 You can now follow me on all my social media platforms to find out who my latest guest will be and don't forget to click the subscribe button and the notifications bell so you are notified for when my next podcast goes live. There are many jobs around heroine, ecstasy, guns, lorry hijackings, contract killings. There's a conspiracy already in me and you can join them. And it's all, not for your own back, senior management decisions that look at everything and they put you in there. I can't talk about some, right? Yeah, yeah. Because I wasn't disclosed. There's a lot of people out there that would like to square the square books and answer books. So, a lot of them that I can't talk about. That's for my own personal safety reasons. Boom, we're on. Boom, we're away. And today's guest, we've got undercover cop Don, who I believe your name is for today. You've released a book called Undercover Legends, which we'll touch on. We've had to pixelate your face for safety reasons, of course, because you brought down some of the biggest crime families in the UK. So it's for your own protection. First and foremost, how are you Don? I'm very well, thank you. I had a nice walk across London to get here today, blistering hot, but yeah, good. How are you feeling about sitting across the other end of the table today, getting questioned? Well, from a legend, aren't you? I probably know what it feels for you, this. Yeah. Now, I'm looking forward to it, fella. Really, I'm here. Good. Well, three books here today. We've got Undercover Legends, which is your book. Yeah. It's connected to Operation George and Undercover by Stephen Bentley. Yeah. Why is these three books connected? Oh, okay. Right. The conduit through there is Stephen Bentley. Bentley wrote his book on Operation Julie, which was a big LSD job back in the 1970s, where an undercover policeman didn't have any rules. You could do the gear. You could get pissed. You just phoned in your report at the end of the day. And when you get to Undercover Legends, you'll see the changes in that. So I listened to Bentley's podcast. And the next thing I see Bentley's name come out on is Operation George with a guy called Mark Dickens. And I thought, well, if he's helping Dickens write books, he might help me write one. So I reached out to Bentley. And a great guy lives out in the Philippines. I've never met the blog. We've done everything over the internet. And we put Undercover Legends together. And we're working on a further book from that called Operation Candle, which I'm sure as this interview progresses, the characters in Operation Candle also come together in the book on Undercover Legends. Yeah. The Operation George one looks fascinating with Mark Dickens and Stephen Bentley. I believe you know them. So it'd be good to get them on at some point to maybe tell their story about this book. Can you give a brief talk on this book? Well, as I say, Bentley's out in the Philippines. Mark Dickens, I know through a third party. And that's how I go in touch with him. Whether he come on your show and talk about it, I don't know. He's a terrorist, a lawless terrorist in Northern Ireland who was suspected of murdering a prominent solicitor, Rosmyn Nelson. He fled to America. They got him back from America. He walked into what I would describe. And I think he says in the book, The Truman Show, he's encapsulated by undercover police officers who do scams with their meetings. He's involved in a big gang of criminals. And whilst he's with them, he's telling them all about his deeds. He did it across the water during the troubles. And the second half of the book is all about the court trials and how there was a struggle to get some of the evidence in. Now some of it got thrown out and now some of it stood. Good book, good read. So let's get on to your story. I always go back to the start of my guests where you grew up and how it all began. Well, like you, Jimmy, I was born in Scotland. Where are you, a Scotsman? I'm a Scotsman, yeah. And I'm one of five kids. When we moved to... My dad moved down to Manchester, that's what I told him I wanted to do. I was about five at the time. And he came down for work. And at that time there was three of us under the age of six maybe, yeah. He got a job with a railway working on their roadflip. And then we lived in a railway house. So it was like a coronation street house, one door, one window, one door, one window, all the way up the street. And then the fourth kid come along, my younger sister. So there was six of us and a dog, living in a two-bedroom terraced house with a railway good yard behind us. We didn't have anything. We didn't have much money. We didn't have much of anything. And then we got a council house with an inside toilet and a bathroom and three bedrooms. Me and my brother shared a bedroom, shared a bed. My clothes came from my cousins, who were taller than me and had bigger feet than me. In fact, you remember the old Winklepicker shoes? The little points on the side. Yeah, and the Shetfleckers. So I got a pair of them passed down to me from one of my cousins. But I used to walk out of them because they're too big. And the school, the way to add stone steps. And it used to sound like a lame donkey going up these steps with clippin' cloth. So we packed the tolls with newspaper. But I was the one with the shoes wore. And they got wet. The tolls cooled up like little. The ladders slipped us like that. And I had the piss tank on me. Real endlessly at school for that. So I used to go home with second-hand clothes, shared a bed. We didn't have any money. The gas was on a meter. The electric was on a meter. The telly was on a meter. I remember a bailiff coming once to take the telly away. Because, you know, you don't pay some bill or something, something like that. And they went to take the telly. I mean, you can have it, but in those it's grenades. And they went away with an iron that didn't even work. You know, like an electric iron that didn't work. And so all that went on. I used to take myself off to the doctors when I was nine with ailments. If social services were what they were today, we wouldn't have stayed at home as kids. Went to school, didn't do too well at school. I mean, when we say gangs, it's not like the gangs of today that you hear about running around with knives and stopping people. You know, we had gangs, gangs of lads, you know. And you would have a row with the gang from the other street. But, you know, it'd be a row or chase, a kick, a punch, and everybody runs away. So grew up in that. A lot of my mates, going to one of the law, I used to run with them and I was lucky that I never saw or took a fall like some of them did. My mum was a bingo, not. My dad used to go to the pub. If the electric went, we used to have to go knock a door and borrow a shillie and put in there one before they, you know, till they got home. So we had, you know, it was poor, but everyone was the same. You didn't realize, you didn't know what the difference was. And then at 16, I used to do a milk round and a paper round and I used to make money. And I was probably, and I wasn't daftly money. I'd, you know, I'd save it or I'd buy something. I wanted with it. And I was a real street smart kid. And then I joined the army in 16. A lot of these people that I've seen on your podcast, they have crap beginnings and then they go into the military and somewhere or other. And that, I was a street smart kid when I went in there. I played good football. So if you could have sport in the army, it helps. And I got me on bed. I got three square meals a day. I got clothes that nobody had ever worn. I had somebody telling me what to do, disciplining me, you know, what the military's like. And I loved it. And I quickly went up the ranks in the army. And I got educated. I got book smart. So I went in street smart and I got book smart. And those two things coming together when I went to join the cops were a great combination. Great combination. How long were you on the army for? 13 years, 169 days. Yeah. Tell you man that? Yeah, it was. Where did you go? Mostly was in Germany in those days. BAOR, waiting for the Russians to come. I was first posted to Bulford in Salisbury plain. From there I went to Cyprus and to Kenya. And then back to Bulford. And then from there I went to Germany for the first time, posted to Germany for the first time. Then I got posted back to the UK back to our training regimen. So this kid that had no education when he was in school is now training recruits to the army. And that's where that book smart thing came in. Because you can't get promotion in the military unless you do exams. You've got to do education. If you don't do education, you won't get promotion. What was Kenya like? Hot. What was that? Yeah, I was out there in... Why Kenya? Why is that? Right, there's a big military training area in Kenya and it should have been. It's generally an infantry battalion at Golds but they got sent on an emergency tour of Northern Ireland. So they looked around the garrison and they sent my lot. So it's... You've got to do stuff that you wouldn't normally do on exercise. We've got an exercise we communicate. That's what we did. But because this was a... an infantry exercise area we got to do everything. Grenades, 66, 81 millimetres, DPMGs. And it was a flag waving exercise as well because they used to get incursions coming across and I can't remember from where. Because it was curfews and we couldn't stay down. When we had some downtime in Nairobi we had to be back. We had to be back in the... We stayed in railway sheds behind the Kenyan army camp and one of the flyings... Do you want to hear this? No, no, I don't want to hear that. So one of the squadrons who was due out before us, their flying got cancelled. So they asked my squadron, the whole squadron, any volunteers so we can, you know, get these lights out quicker. So I'm with my three mates and we were like, formal skutiers. We used to go to somantics. We said we'll stay behind. He said it's no fatigues, no guards, it's your old time. You just got to be in for the curfew. So we volunteered to stay behind and we went and hired a car from a local hotel on like a moody blank Lloyd's Bank check or something like that. I don't know. And so we had this car hired. I didn't have a driving licence at the time. I think it's beyond the statute of... Statute books now. I can't get done for this. And it was in Kenya anyway. So I didn't have a driving licence. My three mates did, but I was paying for the car as well. I was paying my corner of the car. So I wanted to drive it. So what we used to do was we'd go out during the day, come back, park the car outside on the road, bimble through the Kenyan Army Camp to the railway shed to the back. Then we'd get out under the fence along the railway lines, back out to the car, then go back into Nairobi and do the night clubs and places they'll repute and places like that. And we'd come