Mr C
Gold, Guns & Grasses: The Flying Squad In The Court of Appeal
Was a leading organised crime figure also an informant? That was the tantalising question left hanging in the stale air of Court 7 after a two day appeal hearing concluded last Thursday in London.
The appeal was based on ‘old school’ corruption allegations involving Metropolitan police Flying Squad operations against armed robbers.
The case is highly unusual as it alleges a fit up of the factually guilty appellant, Kevin Wishart, who was caught red-handed with £1.4m worth of gold ingots in a getaway car.
Be that as it may, the case raises wider important questions about the fairness of the trial process and the use of informants.
A former Flying Squad detective, Dan Williams, had come forward to give evidence in support of Wishart.
Williams was alleging his superiors had covered up the role of a notorious gangster working as an agent provocateur.
Throughout the two-day hearing this man, a prolific armed robber, was referred to as Mr C.
Wishart was friends with Mr C and had told him about the plan to rob Johnson Matthey’s depositary in Enfield, north London.
Mr C responded by supplying guns, the getaway car and met the inside man. But he pulled out, says Wishart, just before the robbery went down in March 2004.
The Flying Squad happened to be lying in wait for Wishart and his two armed accomplices. Mr C, however, was never arrested.
The prosecution, police and its supposed watchdogs - the Independent Office of Police Conduct and the Criminal Cases Review Commission - have done all they can to silence Williams and deny he is a whistleblower.
But there he was, on Wednesday 9 April, brandishing a 109-page witness statement claiming the defence was not told that Mr C was an informant and the Flying Squad knew early on that Johnson Matthey was the target.
If the Court of Appeal believe Williams, then Wishart should win his appeal, many other convictions will get overturned and large damages awarded against the Met.
Before the appeal started, the police sought a secret hearing in front of the three appeal court judges.
In these so-called public interest immunity (PII) hearings, the appellant is not allowed to know even the general category of sensitive material being discussed behind closed doors between the prosecution and the judges.
However, the inference reasonably drawn when PII hearings take place is that they involve issues around “covert assets” deployed by law enforcement or the intelligence services.
These can be bugs, phone taps and informants, or Covert Human Intelligence Sources, as they are now known.
Most likely, therefore, the PII hearing in Wishart’s appeal touched on the true role of Mr C.
An hour later, the appeal hearing began in open court with The Upsetter in attendance to record the occasion.
Williams was followed in the witness box by the senior former Flying Squad detectives who he claimed were behind the cover up.
The Appeal Court judges have retired to consider their judgment on whether to grant Wishart permission to appeal so late in the day. But before leaving Court 7, they imposed a reporting restriction on naming Mr C.
Was this a final desperate flourish by gatekeepers of the secret state? With murky cases such as this one, who knows. In one sense, such a gagging order on the media made little sense because that horse had well and truly bolted from the police stables.
Here’s what went down.
