'We did not deserve Ray Mallon'

Mr Deputy Speaker

By my reckoning, this is the fifth adjournment debate on Operation Lancet, but it is the first to be held consequent upon a partial conclusion - that of the 14 guilty pleas and forced resignation of former Detective Superintendent Ray Mallon from Cleveland Police.

And though Operation Lancet is not terminated it might be said, for the first time, with facts available, the House is able to have a reasoned - if short - debate.

Operation Lancet has gone on for four and a half years.

What has it been about?

In part, it has been about allegations that a group of Middlesbrough detectives had given inducements such as drugs to criminals in order to gain information.

There were suspicions that close personal relationships existed between some Cleveland Police officers and people believed to be drug traffickers.

Even if only a fraction of the complaints were true the officers involved had behaved in a regular and systematic fashion, apparently safe in the knowledge that compromised colleagues would not betray their activities.

When Mallon pleaded guilty to 14 disciplinary charges arising out of Operation Lancet he converted these allegations in relation to drugs into facts.

Operation Lancet has highlighted a culture amongst some Middlesbrough police officers who traded with drugs as their currency - a fact again confirmed by Mallon's guilty pleas.

Operation Lancet found that drugs taken into police custody were not properly recorded, handled or correctly disposed of by destruction.

What happened to the unaccounted drugs?

They were given to prisoners in police cells in exchange for information. And they were used by police officers themselves.

All confirmed by Mallon's guilty pleas.

Mallon based his entire policy of zero tolerance on one officer who was himself a known drug abuser and another who had already been removed from the CID for disciplinary reasons. According to the West Yorkshire police report on which Mallon relies, these two individuals were 'the right tools to do the job'.

And having chosen the tools, it became hardly surprising - even to the West Yorkshire Police - that he became less forthcoming in dealing with allegations about them.

Even the West Yorkshire Police accept that he dealt with these in an unprofessional way.

The facts are simple.

The Female Prisoner

Mallon failed to investigate an allegation that a female prisoner had been given heroin by a detective sergeant within his force. An employee of a firm of Middlesbrough solicitors told a civilian custody officer on April 7, 1997, that her client had indeed been supplied the heroin. This information was passed on to an inspector who informed Detective Mallon.

Mallon, however, made no effort to investigate this allegation and indeed raised it directly with the detective concerned.

He thus thwarted any operation to ascertain the truth - or otherwise - of this allegation.

He has now pleaded guilty that between March 1997 and May 1997 he failed to investigate an allegation that a detective had supplied a controlled drug to a female prisoner.

Prisoner in Cell

On May 23, 1997, it emerged that two detectives - the detective who was a known drug abuser and the detective who was a risk taker - or the tools for the job according to West Yorkshire Police - had taken a prisoner from police cells to identify houses he had burgled, but in truth the prisoner was supplied with heroin and taken to a pub by the officers - this comes from the West Yorkshire report on which Mallon relies.

The prisoner was a known heroin addict.

He was on charges of theft and burglary.

The detectives had stopped by a garage on the way to the pub and returned with some gear - a euphemism for controlled drugs. At the pub the prisoner was given two pints of beer and allowed to use a controlled drug. Due to the drinks and drugs - not quite knowing what he was doing or where he was - the prisoner signed a statement admitting to a number of offences that would be taken into consideration at his forthcoming trial.

This was how the clear-up rate of crime was improved in Mallon's Middlesbrough.

When the prisoner was returned to his prison cell the custody officer noticed the remains of a wrap of heroin still in his possession. This was a roll of aluminium containing heroin which the prisoner had been given by one of the detectives and already used. Traces remained on the aluminium.

Mallon said to me on BBC TV - North of Westminster - that allegations he had pleaded guilty to offences that were drug related were lies.

He also claimed in The Northern Echo that five of the allegations surrounded an incident where it was claimed a prisoner was taken out of a police station and given drugs. He says he was satisfied no drugs were passed.

In fact, the drugs would end up in Holme House prison with the prisoner's belongings - the aluminium foil and the heroin clinging to it - when the prisoner was remanded to the prison. All these facts were uncovered by Operation Lancet whose team ensured the incident was thoroughly investigated.

The fact that a prisoner had been given drugs by one of his detectives was not only known to Mallon. He sent one of the detectives back into the cell - prior to his removal to Holme House - and ordered the custody sergeant to allow him access. The detective told the prisoner that he must keep his mouth shut - a prudent course which the prisoner had felt he should adopt anyway.