back, park the car up, back through the Kenyan Army Camp. We'd have to climb the fence or go under the fence. And then one night, we'd come out of an eye club and they said, you can drive. Well, we're all, you know, we've all had a drink. So I think I can't drive. So I pull in the lightings, the car park and I've only pulled into an open air church. And it's right opposite the Kenyan secret place. Fast asleep and all of a sudden we get this knock on the window and these two air light, long blue trench coats are caught out there and carry big bands. And look out the corner of my eye and I see this blue trench coat and I see the band and I fuck. So we get out of the car and, you know, forgive my Kenyan English accent. He's going, what you doing here? What you doing here? And I said, I just parked up. I said, I didn't know where I was, I just parked up. He said, this church, this church in the Kenyan secret place. I said, I'm fucking sorry. I said, I'll get in the car and I'll drive. No, no, no, no. Jail tonight, go tomorrow. No, we'll walk into this fucking brother base on this. I said, get in the car and let's just go. He said, no, jail tonight, go tomorrow. And we had there about five minutes or two in front of him with this jail tonight, go tomorrow, jail tonight, go tomorrow. And I said, all right, fuck it. Take us to jail. My mate said, little wait, but they're not getting out of the car. I said, all right, fuck it. Take us to jail. And he goes, no, no, no, no, Tommy, Tommy, Tommy. Maybe we compromise. I don't fucking have any of this. So I go, my mate, I said, yeah, come here. No. Witnesses. I said, compromise, mate. What you mean by compromise? He said, you give me money, Johnny. You give me money. Well, it was 17 Kenyan shillings for the pounder. So how much do you want? He said, 500 shillings, 500. Fuck off, take us to jail. He said, 20 shillings, 20 shillings, Johnny. 20 shillings. So we're giving 20 shillings. He used a bit of paper with a number written on it. We drove off. 500 to 20. Very good negotiator. Yeah. So, yeah, so I spent some time in Kenya. Had a great time out there. Germany. I used to get pissed off in Germany because it was always exercise, exercise, exercise. We were all out there, cleaning wagons and cleaning wagons. And I was a senior in SEAL. Then I was on one of my chores out there. And, you know, I didn't even want to tell me clean the fucking wagons. I knew I was sold this running was. So when I was, I got posted back to the UK, as I was saying, training. And in 1982, the RG's invaded the Falklands. And I was in Catterick. And the other thing in the military called rulement, which means certain regiments have a responsibility for supplying personnel with certain skill sets. And I used to do the cryptographic stuff, the cold in the north. And this regiment in Germany was given the responsibility of providing the senior in SEAL with that skill set to the Falklands. And it was a rugby regiment and I was a footballer. So I didn't go down well. And I got sent there. And I was between marriages at the time. So they said, well hang on to you, we'll send you down over Christmas. Because you're not married. I have kids, but you're not married, we'll send you over Christmas. So that's what happened. I went down there about a year after the war, it must have been. Because I was down there over Christmas with some new year, E3 and 284. And once I was there, I bumped into an old mate of mine who was now two I see in the squadron. He'd like to come off with the Rainscott Commission. I won't hold for his name out there. Because I know his son really well as well now. So when I was there, I called him Bill Wright because it helped with the story of Bill. So I walked into the squadron, it was in the old Sibios building, this stand was still a mess. Mount Pleasant, which is now an airport, was a mountain, and you couldn't fly passenger jets into the Falklands. You could take an Hercules, but you couldn't take a VC-10 or a Tristar or whatever they were using. So you used to fly to the Ascension Island. And then I hopped onto a ship and I went down on the Uganda, which had been the hospital ship during the war. Because of seniority, I got my own cabin. That was quite nice. There's two pools on the Uganda. One at the front, which was for officers and seniority. One at the back was for the lads. I think most of them had to put a couple of water in the pool. Because once they all got in there, it was almost like the ship was going through the water like that, with the barrel up in the air. So yeah, then it was two weeks. That brought air travel and sea travel on to me. Because the Ascension is virtually halfway. So it took 12 hours in a plane to get from Brise North to the Ascension. It stopped at Dakar to get some petrol. And then the same distance on the ship was two weeks. And Uganda was too big to go into. Poor Stanley, he had to go on anchor, called William, I think, he's called. But you could see through the navy point and... Is it Navy Point? Yeah, I think so. Or Stanley Airport, you could see through there. You see, all these little wriggly tinned, different, like, candlelit green houses. And the smell of pee burning. That's my first memory of getting down there. Anyway, I get in there and I meet Bill. We call him Bill Rock. And he's an officer now, Bill. He's a captain. And I go, All right, Bill. Because it's not Bill anymore, Don. It's Captain William. I said, I'm not even saluting you. I'm not even saluting you, Bill. And he was great because he was an ally. And not that I needed one at that time. I didn't realise I needed one. But he had the skill, Bill. He had the skill. He used to shake himself when you were on the receiving end of this. He'd say, I had a gap in his teeth. I always had a fag between him. People that listen to this, they don't know exactly what I'm talking about. I've been looking around this squadron, Don. When there's only one bloke, I can trust to pull this off. And you think, I fucking know. No, no, no, Bill, please don't come here. And when he heard it, he got me. He could organise committees for committees for committees. That's how it all worked. He had a committee looking at committees. He's like, Captain Ape, he's a renders. He talked about control. He wanted everything. He wanted to control everything. So he said, we want to start a tumbler off on the island. And he said, you have a bloke for it. Because I used to go around the island, because my legs were on top of all the mountains providing the communications. So I used to have easy access to a helicopter if I needed one. I knew people here and I knew people there. I was quite a networker. So he got me organised in this bingo stuff. And we were selling. There was nothing else to do down there, right? And we were selling like bingo tickets for fun. And I can't remember the figures. Now let's say that we sold 500 pounds worth of tickets a week and would give 250 quid or 300 quid out in prizes. And the other 200 quid would go into the squadron funds. Legit, you know, in a moody thing. And so we're doing this. It was really popular. And I was getting on the local radio station because I knew them in there. They had celebrities in to come and pull their numbers out. And I say, celebrities? Well, no people around the island or something like that. The Vicar or the DJ of the radio or something. And yeah, it was going really well. And then Bill calls me one day. He said, don't, don't, come here. I'll look at these. A little bit of Seb account. I said, why are they, why are they Bill? He said, we're getting audited. What do you think these look like? I said, fucking, you're joking. He's just shit on that sort of stuff. He was all legit. But he'd be on his paper, I guess. So yeah, we're doing that. But in return, I saw a job being advertised an instructor's job, not with my lot, with another lot. And it was the only one, one of my sort of heard people there. And I said to Bill, in payment for what I'd done for you. I'd like to get that job. Well, technically it's not. He would have to ask my fur back in Germany. And so me and Bill contacted our man in record and very all in motion. But we only informed my unit back in Germany. We didn't make them actionable on it. Just all the three year information, this is what's going on, basically. So I got the job. I got the job also as well in the Falklands and the start date. And I got back to Germany and that was a senior NCO, by the way. And my boss calls me in and I think it's just a little part of the part Ruby told me, what great job you did down there. Well done. He looked at me like that across the desk. He said, you've got something to tell me. I was always a bit, you know... Where are they? Not Larry. No, not Larry. I knew where he was going at. I go, I don't think it's up. I don't know that. He was angry at me at the time because he said I'd done behind his back but he's nothing he could do about it. And the regiment was going on a training camp on some big ranges down in Germany. So the whole regiment would go through it, one week or two a week at a time each squadron. And it was firing machine guns, firing rifles, firing, throwing grenades, doing 66, anti-tank and 81 millimetre anti-tank, all this sort of stuff. So he said, right, I'm going to send you down there for six weeks. So we lost six weeks. I was down there throwing in grenades for a laugh. When was the jump from the army to the undercovers, the cops? Well, that area I told you I grew up in, the cops were on our street every day, right? They were either nicking somebody or going through somebody's door. Somebody just got on a strange way. Somebody just going there, going to the physics. Yeah, it was that sort of environment. Strange way it was, obviously. And I don't know, I think with Einstein now, with age, I look back and I think there's something going to my DNA there about being a cop, right? Was it Avonian main before you went to the army? No, not at all. It wouldn't have been. It wouldn't have crossed, since when it became a cop a lot of the guys I grew up with, they weren't horrible about it. They said, well, I said, you know, you go to the other side and you won't have a drink with me in the pub. And I don't miss that. I really don't miss it. Because some of those guys sat on the same bar still there, that sat on 50 years ago, looking like the dad. And they all look 20 years older than me now. So, somewhere in my DNA was this, I want to be a... it was this book, this something inside me that I wanted to be a cop. And when I got this job at this training school in the UK I said I was there for 13 years, one of them was 69 days. The first 18 months I didn't count because I was only 16. You know, your pension on the start of your 18 or something was 16 and a half or 19. So when I was in this instructor's job in the UK my 12 year point was coming up and that's when you get a bit of a pension. So I applied to join one of the UK