug traffickers.

Their convictions concluded Operation Russia, the first major case in Scotland Yard's drive to root out corruption, which began in the mid-Nineties. Other cases generated by CIB3, the Met's anti-corruption squad, have still to come to trial. Clark and Drury were allowed to operate in a squad where supervision was inadequate, in the words of Mr. Justice Blofeld, and were laws unto themselves.

Studies of police corruption in New York, which influenced the Met, identified two types of corrupt officer: "meat eaters", relentless, cunning seekers of dishonest opportunities, and less active "grass eaters". Clark was regarded as one of the most ravenous "meat eaters". His relationship with Evelyn Fleckney, 43, a drug trafficker jailed for 15 years in 1998, broke every rule in the police manual on the handling of informants.

Fleckney tipped off Clark about rival drug dealers. Clark organised raids on them and the theft of some of their drugs. These were supplied to Fleckney, who sold them and split the proceeds with her handler. They shared her rewards as a registered informant. Clark gave shares to other officers who helped him, including Drury and former Det Con Neil Putnam, 43.

According to Fleckney, she and Clark had assignations at plush London hotels, took holidays in Spain and bought each other expensive gifts. Fleckney claimed she was twice pregnant by Clark - who denied it - losing one child and having an abortion. Fleckney agreed to give evidence in Clark's trial and was challenged strenuously over her allegations, which Clark denied, but corroboration of the tales of corruption came from Putnam.

Putnam, suspected only of peripheral involvement on his arrest in 1998, turned to religion and decided to give a full account of the dishonest activities of his former colleagues, including Clark, in a team known as the "Groovie Gang" or, for obvious reasons, the "Gallon a Night Club". Putnam was jailed in February for three years and 11 months for corruption offences he admitted before giving evidence.

Fleckney received four years for offences committed with Clark, to run concurrently with her 15-year sentence. Putnam, though he had been released, agreed to give evidence in the trial which ended yesterday with the conviction of three officers. Former Det Con Thomas Kingston, 42, and Thomas Reynolds, 39, were jailed for three-and-a-half years for conspiracy to supply after they "skimmed off" two kilograms of amphetamine sulphate seized in a raid in Clapham, south London, in 1995.

It was claimed that their offence was done on the "spur of the moment", although Kingston was suspected of malpractice after being thrown out of the Met for unauthorised use of the police national computer. Det Sgt Terry O'Connell, cleared of the drugs charge, received a two-year sentence for perverting the course of justice by covering up the theft by the others.

Cdr Andy Hayman, of the Met's internal investigations command, said: "The sentences should act as a deterrent to those who consider engaging in corrupt activity."
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They can so they do. QED.