How security boss John 'Winky' Watson was involved in cocaine plot involving ...

How security boss John 'Winky' Watson was involved in cocaine plot involving ...
How security boss John 'Winky' Watson was involved in cocaine plot involving ...

Promoting his business, John 'Winky' Watson liked to portray himself as a crime-fighting pillar of the community.

For a bargain price, starting at just £13 a year, homeowners in Teesside could sign up with the 41-year-old's private security company for round-the-clock protection.

'It makes people sleep well at night, knowing we are out on patrol,' said Watson, a former soldier in the Green Howards.

Businesses including the Holiday Inn joined disgruntled locals fed up with a wave of burglaries and anti-social behaviour, and before long Watson was on his way to becoming a cult figure.

In a 2019 Channel 4 documentary, Skint Britain, he was filmed hitting a punchbag inside Redcar Boxing Club, and walking around nearby Hartlepool signing up new customers. 

'These people work long hours and they don't want some little b****** robbing their belongings,' he told the producers, warming to his role as self-styled people's champion.

Promoting his business, John 'Winky' Watson liked to portray himself as a crime-fighting pillar of the community. For a bargain price, starting at just £13 a year, homeowners in Teesside could sign up with the 41-year-old's private security company for round-the-clock protection

Promoting his business, John 'Winky' Watson liked to portray himself as a crime-fighting pillar of the community. For a bargain price, starting at just £13 a year, homeowners in Teesside could sign up with the 41-year-old's private security company for round-the-clock protection

But others were not so sure. In Parliament, questions were asked about the legality of such services amid fears they might undermine the public's confidence in traditional law-enforcement agencies. 

Watson, who even appeared in an interview with Kate Garraway on Good Morning Britain in 2018 to defend his company, JWS Security, had no such qualms, boasting that his service was 'better' than the police.

'Their hands are tied with resources,' said the 16 st boxer and gym owner. 'They haven't got the manpower.'

We now know one of the reasons for that. Because far from trying to reduce crime, Watson was actually fuelling it by helping to flood the streets he was being paid to protect with cocaine.

As for his overstretched local police force, it was busy using its resources and manpower to investigate him and his criminal associates — in the process smashing one of the most sophisticated drug-smuggling rings this country has ever seen.

It is only now, with the conviction of Watson and three other men this month, that the full extraordinary story behind Operation Spoonbill can be told. 

In an investigation spanning the globe, detectives from Cleveland Police, one of Britain's smallest forces, pieced together how two crime bosses — Lance Kennedy and Jonathon Moorby — had joined forces to import and distribute huge amounts of cocaine.

The drugs were flown in to South-East England from Europe by chartered helicopter. 

Deliveries were then made to holiday homes rented by the gang from their unsuspecting owners, the chopper pilots momentarily deviating from submitted flight plans to drop off the drugs.

One such house on the coast near Dover happened to belong to the actor Miriam Margolyes, who played Professor Sprout in the Harry Potter movies.

Cash and drugs were then distributed across Britain concealed in customised vehicles — in one Audi A6, police found £69,000 in a secret compartment which was opened by operating the cigarette lighter.

In total, half a tonne of highly pure cocaine worth £17.25 million was imported over five months, between December 2015 and April 2016.

But over six years, police painstakingly took down the operation, gang member by gang member.

Moorby was finally arrested after fleeing from police by speedboat in Thailand, while Kennedy was detained by an armed military operation as he tried to cross a river into Ukraine.

In all, 33 individuals have now been jailed in separate trials, receiving a combined total of 262 years' imprisonment for their roles in the gang.

Where once they arrogantly believed they were beyond the reach of the law — two gang members even set up a clothing company called 'Cartel' — they are now all locked up behind bars.

Watson appeared in an interview with Kate Garraway on Good Morning Britain in 2018 to defend his company, JWS Security

Watson appeared in an interview with Kate Garraway on Good Morning Britain in 2018 to defend his company, JWS Security

'This was probably the biggest investigation that Cleveland Police and its organised crime unit has ever embarked upon,' Detective Chief Inspector Sarah Robinson, who led the operation, told the Mail.

'We didn't just look at the bottom level and the street dealers — to put a stop to this we disrupted and dismantled them right up to the very top.'

In 2016, academics published research which suggested that cocaine use in parts of Teesside was higher per person than in major European cities including Amsterdam, London and Paris.

The results were found by analysing domestic waste water and measuring residue of the Class A drug.

In Middlesbrough, usage fluctuated between 508mg and 707mg per 1,000 people; while in Stockton, a market town in Co Durham, it hit 1,307mg on Fridays. That compared with an average of 234mg in Paris.

Cleveland's head of crime, Detective Chief Superintendent John Bent, summed up the situation recently, saying: 'Drugs and associated crime cause untold misery to our communities, and this demonstrates that we will not tolerate this activity in our force area.'

Yet throughout this time, John Watson was being hailed as a local hero, a 'family man' and a 'gentleman' who, along with his nursery worker wife, Joanne, was widely respected in the community.

A councillor in the crime-ravaged Redcar suburb of Grangetown, where Watson was brought up, was reported as saying: 'John runs a boxing club and wants to provide another for kids in Grangetown. 

'He's making such a difference to those children and provides free security for the charity I run.'

Locals, meanwhile, continued to see Watson as something of a saviour.

Back in 2018, Gillian Thomas, then 50 and married to Sean, who ran a building firm, told a local journalist why she had signed up to JWS Security, explaining: 'It made sense because the whole village was just sick of what was happening.

'It was going on night after night —theft, criminal damage anti-social behaviour and threats — and it had reached the point where people were going to take matters into their own hands because they were sick of nothing being done.

In an investigation spanning the globe, detectives from Cleveland Police, one of Britain's smallest forces, pieced together how two crime bosses — Lance Kennedy and Jonathon Moorby — had joined forces to import and distribute huge amounts of cocaine. The drugs were flown in to South-East England from Europe by chartered helicopter. Deliveries were then made to holiday homes. One such house on the coast near Dover happened to belong to the actor Miriam Margolyes

In an investigation spanning the globe, detectives from Cleveland Police, one of Britain's smallest forces, pieced together how two crime bosses — Lance Kennedy and Jonathon Moorby — had joined forces to import and distribute huge amounts of cocaine. The drugs were flown in to South-East England from Europe by chartered helicopter. Deliveries were then made to holiday homes. One such house on the coast near Dover happened to belong to the actor Miriam Margolyes

'The nearest police stations are in neighbouring towns and aren't manned 24 hours. A private firm made sense to us.

'I can't speak for anyone else, but for less than £1 a week we feel a lot safer in our own home because we know if there's a problem we have a number to call and there will be someone straight out here.'

Another local, Louise Wright, 39, a mother of four

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