police forces for nearby where I was stationed and I had to give the army 18 months notice to quit. So I went through this process to be a cop through the interviews and the exams. Like I say, when I was school, street smart, not book smart I never read a book till I was about 30. And then I got book smart in the army and I passed the entrance exam for the police and the interviews for the police. I wouldn't have been able to do it at 16, 17 years of age wouldn't have been able to do it. And I got accepted and then I told them that after the way 18 months I'll start to put my ticket in. And they were fine with that. So that was it. So at the age of 30 I left the army with 12 years pensionable service which I transferred into the police pension service which meant I only had to do 20 years because in those days I retired with a 30 year pension after 30 years. So my 12 years bought me just under 10 years of police pension so I went to the cops so something in my DNA from when I was a kid this was like I'm pretty corny as well. But remember that program, the bill there was a DI on there Galloway or something like that and you know he was a goat-gev sort of guy and I thought I want to work for somebody like that I'm going to be a cop and I'm going to work for somebody like that. I only wanted to be on CID didn't want to do anything. People used to say to me why don't you go on the firearms because I was a weapons instructor I could teach everything from a 9mm pistol to an anti-tank and grenades and claimable mines I could teach all that sort of stuff but you go on the firearms you know you're fucking ideal you cut out for it. You know why? I didn't want to go because I fucking hate cleaning guns I fucking hate it. How long does it take to clean that gun? Well if you're the instructor in charge of the recruitery cleaning the gun they take him all afternoon because you'll make sure you get a bit of shitty carbon off there. You know it doesn't take long it's not the poorest job and it's back in those days you got some magic fluid to dip it all into now it takes the carbon off you have to do that but you used to scrape it off and use a tool to do this and a tool to do that then you gun oil once you've got gun oil on your clothes you smell of gun oil all day so I just hate you cleaning What's the most powerful gun you've shot? Well when I went undercover I used to go on courses on firearms courses, familiarization and firing them so I mean I fired I fired magnums I fired solo shotguns I fired GPMGs I fired a 66mm anti-tank the 81mm anti-tank so I fired some heavy shit I've never fired anybody in anger though So you say What's it like throwing grenades? When you're a kid man used to have little plastic grenades and used to have your little army figures it's a fascination for a man to have guns or grenades What was that feeling to then throw one? When I first started doing that Do you remember the World War 2 grenades you see it looks like a pyromania Yeah, you pull the little clips You divert it and you have like that You pull it and you hold the grenade then it's got what's called a fly off lever which stops the fuse igniting and as soon as you throw that that fly off lever comes off 3, 4, 5 second delay whatever it is and then the fuse ignites the explosives with the grenade So you have these big fuck off junky things from World War 2 When I finished you know, someone would put me right on there I think they called the L2 and it was a smooth same shape as our grenade but it was smooth metal casing that fly off lever same principle but inside like coil wire that was like chipped and nipped into little bits and when that exploded fragments were fucking everywhere So what's it like throwing them? It's alright when you're first when some recruits throwing them and you know, any panics or I've never had one go off when they're throwing bait because you have these bays and they're like trenches like the World War 1 trenches right and you teach them to pull the pin out they look like they've got the pin there then they look at the grenade and then you throw it and shout grenade Well I've seen someone you know and you have to pull the recruit back down I've heard so where the fucking grenades landed in the trench with them and it's all like walls people have had to drag them behind different walls but yeah See when you pull that clip and lace is there any ever just exploded before the 3-4 seconds because you're putting trust into somebody who obviously makes those but that could be a couple of duds like anything in life There the grenades people right those there that we're talking about Now you know you use flashbang grenades as well have you heard of them? No It's like what special forces you use when they open the room and they throw them in and the incident like bang bang bang it takes everybody in there it fills the room full of smoke the rear drums are fucked they're called flashbangs because that's what they do so one of the courses I was on we were working with some special forces and they had some flashbangs down there with us so I thought I'd like to have a go at them so there was this opportunity to you know throw one of these flashbangs now you've got to remember for 13 years 169 days I was taught to throw a grenade like that like a cricket ball throw in the air and lob it so I had this flashbang and the instructor special force instructor had been on the wrong end of you know the firefight been in wars he'd done what I'd never done he's actually done it so he gives me this grenade and I pull the pin out like that and I throw it like a proper hand grenade toss it in the air like that you don't know that with flashbangs you have to throw them straight in because they go off well this thing fucking air burst went off in the air and he needs to smoke in his neck and burn in his mouth and he says something about I've been to Iraq serving on an island not a fucking scratch you're going for a second degree burn so that's what it's like throwing them that's the only town I've ever injured anybody with a weapon of war what about landmines they've never touched them claymore which you would put out on a patrol base see if you stand on them it's infallible when they've been standing on them people have not defused them but they've managed to get a clip back you see these large enough guns they're coming back with fucking limbs missing I don't know there's no thinking time here but then it's coming so you've went from the army to then the cops so you wanted to be CID how long have you got to be on the beat for to then go to CID because you'd already served because Ferdy's quite late not to join the cops it's all different nowadays they don't recruit from the military anymore which I think is a fucking sad thing because in a military man you've got some of the shoes to wear in uniform taking orders working on his initiative working as a team member the transferable skills from a soldier to a policeman phenomenal didn't have no problem whatsoever going through that transformation of being a soldier to being a police officer I went in at 30 and a lot of servicemen used to join the police so I was a mature recruiter that's what they used to call me a mature recruiter but there was guys older than me who had come in from the service they'd done that 22 years and then come into the police is that because they needed some structure and leave it's one of those natural steps not everybody wants to take it but it's a natural step from the forces, from the military into the police because you come out of the military do you 22 years, you're 40 years of age in those days 25 years and we're left in you so you could join the police you get the armies giving you a pension and the police are paying you and you're paying into another pension scheme and the contributions were quite I think it was 11% of the contributions were so I forgot what your question was when you went to the group how long were you on the beat for that state I grew up in in Manchester, if you ever were shameless it's like that that's what my estate was like it was and I include me in it it was full of dysfunctional people in their whole lives in a dysfunctional councillor state not everybody lots of those were nobody had a pot to piss in when I got through my police training I don't know 10, 15 weeks whatever it was I got sent and my first beat was a councillor state full of first and secondary generation companies not because of my background I was the next name on the list and I went there I knew what they were going to do before leaving for doing it and I became a good thief taker and I guess attention to the CID people the other thing I was good at was discretion I wouldn't nail people to the cross for everything I used to use discretion a good example of that would be if I knew matey boy was driving with no tax insurance I'm not able to say he's running a kids to school or something like that I'd stop him and say don't drive your car until you get a whole league again I'm sure he'd go back 10 minutes later he can't take it back to his house I think persecute everybody for it if he was serious people have got harmed or stuff had got damaged and we couldn't sort it out between us he's going to get a nicking he's going to go court for criminal damage or assault, HBH, GBH what have you but if it was just minor stuff I used to use discretion and then I found that they would then come to me and say you know all these shed breaks you're getting or all these car radios you're getting screwed low level crime and they tell me where the stuff was so I'd go and get some warrant and retrieve the stuff and go on Nick again get me to the attention of CID and at the same time I'm fostering relationships with these people I'm now registering the informants now normally informants are run by CID back in those days they have special units now informant handling units but back then CID officers used to run informants and getting good stuff I was getting burglar so I was getting drug dealer street level drug dealer stuff like that sort of bulk crime you would call it and one day I walked in I used to get opportunities to go on like what they call the car squad so you'd be in training as jeans and a t-shirt because car crime was like you know through the roof back in those days and I've got another view on that if you remind me so you go on the car squad and I walked in the office one day and one of the lads was going off the team and he had a pile of crime complaints like that and the sergeant was just dishing him out to everybody I said I'll take half a dozen, give me half a dozen I'll go and have a look at that and one of them was where a bulk could bought a car on HP, made first payment and fucking disappeared and then the car has been sold to the party living in a different part of town common sole practice back in those days so he's lost a car and he said well I paid good money to get a paid fucking company