Mallon then addressed junior officers with the force and told them they too must keep their mouths shut. They must forget about the incident. At this meeting Mallon even praised the officer whom he knew to be on drugs. He did this in a hectoring and dismissive fashion - setting no example to these young officers at all.

On February 4, 2002, Mallon pleaded guilty of failing to investigate allegations that detectives had supplied a controlled drug to a prison and, following on his guilty plea, he was required to resign from the force. He also pleaded guilty to the fact that he did not pass on information in his possession when this incident was investigated by another officer.

Zero tolerance seemed to be based on a drug abusing detective and a risk taking detective who obtained statements from a prisoner so sozzled on booze and heroin that he admitted to other offences.

Public Complaints

Not all members of the public were enamoured of this policy.

Two of them made a number of serious allegations of criminal conduct against the two detectives - the drug abuser and the risk taker - or rather, the tools for the job.

The allegations were reported to a police constable who brought them to the attention of his inspector. A report was prepared by that inspector, but when the report was presented to Mallon he deleted the majority of the allegations - and instructed the inspector to prepare a diluted version.

These were serious allegations.

They required investigation.

The inspector retained the original report which clearly shows where certain allegations had been deleted and comments written on it by Mallon in his own handwriting. This document is a smoking gun to Mallon's lies, clear evidence that he was protecting officers who should have been prosecuted rather than protected.

Mallon has already pleaded guilty to all of the above and accepted they amount to neglect of duty, misconduct to a member of a police force, falsehood and prevarication, and discreditable conduct.

For this too he was required to resign.

The passing of drugs and the cover-up thereof are serious disciplinary offences to which to plead guilty, along with other guilty pleas.

I should add that had Mallon's guilty pleas been before the West Yorkshire Police - who conducted a review of the evidence - they would have come of necessity to a possible conclusion that indeed there was now sufficient standard of proof to support a criminal prosecution.

The West Yorkshire police report says that given Mallon's denials of wrongdoing it would be difficult to prove criminality.

But Mallon denies no more.

He has pleaded to wrongdoing.

He has pleaded to criminality.

House Raid

Mallon has also pleaded guilty to failing to investigate that drug dealers were being tipped off to the imminence of a drug raid.

Police officers executed a search warrant in respect of drugs that might be found on premises in Marton Road, Middlesbrough.

Upon their arrival, it became evident that the occupier had been forewarned.

No drugs were found.

One of the officers dialled 1471 and obtained details of the last incoming call before the search. That number was Middlesbrough Police Station.

Mallon caused no enquiries to be made.

He caused no enquiries because he knew who had made the call and why he had made it.

Because the house that had been raided had been not only the house of a drug dealer but an informant as well.

He was on the books of Middlesbrough CID during Ray Mallon's watch.

Certainly he would not be a witness who might be relied upon had Mallon ever been brought before a criminal court.

On this guilty plea, too, Mallon was required to resign. He pleaded guilty, too, to lying - lying on November 27, 1997, when being interviewed for police purposes.

He was in fact required to resign on 11 of the 14 charges to which he pleaded guilty.

Costs

It has also to be said that when allegations against Mallon's officers became a flood rather than a trickle Mallon stayed mum.

Yet he declined to impart any of his knowledge to Operation Lancet's enquiry team.

He hindered Operation Lancet from the outset and ensured that it stretched its duration far beyond its natural life.

At a heavy cost to the taxpayer.

A cost of £3.3 million - not £7 million tagged to it by Operation Lancet's detractors.

Of this £1.9 million has been returned by central government to local ratepayers.

But Mallon perpetrated a fraud on these ratepayers.

He made allegations of key members of the Operation Lancet enquiry team, requiring each and every one to be investigated. This cost the ratepayer £369,223. Needless to say, none of his allegations were substantiated.

Then there were costs specific to him within Operation Lancet - some £320,589 - plus of course a proportion of on-line costs of the operation.

In all he gave the Teesside ratepayer a bill of £689,812 - all of which would have been saved if he had fully co-operated with Operation Lancet and pleaded guilty to these disciplinary offences at the outset.

Why did he do it?

Why did he so ruin a police career?

He breached these disciplines and committed these offences knowingly and deliberately because he did not wish to damage his reputation as Robocop - because he did not want the public to know that his policy was based on passing drugs for information, obtaining admissions from prisoners of other offences they might or might not have committed - clearing up the crime rate in an entirely bogus fashion.

