John ‘Winky” Watson promoted his business by portraying himself as a pillar of crime-fighting in 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.
Watson, a former soldier with the Green Howards, said, “It makes people feel well at night knowing that we are out on patrol.”
Businesses such as the Holiday Inn joined disgruntled residents fed up with a wave burglaries and antisocial behaviour. Watson was soon on his path to becoming a cult hero.
Skint Britain, a Channel 4 documentary from 2019, features him hitting a punchbag in Redcar Boxing Club. He also walks around Hartlepool signing 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.
John ‘Winky” Watson promoted his business by portraying himself as a community-fighting pillar. 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
Others weren’t so sure. In Parliament, questions were raised regarding the legality of such services. There were concerns that they might undermine public confidence and trust in traditional law-enforcement agencies.
Watson, who appeared on Good Morning Britain’s 2018 edition to defend JWS Security, said that his service was better than the police.
The 16-st boxer and owner of the gym said that ‘their hands are tied with resource’. They lack the manpower.
We now know the reason for that. Watson was not actually trying to reduce crime. Instead, he was fueling it by helping to flood the streets that he was being paid 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.
Now, with Watson’s conviction and the conviction of three other men this month the entire extraordinary story behind Operation Spoonbill is possible to 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 by chartered helicopter from Europe to South-East England.
Deliveries were then made from the gang to holiday homes rented from their unsuspecting homeowners, the chopper Pilots temporarily departing from submitted flight plan to drop off drugs.
Miriam Margolyes was the actor who owned a house on the coast close to Dover. He played Professor Sprout in 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.
Police took the operation down, gang member by member, over six years.
Moorby was finally detained after escaping police by speedboat in Thailand. Kennedy was detained as he tried crossing a river into Ukraine by an armed military force.
33 people were sentenced to total 262 years imprisonment in separate trials for their roles in this 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 on Good Morning Britain 2018 with Kate Garraway to defend JWS Security.
Detective Chief Inspector Sarah Robinson, who was the leader of the operation, stated that it was “probably the most extensive investigation that Cleveland Police or its organised crime unit had ever undertaken.”
‘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.’
Research published by academics in 2016 suggested that cocaine use in Teesside was more common than in major European cities like Paris, London, and Amsterdam.
The results were obtained by analysing domestic waste water, and measuring the residue of the Class-A drug.
Middlesbrough saw a fluctuation in usage between 508mg to 707mg per 1000 people, while Stockton, a market city in Co Durham, saw a spike of 1,307mg Fridays. This is compared to the average Parisian usage of 234mg.
Detective Chief Superintendent John Bent from Cleveland, Ohio, is the head of crime. He said that drugs and associated crimes cause untold misery in communities and that this shows that we won’t tolerate such activity in our area.
John Watson, along with Joanne, were widely respected in the community.
Watson was born in Redcar, and a councillor in Grangetown, a crime-ridden Redcar suburb, was reported to have said: “John runs a gym and wants to open another one for the children of Grangetown.
“He makes such an impact on those children and provides free security to the charity I run.
Watson was still seen as a saviour by the locals.
Gillian Thomas (now 50) and her husband Sean, who owned a building firm, explained to a local journalist in 2018 why she signed up to JWS Security. She said that it made sense because the entire village was sick of what was going on.
‘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 from Europe to South-East England by chartered helicopter. Deliveries were made to holiday homes. Miriam Margolyes, an actor, owned one such house near Dover.
“The nearest police stations to us are in neighboring towns. They aren’t open 24 hours a day. It made sense to us to hire a private firm.
‘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.’
Louise Wright, a 39-year-old mother of four from Redcar signed up for JWS Security after her front windows had been smashed by a thug using a crowbar at 4am in September 2018.
She said, “It was terrifying.” My children were asleep in bed, and my nerves were shredded.
“I called police, and although they took my details, they never sent anyone out for an investigation, which led me to believe that they weren’t interested in catching the responsible person.
“It felt like I’d been brushed aside, and I know many others around here who feel exactly the same.”
In a cruelly ironic twist, some believed that calling John Watson to help them remove the drug scourge and associated crime from their streets was helping to eradicate it.
Sarah Templeman (45-year-old shopworker, mother of three), invited Watson to her North Yorks village of Lingdale. The village had experienced a crimewave in June 2018.
“For 11 consecutive days, on average, five cars per night were broken into and their belongings stolen.
“My daughter’s boyfriend was a roofer. His van was broken into, his tools and snooker cue stolen.
“One of these yobs was spotted with the cue in his metal case on his way to Middlesbrough the next day, so we contacted the Pawn Shops to warn them.
‘Sure enough, his £300 cue had been sold for a tenner to buy drugs. We knew the address of the shop and knew that the culprits were on CCTV.