for it you paid well under the market so I treated him as a witness to get the statement to go on, Nick Mayboy but I'll tell you this guy he was like an eel I was always about two weeks behind him wherever he was he had credit card fraud, mortgage fraud finance fraud every sort of fraud you could mention he had it and he was doing it and the more I found out about him the more interested he was and he was way above I should have just given it straight to see I did or something but I kept all though and eventually Nick and I registered him as an informant and he was like international level the stuff he was giving me was a big currency drug importation big drug importation his wife was Colombian so he was well connected and I was running him as a snout and I met him at a service station on the motorway this is like for a junior officer I was punching a bug in the way really punching a bug in the way with it so I went to meet him and I always talked to somebody else with him because he was a dangerous like a slippery fucker and then we met at a service station and said he's got one of you and then the next morning I got the contact report and everything else what he's talking about kind of a currency and I get a call from the DS from the RCS office he gives me a call up across so I go in there and there's the DS and the DI in their office and I walk in and I think what the fuck is this about and they said did you meet with an informant yesterday and he was almost confrontational when we were saying it I said I might have done it if I had done it I would have put a report and you pulled the report out I said no I did and you're not the report I said do I need the federation do I need somebody in with me he said no no no no he said you met him at 6 we met him at 7 he told you about the kind of a currency he said it doesn't work these are the RCS right this is where I want to be he said don't work with both of them so you can have him or we'll take him off you well I want to be on the RCS don't I you have him lovely so if he went with them I never had anything from him for years and years and years and then from the informant then about I can phone rings on the desk can I pick you up he goes hello son how are you doing I said how did you phone me you worry about that and it was by which time he'd been registered as a dangerous informant still had good quality information but you know he was a dangerous fucker what do they get in return people give information to the police to other villains financial reward for themselves to get rid of the opposition to clear the field for them some and this happened in my life my lifetime sometimes informant is running a cop or running a law enforcement officer they don't know which cop law enforcement officer sometimes it's done full circle the crook is running the handler so that's that's the reason they do it do you think it was easier now to get informants than it is back in the day because I say there's more snitches now than there's ever been but has it kind of always been the same or is it because back in the day people say there was more lawyer, there was more trust but actually I love you at police they say there was just as fucking bad back then or they do see a difference as time is going on I think there's two big changes I think that happened from the old style was organized crime groups, all CG's you crime families you craze and people like that when they got rid of their opposition they did it behind closed doors and there was no body, there was no witnesses in the public domain to say what had happened and what they saw they just disappeared in a concrete bridge or whatever they just disappeared nowadays they're doing how in public domain and it's in front of the public, there are witnesses people are seeing it it's then going to be investigated it's not a misper like it was back in the day there's a missing person, we haven't seen him for months and months nobody's talking but now they do it how in the public domain there's witnesses and the police are investigating it so it's the same thing but different you know is recruiting informants they'll always be informants for the reasons I state would they do it for the wrong reasons the the rules of evidence and protected informants is a difficult and risky part of policing because these people will wipe them out did any informants ever get caught out? yeah yeah they do I mean I've been involved in jobs where I've infiltrated an old CG, an organized crime group and it's just a gang of blogs this fancy title organized gang crime group and I was with these guys in a boozer and they'd identified somebody as an informant he's the snitch, he's the grass he's the one who's fucking giving the cops all the information I was privy to this conversation and the they were going to kidnap him torture him get a confession out of him either way you probably would have ended up dead now I'm a police officer hearing that under the law there's a an Ottoman warning so I'm now aware that you are in all danger I can't fucking ignore that so I go I said to my cove I said I need a fucking meeting now so me and my cove are off and I'm going to get kidnapped and the police know about it so the police have got to do something it's called an Osman really so it's called that because the police, Mr. Osman the thing he's named after was in danger the police were aware that his life was in danger and they didn't do anything about it and Mr. Osman got the plan I've had two Osman's read out to me I know Osman's half right I'm thinking of these bastards just trying to get you to break man cause you start worrying where the fuck's that come from and obviously they say we can't tell you where it came from but it gets you fucking thinking that's interesting you've had a couple of Osman's yeah I've had two man but I was a fucking young guy back in the day I was never a violent kid but growing up from a rough area man I was always in the mix with dodgy bastards and I had two man and like you're thinking that's heavy because it's no fucking mean that's the last bit but I actually had a live audience with Paul Ferris the wee man and the couples came in and gave him a an Osman, I think they've changed the name now but I think they gave him an Osman they gave him an Osman at the halftime show when I took him off stage and took him upstairs he says there's been a threat to danger we've heard there's a danger to your life but he did say that they shut you down his book signing maybe a few years before and they did I'm surprised I went ahead because he's a high profile listen he's not been in prison for over 20 years now he's wrote countless books they made a blockbuster film about him but yeah the couples were there man they were waiting outside but thankfully there was no trouble, it was a great night and listen there was 500 people there people love those sort of stories they even knew people love these sort of stories because it's just why is true crime such a big seller why is people so engrossed in it well I've got him involved in the crime cult which they staged in London for the first time last year same time they shared it it was in Glasgow as well this year went to Glasgow and that is they're like trekkers, you know it's like Comic Con they're just people that are really interested in crime, true crime and I'd say the majority of them are females right loads and loads of females when you go to the crime con conference why are they interested in it is it a good question that Jimmy because when I sit here talking about being in a pub with a load of blogs and I'm undercover and I'm hearing stuff and this and the other to me that's my job it's what I'm trained to do right but I don't see the I don't feel the excitement or the participation of somebody hearing it for the first time I think where I sense it most is when you walk into a court to give your evidence as an undercover officer because you're coming in different, you're coming through a different door you treat differently, you're behind screens the public can't see, you press the defence and the prosecution and the judge the jury and the defendant they can also hear about the rest of it that you're screened off from so I always feel a bit special then when I walk into that courtroom of course you see the person six months ago we were best mates, we were drinking in the pub and I often think they're what's going through their minds there what are they thinking, you know, betrayal she invested slightly fuck her every time I ask you fucking met my mum and my kids you fucking uncut I just wish that would not still happen it's going through their heads if you don't so if you're undercover and you're working with someone because Donnie Brasko is a great film I remember speaking to you on the phone and I said great film, he went undercover he grew such a connection with the guy that the guy was broken hearted when he actually found out he was a copper was there ever that connection with you you actually befriended someone and then felt guilty and you thought fuck man that's tough have you just been so ruthless in your job get every bad guy off the streets I've never emotionally got myself attached to any of the opposition as I call them how do you detach from that is that because you're so professional in your job that you always believe you were doing the right thing I'm a really good self discipline sort of guy and I've got an addictive personality so somebody gives me a set of rules to live by probably going back to the military days you said the rules, this is what you do this is how you behave this is how you act so I've probably grew up with that through the military being able to focus on what I'm doing and not get emotionally attached to people when I spoke to Stephen Bentley on that because he got emotionally attached to his subject I've never got emotionally attached to any of mine whatsoever I felt like tipping them off or giving them a hug at the end of the day or waving to them as you walk in the courtroom or giving them a thumbs up and a wink no it's not at all I don't, it's just how I am I just don't do it when you started going through when did you get from the beat to the CID how long? I was pretty sharp on to CID and I'd done some attachments with them I'd went on to CID to go and do their 10 week detective training course so when they go away an up and coming uniform lad gets to work on CID fills his chair for 10 weeks so that was the first bit there I got 10 weeks on there and then you normally go back to your shift then but then another lad went off and rather than bring somebody else in they just move me across onto another desk so I've got another 10 weeks so I've had five months and I was running these informants I was bringing more jobs in than the established DCs were and they used to call you a TDC in those days, a temporary detective constable so this temporary detective constable was bringing in