By false pretences.

And using drug abusing and risk taking detectives - his tools for the job - in order to do it.

This was his policy.

This was his watch.

It is by his own mouth and his own guilty pleas that he stands convicted.

His vanity was such that not only did he prefer to turn a blind eye to drug dealing rather than act as a senior police officer with duties within the force and to the local community.

We do not need a police force of zero tolerance that rides rough-shod over human rights.

The streets might be clear in totalitarian countries but we do not want their tactics here. We have and we must abide by the rule of law.

Middlesbrough people deserved better.

They did not deserve to be deceived by Mallon.

They deserve - and have now got - a dedicated police force acting within and not without the law.

Ray Mallon walked on the wild side.

He pleaded guilty to fourteen disciplinary offences and was forced to resign from the force because he was guilty of those offences. The evidence against him was such that had he not pleaded guilty - he would have been found guilty.

He has known all along he was guilty.

And he will be guilty to the end of his days.

I am glad to say Cleveland Police are now confronting daily drug problems in Middlesbrough and elsewhere on Teesside. Their policy is to arrest a drug dealer a day - and up to Monday of this week we have had 134 search operations of people, vehicles or premises in Middlesbrough district alone.

There have been 127 warrants under the Misuse of Drugs Act.

There have been 122 arrests - 75 per cent male.

Drugs to the value of £12,500 have been recovered, cash of £24,500 seized.

There have been positive results in 70 out of 134 operations.

I am grateful to the Minister for listening courteously to me as I have given the background to Operation Lancet.

In the short time available to me, I would ask him to:

* confirm that Mallon entered unequivocal pleas of guilty on two separate occasions to all 14 of the disciplinary charges - some of which I have outlined tonight - after having maintained his innocence for over four years;

* that these offences were drug-related and related to a culture of passing drugs in prison cells to gain information, tipping off drug houses of impending raids and using drug addicts as informers;

* that such disciplinary charges were extremely serious - Mallon was a senior officer with 23 years in the service at the time he committed these offences and because of their seriousness Mallon was required to resign from the service forthwith;

* that they were not, as one noble Lord has described them, 'minor matters'.

* that Mallon pleaded guilty to lying in his interviews on November 27, 1997 - can the Minister confirm this;

* that Cleveland Police Authority unanimously proposed that all of the papers in Operation Lancet be eventually returned to the Crown Prosecution Service, having regard to Mallon's guilty pleas;

* Can he confirm that Mallon has never been cleaared of criminal conduct either in June 2000 or any other time. That the West Yorkshire Police had to agree that given the nature of individuals who Mallon was dealing with - drug abusing detectives, informants who were drug dealers themselves - given their lifestyles and convictions - it would not have been possible to reach a conviction beyond reasonable doubt.

I would invite the Minister to reflect, too, upon how Operation Lancet was undermined from the outset, a campaign orchestrated by Mallon himself so that the cost to the taxpayer rose steadily and has ended at £3.3 million - plus his personal bill of £689,812 on false allegations and his own worthless denials.

I would also invite the Minister to spare a thought for the Cleveland Police Chief Constable Barry Shaw.

The Chief Constable has been throughout Operation Lancet a much maligned man.

He is the oldest chief constable in the country.

He might have retired two years ago, but he wished to see Operation Lancet through to its conclusion.

He has wanted to leave behind a decent police force, an efficient police force, one free of the taint of corruption.

He has wanted to confront the social problems of our time that are not of his making - and to create a police force able and willing to work with the public, notwithstanding the difficulties.

Hence the programme of arresting a drug dealer a day - hence an organised crime unit, more police officers on the streets, an improved communications system, resources to fight crime across the four policing districts.

He should be praised - not berated - for these policies and I trust the Minister will agree.

The Taylor Review is to inform the deliberations of the Home Office in establishing a new Independent Police Complaints Commission.

Cleveland Police have contributed to the review.

The Review report, I know, will be made to the Home Secretary.

What he must be able to ensure is that the delaying tactics by Mallon that has cost the taxpayer so dear in Operation Lancet - his allegations against key members of the Operation Lancet team - can never be repeated at such cost to the ratepayer.

I thank him in advance for his answers.

This adjournment debate might seem routine, but it goes to the heart of the society in which we live. A society that is decent and built on the rule of law. Or a society where anything goes, rules might be bent, the rule of law discarded.

I know the kind of society I want.

I know the kind of society the Minister wants.

And I know the kind of society the people want.