‘We told the police and no one went out — nothing was done. He ended up having to buy his own cue back for £10.
“When things like this happen, your faith that police can still maintain law and order vanishes.”
While anyone who has ever tried and attempted to contact the police about a burglary or act vandalism will likely feel the frustration of locals at the force’s apparent inactivity, Cleveland Police were well aware that the drug problem was far greater than Teesside.
Operation Spoonbill had already begun, so the officers were attracted to Jonathon Moorby, a former hotel manager.
After a huge drug haul was discovered at his North Yorkshire home and he was charged with possessing drugs with intent to distribute.
He fled the country in June 2014 while he waited for his trial. He then headed to Thailand. He was convicted and sentenced for 15 years imprisonment.
Although he was not in Britain, police believe that Moorby, 51 years old was still smuggling drug into the country.
An encrypted mobile phone found in a vehicle carrying cocaine and on a drug-runner’s car proved that it was linked to a Liverpool crime organization led by Lance Kennedy (34).
Kennedy, a father-of-four who was also the former director of a sofa business, was born in Wirral and managed operations from a base in Barcelona.
Police turned their attention to couriers bringing in drugs from North-West. In September 2016, they stopped Connor Fraser-Clark’s van and his wife Alison.
More than £200,000 in cash was found hidden in secret compartments in the vehicle.
A search of the Wirral home of the couple led to the discovery 16 kg of high purity cocaine hidden beneath a cot. The drugs had a street value of £11 million.
It was even more crucial to have information on their phones that gave clues as how the cocaine was being imported into Britain.
‘They [the couple]”We spoke to each other and spelled out what they were upto and what the upper echelons in the group were upto, which was when it was time to really unpick and unravel what was happening,” explained a detective involved with the case.
Particularly, references were made to helicopters and a Fraser-Clark trip to Dover.
Police would eventually identify six helicopter flights in which drugs were dropped off. These flights were matched to the movements of gang members.
Remote holiday homes were used to receive the deliveries, among them Miriam Margolyes’s £600,000 property, perched on the White Cliffs of Dover.
It was named Gun Emplacement Cottage. It was both remote and near the Continent, which made it perfect for the gang’s needs.
When news of the property’s involvement subsequently emerged, Margolyes joked that people had started to refer to her as ‘Miriam Escobar’ (after the notorious Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar)
Unbeknown to its owner, it was used for a drop-off on April 13, 2016, when 160 kg of cocaine worth at least £5.5 million was delivered to the gang.
Margolyes laughed when it became known that the property was involved. She said that people started calling her ‘Miriam Escobar, after the notorious Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar)..
A helicopter that was flying near Faversham disappeared briefly just days before Christmas.
It was found near Eastling, a small Kent village near the cottage, eight minutes later. The area was linked to gang members by phone mast intelligence at the time.
Two men with Liverpudlian accents arrived at property to collect the toys and clothes of children who had been left behind after a dispute over unpaid rental.
The manager observed them take two holdalls out of a cupboard under the stairs.
The bags were so heavy that the men had to drag them to the vehicle. They were believed to have contained cocaine that was delivered by helicopter.
The Dutch pilots also used properties in Buckinghamshire, Essex, and other areas. Once the drugs had been loaded, they were sent across the UK to be sold.
With all the pieces in place, police moved in and arrested the gang. Lance Kennedy and his deputy were caught crossing a river from Moldova to Ukraine in February 2019.
Kennedy was sentenced in July 2019 to 18 years and four month imprisonment after he admitted conspiracy to supply Class-A drugs. Eleven other associates were also sentenced.
Police received a tip that Moorby had visited Thailand and were able to track him down.
In May 2017, armed officers raided the luxury villa of Moorby on the island Koh Samui. Moorby, however, had hired a speedboat to flee to another island where he was later arrested.
After three years of running, he was finally extradited back to the UK in 2019. He was later sentenced to 14 years to run concurrently to the 15 years he was already serving.
‘Your role was as a leader — you remained in Thailand, while local dealers did your bidding,’ the judge told him.
John Watson would be tried in court, and there would be more cases.
The court heard how his phone records linked him to three other men, including drugs being couriered from Liverpool and payments of tens and thousands of pounds in cash.
He was convicted of conspiring to supply drug and will be sentenced later.
Watson denied any wrongdoing, and said that the phone calls were just “mates calling their mates”.
And earlier this week his wife, Joanne, appeared to suggest that he was a ‘victim’ — targeted because of his high profile.
“We, as a family, feel that this is a personal vendetta against John; an arrest after 4 years of no surveillance that occurred one year after the company was opened and provided the public with something they wanted. . . were crying out for,” she wrote on Facebook.
Perhaps. However, it is a different matter if they would have cried out for it if they had known what they now know of their knight in shining armour.