these jobs and making people you're probably telling them I'm not shy at talking and I used to interviewing I used to love it, absolutely loved it I would have been a good fucking corporal then yeah there you go and there was one guy he'd got hold of a load of there'd been a buglery of building society up in York or somewhere and a load of these blank checks had gone but the building society checks they weren't blank checks, building society and they were using them to buy cars with so they'd see a car advertised in the paper and they'd say well I'm travelling up from such and such it's a little bit bullshit and I'll bring the check with me and if I like it I'll give you your asking price so they would go up and it was a building society check, not like a real check so they'd hand the check over they'd drive away in the car and then they'd go up and bank the check it's a stolen check, it's bounced you're not getting any money back so there was lots of car and this guy was doing this repeatedly all over the place so he got him nicked and I'm interviewing him and he'd normally start interviewing presser boys you know, you've heard it horrible sound and he'd say right for the benefit of the time place, well the benefit of the date just say you know and he'd just sit there all out and he'd say you know and he'd just go and speak right so he'd go through some questions and nothing so he'd switch the tapes off we'd switch the tapes off, we'd go on really well together we'd laugh and jolt and correct a few jolts and blah blah blah so I don't know, second, third, interviewer then all he's got his brief with him the same routine, doesn't say anything so right, fuck it, forget the job forget the checks, forget the cars tell me one of them jolts you keep telling me when the tapes have gone off and he walks across the table and he's briefed there and he goes I'd be very interested to hear the judge's comments when he hears you trying to encourage my client to tell jokes I said do you really think this tape is ever going to get him from another judge really, he wouldn't say a word wouldn't say a word I liked the challenge from the brief and then putting the brief back down in his little box I had a few of that when was the first undercover job right so and why did you choose to go undercover because obviously I did, there's a few different jobs isn't there, you can choose was that a fascination for yourself to be something different it was a challenge for me I'd gone to the ID worked me way through there and then I applied to go on the regional crime squad because that's back in the days where you're on the cover officers came from that's where you went to be an undercover officer or where you was there was a breeding ground from because you worked on a much higher level of criminal investigation you were taking on the top echelons of criminals and he used to be a regional thing and then he went national because the bizarre thing was when it was regional he was even smaller regions but then he went south east, north east south west all these different areas because if you like had a gang of armed robbers coming from say Kingsley in Norfolk to go and rob somebody or a bank or building a society in Cornwall and they were under surveillance and it'd been our surveillance that went with them every time that surveillance crossed into a different force area so there's 42 police forces in the High Kingdom you know that three and a half of them so if you cross six police forces you had to get permission from six chief constables to carry firearms through his area imagine how fucking difficult and mad that was so they changed it to a national thing so the crime squad had his own chief constable and he could authorise carrying firearms and hard stuff so so I get onto the regional crime squad and we get given a crime syndicate to dismantle and we were working with their customs we were working with Box, MI5 and Spice and the police were working together dismantling all these groups and when working at that level you start seeing this tool of under cover being used and I just admired them I admired what these people were doing men and women, men and women I say that as a surprise women but men and women were doing this and I worked with some fantastic women in this job in that job I applied I don't know something comes out somewhere, it must be a publication something comes out to if you're interested in working under cover or doing going forward to an under cover officer so I got it and I fucking went to my boss with it because he had to endorse it he had to support my application so I wanted to do this boss and he wasn't from my squad, he was from all different forces he wasn't from my force he said no, you're doing nice to blow for that I said no I want to do it I want a challenge of doing it I want to be able to test myself short conversation but he endorsed it and this goes into what the selection process was like if you want to hear that so that then goes forward and he gets papers if it so whatever you've written on there we had quite an interesting application could have been in the military I could drive lorries, htvs and you see that under cover legends firearms are new inside I was forwards the wrong way around I knew loads about that sort of stuff I could speak durable sort of French and German picked up I've had this strict wise upbringing as a kid and my success is a cop so I had a good application so I got through the first papers somebody will look at that and if they aren't interested in the first four or five lines is in the bin all over the country all these people put in these applications in all over the country so I put mine in and I get through and then I get sent the application form and the best way I can describe it back in those days you had to fill it up you had to ask questions about everything then you sell yourself through this application now book smart, so I've got that street smart and now on book smart I know how to sort of put my words together in sentences full sorts of commas and bucking eyes and crossing tapes so you fill that and you submit it somebody looks at it and they throw it over the shoulder or you get through the next round and the next round was a regional interview where you're sitting from the three top Johnny detectives with lots of undercover experience so I sat and there's senior officers they've sort of run jobs they've been deployed on jobs they're running departments that deal with the undercover stuff so you get in there, one of them asks you questions about your private life, your home life see what that's all about and once your family think you're doing this have you shared it with them blah blah blah the other one will ask you questions on law law around undercover policing because I say you're an undercover police officer you're an undercover police officer you're a police officer and you've got to abide by all the rules that every other police officer has to abide by but then you've got other shit to deal with as well and then the third person asks you scenario type questions you'll just put you into a scenario and give you a set of circumstances until you have to tell them what you would do how you'd get out, what you would do whether you could do it, whether you couldn't you're applying all this law that he's just asked you about if you get through that you go away and somebody phones you and say I got a EA and then can't remember which way around it was I think the next thing is a national board then from all over the country it's a fucking heavy process mate, I'm fucking finished you all these people from all over the country then come to middle England somewhere and you see them from the free really fucking top logs very very senior police officers very senior you see them from the same thing, private life your law knowledge and then your scenario based questions and at one point I find myself leaning forward in my chair doing this on my fingers I've considered this, so he says to me so you'd do it would you I said yeah I've considered this, I've sort of that I've done this, I've done that, we could do this I found myself leaning forward into his face really got into it and then you get through that you get a phone call you and then you go and get psychometrically tested you turn up somewhere and a couple of nut doctors test you with written papers and there'll be something like 200 questions and then based on have you ever stolen anything in your life, yes or no if you could fiddle your tax then get away with it, would you do it so the question is like that the question is on me I think hahahaha you're something I sent him out, as you know and then another one is where they say what do you find more interesting to look at a well crafted handgun or a beautiful work of art you know and you not really sure so you get lots of questions like that and you get interviews and then they give these booklets out like little test books and on the front it's an example question right so that you understand the process the next the following questions you've got to work out the process of working them out so they say right we're going to do the sample on the front so we're going round the class you know the group you're going yeah, yeah, yeah guess to me you got it wrong said have I so we have to show them what to do so I open the book up the first question right I'm going to be in on the cover first question is three housing estates all with different value different type houses sizes, garages, drives, gardens no gardens all that and then a list of people what their requirements are and what the budget is then you have to identify which houses they can buy on which estates so I can get away through that turn over the next page train timetables stations A to G different types of tickets day returns, family returns rail cards all this sort of stuff and then a list of people, different requirements what's their best, cheapest way of travelling so I just read that and it says right but it pens down it says many times I've only done one question, I didn't even know how many questions were in the book at the time I learned later there was five so you go through this psychometrics testing and then you have an interview with them and that's you know how you deal with stress how do you deal with this after the other and if you get through that you get to go on the course and back in those days it was a two week course side on a Sunday to the Friday, you have to side the off back on the Sunday to the following Friday on sleep starvation and pressure you didn't have time to wipe your ass and you were doing scenarios you had speakers coming money brass go speakers coming in you were getting lessons and then you would have to go and regurgitate that in a scenario you were getting other established undercover officers coming in acting as students acting as bad guys and then they just fucking mess you up so you have two weeks of that what was it like when you passed? so I have all those hundreds there's twelve on the course so the spell was sat in the classroom five of us passed and there's no political break in those days one of the instructors had come up to you if you weren't calling it it's not for you mate, you might as well fuck off you know, no HR or you go away on the what way though? they couldn't do it they just they're lucky I can talk what makes a good undercover cop? that's another good question I don't know what the magic ingredients are but I just know there's a lot of stuff you can put in there and the more you've got the better it'll be I had a massive skill set that I could bring to the game so I could talk about haulage I mean I could drive trucks because I used to drive trucks in the army and then I wouldn't learn about the civic terminology of haulage and drivers guns I could talk ammunition, I could talk guns I could talk drugs not because I did them but because I dealt with people that go on and say that and you had me for thirteen years I know you was a lake so I just picked up bits and pieces along my journey of life when it came to being a UC I could fall back on them I could use them what was your first undercover job? fuck off it's embarrassing what was that? so you wait for the phone call you hear that all you're ready to go you're just bursting to go the phone calls and they always generally start with the same thing and I say this in the book you fancy a bit of work you fancy a bit of work you say yeah you don't even know what it is yeah yeah you gotta get here pick a car up and then you've got an undercover car so you gotta get yourself to where the undercover car is parked leave your car there get into that car and then when you go and pick up UC another UC and then when you get here pick up another UC and then hopefully you go over the briefing they're all in different they're not all in one sound these fucking things they're all over the place so I'm up at like 3 in the morning to drive to pick the car up to get in that car so I'm going to pick him up at 6 and pick him up at 7 to get to a briefing at 9 or something like that and you get there to a briefing and these guys have been on the pavement they're there for the deal there's a drugs job, there's everything job going down that's the very first job so I'm driving all over the fucking country picking people up getting to London here get the briefing and they're getting told what to do and all that and they said then you've done you're going to drive them on so I'm getting them on get them in all the tapes are running everything else got me tape on the third time got tape on gonna get some bad boys in here so we stop, you wait here so I sit in the car they go off, come back 20 minutes later with the parcel with the drugs they've all been nicked on the pavement blah blah blah never even seen a bad man fucking didn't see a bad guy all day that was my very first job never seen anybody, never did anything drove the fucking car how many jobs did you think you're done on total? that's asking me self this on the way down here I don't know some jobs you're the principal on you're the main UC you're the guy at the top of the tree you're going to do the job right to the end and get nicked for that guy to get there other UCs have been involved on the way so you might just have a walk on part you might have a meet with you but I'm going to introduce you to a bigger boy they're going to deal with this when he comes in so you get countless countless jobs like that where you're either a walk on or an item or other principal ones I don't know I've done jobs around heroin, ecstasy, guns lorri eyejackings, contract killings obviously they'll separate from how long it will be different what's normally a target to get enough information to get a conviction? different jobs to me like if you're on a intelligence gathering infiltration if you're there just to fucking give intelligence on what's going on because we know there's somewhere going on but there's no intelligence coming out of this place so you can go in there, you can be in there for a year too yes, so many guys do back in my days they had guys that were just totally into infiltration me, I was, you know doing a bit of that infiltration and doing heroin jobs and doing lorri jobs so so long as a piece of string really see if you were undercover for one family see you went to the boozers with somebody did anybody ever see you who knew you off character? no, you're always very careful I mean you wouldn't put yourself in that situation for a start, you know you've got responsibility for your own safety so you'd never walk into a boozer that was on your ground or you knew the people that knew who you were they might not be cops, might be some of the kids I grew up with you know, they don't like me anymore you know, they might be in that boozer so you're very very careful not to put yourself on offer that way the only time I've ever seen somebody but he knew me, I met him on holiday right, I met him on holiday in I think it's the States or something like that, right and then I was going through Manchester airport ensueding him on the job and he's just fucking in front of me in the queue of this guy yeah, I fucking don't turn around don't turn around, don't turn around and that just made me go out of the fucking queue and let him go that's the nearest I ever came to be undercover and seeing somebody that knew me that's not dumb did your life ever come under any threat at any point shit man, I'm in trouble here couple of times one way we walked into a plot and he had a gun and guns were we don't do guns and there was a gun there and the job was I think already partly compromised because this guy was an informant for another law enforcement agency and when you work on the cover and I still do it today, right I still do it you do counter surveillance, anti surveillance you control the room, you'll sit in a room you'll sit where you're back at all wall you can see who's coming who's coming you can see what's happening is that why you're doing that now? walking up to some Glasgow guy, you know what I mean don't know what the fuck's happening is that why you wanted to go to the toilet in that is that to scope the house you'll be listening back to that and I'll give you some gold to you nothing will be getting edited is that why you do all that though just to know your whereabouts and stuff like that on this occasion I had a culvert flat in the Midlands I was in Coventry I had a fine Coventry and it really wasn't a flat I rented a room in the house but I had the most fucking all singing all dancing facts machine you ever fucking seen in the world because I was dealing with this this guy, the opposition by a fact so I went to the flat one day, see if there's a see if there's a facts there and I was preoccupied and I got back in my car and I set off and I'd probably been driving for four or five minutes so fuck I've not checked my mirrors once and throughout the flat I didn't look up and down the street you know, check the pavement, see what cars are there so I started checking my mirror couldn't see anything and I drove to from Coventry I drove to Boomingham Airport just to see if anything was coming with me and doing sort of figure of eights and loops and circles and round the block and everything didn't seem like I had anything with me but because I'd missed something at the beginning of the journey I thought well, I won't take the risk and before I went to where I was going to go which would have compromised me it wasn't you know I parked the car up in a residential estate and I got out and as I was walking out of this quite cold this act when you do surveillance like at the Dunns surveillance for years and years and years when you do it, you know what it looks like smells like, walks like, walks like you see it, you fucking know it's surveillance and I come out of this cold sack and there's a blow, just jumped out of a four door two litre car with a newspaper under his arm just walking on pavement fucking that's a foot man, you know and so I get back in my car and I think how the fuck they followed me so then I start paranoia kicks in then, maybe they put a lump on my car, a tracking device on my car and that's it so I got back in the car and started riding around this cold sack pavement stop for the driveways to wake the tracker up, so they think I was on the move and I came out fucking didn't see anybody left the car where it was came out, didn't see anybody and I jumped on a bus didn't even know where the bus was going how does it felt we are paranoia knowing that how human beings can work to manipulate other human beings and how does it then think, how can you then trust anybody in life that's a bit too deep on the old psyche for me that what you said there my my paranoia or my what I did for my own safety ok there must be paranoia in there somewhere because you thinking who's fucking looking at me I don't know I don't know how does paranoia affect you it's like people say stress don't you get stressed, I said I don't think I do get stressed but some people say if it's going to be stressy, I'm not getting stressy I'm just talking through it, working through how we're going to do this and maybe that's how we deal with paranoia as well maybe I think well what would I do if I was in this situation how would I follow me then I'd do the counter measures as if some you know as if me following myself I would sort of work out what would you do here how would you shake them off what would you look like so I probably don't make any sense though yeah but I think everybody's different because I've had a few undercover cops on in their heads they're fucking gone I had Neil who was a drug undercover and he had to take drugs and like but again I've had the big Craig Harrison on Sniper and me it's difficult with the things that humans see they've seen a lot of bad shit as well we're in a situation where you've had to take drugs or had to do something to try and fit in yeah of course I have but I think if you can be not everybody does drugs not every gangster does drugs some of them have got a real strong opinion about drugs the one that the kids take drugs so if you I mean I've been offered the first thing I ever got offered was a cannabis and I'm ready I've got my answer ready and that's half the job of being a UC is knowing what they're going to do before they do it you know I've been back on the estate knowing what they're going to do so yeah I got offered cannabis I said well mate I can't I said I've smotted it but when I was a kid a teenager when you try stuff I took some and it fucking nearly killed me I said I had to go to the hospital on a breathing machine because he's had that fucking effect on me so thanks very much for that Charlie you know I've bought Charlie off cocaine you know what it is I was just about to start it for years yeah Columbia and marching powder you know and the rumour for the dealers come with a bag and he said I can have a line off it fucking hell he said yeah but I would never do it with them I'd never do drugs never do it how hard was it to to the bigger families how hard was it to get an inlet to get information were they ahead of it or did you think it was easier as the intelligence crew because you're talking about tracking devices they've been about for fucking 50s 60s they've been about you've seen the mafia used to use the the telephone's nowadays it's obviously probably easier to catch criminals now because they're all technology but how was it then to gather intelligence was people on it then the big families to say nah he's not in get him to fuck I'm going to do a spoiler for you now right in that book there on the cover legend he makes mention of a job called Operation Candle and he explains in there how you do this or how how I did it how we did it because of the team of us and the words I use is you make yourself attractive to these people not in a sexual way in a way that you might have something that might be of use to them but you don't want to make yourself a pushover you don't want to make yourself a soft touch where you're going to get used and abused or find yourself being offered to get involved in criminality and you show out by backing out right so you make yourself attractive to these people in different ways so it might be what your commodity is you might have transport right lorry jobs obviously you know I used to tell people I had a fucking haulage company and if they wanted drugs moving from Spain or from the Netherlands from Holland I can do that for you because I've got a fucking haulage company guess what I do I do European knowledge I make myself attractive to them so that's how you get that's one way getting into them and I'm not saying anything that's not out there already because these people have been locked up on the strength of this already you you look at ways of befriending them but perhaps not going straight at them perhaps going at your mate over here and then your mate introduces you to him introduces you to him but it's come from him and I've formed a relationship with him maybe I bought stuff up you can get involved in crime as you see you can get involved in you can't fucking kill people right but you can get authority to be the bit player as long as you're not driving it as long as you're a cold Asian provocateur you can go across someone as long as you're not acting as an Asian provocateur there's a conspiracy already in me and you can join that not for your own back senior management decisions are looking at everything and they put you in there so you get in like that so see if you're getting a gather of intelligence somebody's got a bit of gear on them say you know somebody's got a parcel or somebody's got a gun but you're trying to gather more information would you just let them slide with that right okay so if he's the guy who's a subject to the operation he's the guy you want to lock up if that's a decent sized parcel if that's a decent bit of porridge right you take it you know and you've got the gun in as well that's even better you know if you can get the gun off them as well because that puts another five years on there on their time having guns on it so but if it's small level stuff and no one's getting hurt and it would happen anyway without your involvement or without your intervention you know stuff does we allow it to happen but if they're like gonna work people, gonna talk you can't let that happen if you have a road to get to where the sky is and stuff moustache, beers, died of hair there's no big raincoat on none of that shit one of the things I used to teach about when you you see is you'll never ever ever change your character, your persona, your mannerism right you can't do it how I'm saying talking to you today it's how I am talking with my mates in the pool I'm not doing anything different because we're doing this is that because you can come out a character and maybe forget then it's a telltale saying that something's not right well you've always got to keep the lie as close to the truth as possible that's the easiest way for remembering shit is to keep that lie as close to the truth so I used to talk about my family I've given fucking different names I've been divorced or I could use that and say well yeah I wasn't I'll go for it there's one who tried to get me off with his mum we'd it's in there, it's in legends he was a fucking good fraudster very very good fraudster and he just got out of prison for massive frauds probably VAT or something because that's the only people who put you in prison for fraud nowadays and he'd got out and got himself mixed up with a couple of other bits and got himself nicked again and he suggested to the interviewing team you know could we do a deal on this the inference was he's looking for a deal and the detective interviewing him they have just been offered a bribe he spoke to somebody who spoke and when I got a phone call at home on a Sunday you can't see a bit of work so yeah what is it one of my mates says you become a network of UC's on down the country UC's in from Germany, Poland Holland they used to get from all over because you'd get them pulled over and work on their ground as well which was nice so this guy got along so well so we end up meeting and he won't say where he's sat there like that and we're in a hotel coffee lounge the surveillance team evidence in the meet all around us and I said I wonder if you fucking want that and I asked him a few more questions you've got to be careful because you can't ask questions that go directly to the heart of the investigation because that's again the cold sea of pace so you've got to you ask the bleak questions you can't ask you know what you want me to do with your so I said what do you want if you want to treat me I said mate it doesn't fucking work like this you know this is going to work you've got to say something to me so we go for a walk around the car bar so we go for a walk around the car bar he says a lot but he doesn't say enough at the same time he says I want to meet you in a sauna I said you what it's only me in the sauna and we were fucking both naked so you think full you know you don't want to do it that way but you've got to think of a reason why you don't want to do it at the same time I was thinking I don't want to do it so I said no mate because there's been a lot of disclosure programs on the TV you know panorama and going into police canteens and putting bugs in there and catching cops and such and such I said mate I can imagine it now me and you naked in the sauna we walk out and you're fucking trying to be the record of the year of my fucking career my experience so I called back I said oh he wants to go by his team so he wants to fucking meet in the sauna but you can't fucking record in the sauna can you so but he won't speak to me unless you're in the sauna so I said alright okay I'll phone him up so I can't fucking record the conversation the evidence and got a recording device on the body somewhere we get into the locker room right and he's in one cubicle facing me in another cubicle and he makes me stripped down naked in front of him right now he's hung like with the baby's arm I can't tell you you must be a relation to me then well mate I'm on a job I'm nervous right I'm on a job I'm nervous so my manhunt isn't where it should be compared to looking where it was so anyway we do the deed everything else I've about and then we go for a coffee afterwards and he says he married on you know the lie is close to the truth I said no I'm divorced I said well I've got a girlfriend he said my mum's about your age cheeky bastard and I think he'd make a nice couple you know that's after seeing me touch her he's probably thought he ain't gonna work with my mum without it so there's funny stuff as well what's the biggest operation you worked on I can't talk about some because I wasn't disclosed there's a lot of people out there that would like to square the square books and answer books so a lot of them I can't talk about and that's for my own personal safety and reasons I worked on a heroin job that was being organised by serving police officers they were the trying to get kudos for themselves by pulling a parcel of heroin onto the pavement through an informant who was an heroin deal and getting the buyers us but they didn't know we were running the copper cops, the bend cops on the pavement so that any squad would look at the box bollocks we got the drugs, we got the money and we got the buyers and the fucking supplier got away or the top supplier would be on the pavement taking the fall for them that was quite a big job because of the consequences of being corrupt police officers and what happens with them and I mean I've worked with some guys that went to prison who have worked alongside non-color officers just police officers and they feel as if it's just a revolving door so you get drug dealers, put families in prison somebody else just steps up and takes over yeah, there is that to it but there will always be somebody to fill their shoes and that's like when we talked about informants to get rid of the opposition because they won their ground as well but I don't think you can unless somebody can come up with a bare system and I know some people's views on let's talk about not getting to it but legalising drugs and maria I just see so many fucking issues of doing that and I know because I've heard you talking before with other people you know, this is what we should do and this is what will happen well I don't think you do know what will happen because there will always be boot like something or other out there do you think that's what it's all about good and the bad there's always a chase there's always something new that crooks can jump on to try and then there's always a new law to prevent it because it keeps everybody in a job as well you know how I sometimes explain that so you've got a brand new building this building right and as the years pass the building starts needing repairs on it and there's a scaffolding putting up against it and repairs and then after a while you can't see the original building because it's sitting behind all the scaffolding and the windows have changed everything but it's still in there the fundamental building is still there it's just some barrister that's probably somebody somewhere will find a loophole and exploit it until we shut that loophole but like you say, as soon as you shut that one they'll find another loophole they'll find another way of getting around the system gangsters some of the gangsters I've been up against would make excellent businessmen they are businessmen, just that their commodity is illegal or what they're doing is against the law but they are good businessmen the ones that run in life the violence and the fear and the intimidation to get what the one done they're nothing but flugs but they're all good, smart switched on, individuals out there making money, colour crime did you have a respect, any of the men you put away? one something a Christmas card one it's a robber it's certainly a Christmas card cheeky bastard when I nicked him, he was as good as gold he's one of them old sign likes ain't gonna fuck you about you've got me on this you're not gonna get anything else out of me this is what you got me for respect that informer spoke about the car and the Colombian wife he was a nice bloke he's a sort of bloke I could have got on with outside the job I know when I was a kid I grew up with people who were criminals fathers were criminals so I've been in that arena where my mates you don't use the word respect when you're a kid you don't respect your mates, the mates aren't they? and the dads and the uncles and the mums they're all like there's not enough money people just try to do what it is to get by you cut every corner it's not necessarily that bad it's just there are ways, there are means of surviving when I was when I joined the army I started to do the the code and the cryptos you have to go you have to go through a process called positive vetting and it's vetting at a very high level because you're dealing with top secret material and they don't want every tonic and hurry sharing the nation's secrets so you go through the thing called positive vetting and they take you from the womb right up to where you are there all these people you've met on the way of course my young years, my teenage years were spent on this council stack where the police were there all the time and my mates were in trouble with the police and we were all in trouble with the police at some stage and it took ages and ages for them to get my vetting done because there was another guy going through at the same time he was away on his course and I'm still fucking waiting and eventually it comes through and we had a nightmare tracing some of your friends because they'd go to the front door of number 21 knock on it they're all suited and booted on it with briefcases and my mates would be looking out the windows being as they all built out of the back garden over the fence across the school field and away and then mum would open the door and they'd go over there so that was a mystery Billy Boggs here she said oh he hasn't lived here for ages a couple of weeks ago he hasn't come back, don't know where he is does it all the time two or three visits like this and now to say look we're from the Ministry of Defence we just need to speak to Billy about Don when they used to play it's kids to get through and all the same he's not in trouble in your books legends you're working with a girl Mr and Mrs Smith kind of book let her follow my Brad Pitt stuff like that did you think that easier working with someone female I didn't know I work with some really good females I work with some really good males I work with some really not so good males and not so good females so there's you know there's no difference in that world in that UC world when you're on the plot when you're on the pavement there's no political correctness there's none of this the woken you know upsetting for somebody's feelings because criminals the ones I met they're not interested in health and safety and upsetting somebody by comments and using their language that we wouldn't we don't use in everyday conversation but yeah the Mr Smith in that book she's she's very what to say she might listen to this she's a very strong character very very strong individual a different opening into what I had very very different and she was a single parent as well which is enough on its own and then she's doing this work on top and yeah a strong girl what was it like do you get a good feeling when you get a conviction as a football you score a goal is it just a case the novelty always wears off and it's just you're in that loop or do you feel as if you're doing a good job how does it go when you attend to it some jobs when you get some jobs off there is a rush you think that was good that was a good bit of work and you're confident that when you go into court because when you when you go to court make personally always nervous you're always nervous because you don't know what you're going to get asked you don't know whether you might have stepped over the line or said the wrong thing at some point because it's like hours and hours and hours of two recorded conversation and the defense get it off and they can nitpick their way through those conversations to any infringements of the laws of evidence the rules of evidence and so when you've got the job off from the pavement that's good and then you go to court you give your evidence and you disappear you don't hear the result until some time but generally there's a social gathering somewhere on the day of sentencing and you'll slide into that group of you have a dream of the barristers with the operational team with the other UCs that's a nice time how was it retiring no problem at all I should have I should have retired I retired twice from the cops so like I said when I came in I only had 20 years to do and when my 20 years was coming up so the joint is dirty it would have been 50 and people said and I was really in the middle of a fucking good job really in the middle of a good job and I was running it so from that first job driving the car and not seeing any fucker getting up at 3 in the morning and what have you at the end I wasn't only deploying as a UC I was covering jobs I was acting as a cover officer and that's the conduit between the UC and his operational team he's a firewall he's a protector he looks after your interests and he's generally another UC so I was doing cover I was doing deployment and then I was putting jobs together I was doing tactical advisors for my operation candle that was I got given a problem it's anywhere solving this and we did a infiltration and that's what candles are about and that's where Sam features and as a result of that we got you know emotionally involved I should be saying How do you when you retire then try and get back into normal life the dislike become boring because there's not much activity or can you start can you enjoy it I'm not a sit down sort of person I've got to keep doing things I just do things I just find things to do so I retired for the first time third time about 10 years ago and I was just going to take a year off I was going to detoxify myself for a year not do anything go and play golf go and places I want to go and visit just you know just do shit for a year just to get it out of my system and so I retired on the first of the month and I went to a business start exhibition in the up two in London and I came back when I was working and anyway I won't go into that because someone will say fucking I know who he is now so I went to this business start exhibition and come back and I said to Sam have you sat in my life for a moment and I spent three months building a business building the foundations for a business so you know did I sit at home and think what to do now I got a web designer I bought and went on training courses and bought the equipment the best equipment and the best products and the best thing I did was I bought three BT phone numbers and I had them all diverted to my mobile phone and there were three numbers in three different towns along a stretch of motorway and I looked like a fuck off big business I looked like a franchise and it was me one mobile phone and a van absolutely caused me it went ballistic and in year two just coming up to the third year anniversary I was in Palm Springs on me all the days because I had me travel but the guy I then had people working for me I had people on zero arm contracts I was buying and bookkeeping, recruiting, HR and I was running it all from study at home then the guy I had as sort of manager used to have a carpet fitting company and we'd go in and I'd let in agents schools, councils contracts everybody and we started laying carpets and we'd started doing the maintenance as long as there was no gas, water and electric flowing through it we'd do all that malarkey well after coming up for three years I realised I'd got a business and I wouldn't need a hobby but I've got a fucking business How was it writing your book? Legends and I cover legends Yeah, really enjoyed it a lot of help from that lad Benley but yeah it was good because I think there's about seven different jobs in there Where can people buy your book? Yeah, get on Amazon and it's there Biggest bookshop in the world now if you're interested in it get on Amazon David Lacourouge How would you like to finish up on anything brother? Well mate, I don't know how long we've been there in the world It's about an hour and 40 minutes You can talk big man, you can tell you're a copper but for coming on a day and telling your story I've thoroughly enjoyed that people like these kinder stories, I know we couldn't get in depth you don't want to give too much of your identity away which is understandable but for anybody that's maybe want to join the army or the corpus what advice would you have for them? Don't go in the police at 18 it's all different now because they have to have a degree so you can leave college while at 18 then join the police, do three years getting your degree but you're still on the streets working but the first jobs I got sent to as a cop and most people get sent to are domestic violence Mr and Mrs are knocking lumps out of each other I grew up in a house full of domestic violence to me walking into that didn't faze me and you know what I said about using discretion nine times out at ten the cops are going there grab the blog, take it to the cells put it in the cells all the night and just waste of money waste of time, waste of effort and everything else I used to go in there, I take the blog out I take it to his brother's house, I take it to his mate's house and again you're just winning the respect to these people by doing that so you know why I mean I have arguments I have arguments with all my wives and my current partner but so the police I wouldn't do the police until you've got some life skills until you've been out there do a different job whether you're working in your coffee shop or a warehouse or something but do something and then you've got something in that toolbox when you come to the old bill Diane is there any social media people can contact what's the website have you got a website? no I don't obviously no well my co-author on that on undercover legends Bentley he's got all that and he acts as a bit of a firewall for me to be honest so if anybody wants to know anything get hold of him for coming on this day thank you for giving me the time I wish you all the best for the future and I look forward to maybe seeing you again cheers buddy, really enjoyed it thank you