SENIOR DETECTIVE RISKED OFFICERS FOR BRIBE FROM BRITAIN'S TOP DRUG BARON

Things began to go wrong for the drugs surveillance operation in the
Liverpool 8 ghetto when the two old steel containers were drenched in
petrol and set on fire. Someone had told the dealers that inside the
containers was a front-line police observation post housing five "bizzies".

The same fate befell the camera, recording deals from an empty
upstairs flat through a tiny aperture drilled in a window sealed up
with breeze blocks. Just to be sure, the dealers torched the flat,
terrifying the old dear next door.

The dealers were working with a bent cop, someone with advance
knowledge of police operations who had by 1988 opened a hot line to
the drug sellers around Granby Street. Down the road at Admiral Street
police station, detectives began to suspect betrayal.

Only a senior officer informed of all drugs policing could be so
well-briefed about undercover operations. The name of the then deputy
head of the Merseyside drugs squad, Elmore "Elly" Davies, was
pencilled in the log of detectives under suspicion.

Yesterday, he was convicted of disclosing information to pervert the
course of justice. A detective chief inspector, with 30 years' service
and a son in the force, Davies is the most senior British police
officer jailed for corruption in modern times. He sold the inside line
on an investigation to an organised crime syndicate. He tried to get
the son of an alleged drugs baron off a firearms charge. He was to be
paid UKP20,000.

The trial dealt only with Davies's final act of corruption.There was
no evidence about abortive exercises around dismal Granby Street
during the 1980s, or the two years from 1990 when Davies was a chief
of detectives in the Turks and Caicos Islands, on the Caribbean
mainline for drug runs to Florida.

What turned Davies crooked was in part a mix of brooding hubris and
insecurity. In the witness box, his knuckle-size gold and ebony signet
ring catching the light, he made awkward, embarrassing jokes. He
agreed he had been passed over twice for promotion to superintendent
and was too old for the sort of force Merseyside was becoming, too
down-to-earth, too gold-chained Elly-the-lad.

Then he was asked about a bugged chat in his sitting room, when he
told Michael Ahearne, his friend Warrior from the Gladiators TV show -
who was also jailed, with another associate, Tony Bray - that he was
"very, very pissed off". He replied it was just a throwaway line, "a
load of bullshit".

When he was arrested, on 13 March last year, Davies was a chief
inspector on UKP36,000 a year. Aged 50, proud, garrulous,
twice-divorced, hard-living and a Freemason, he ran CID in Tuebrook
division, Liverpool, where crimes are committed at the rate of one an
hour.

He had high hopes that a back "injury" would retire him soon from the
force "on a nice pension - UKP500 a week in my hand just for sitting
on my extremely fat arse". He reckoned he could work as a security
consultant on cruise liners - "UKP500 a week and all your keep and
ale".

Davies was greedy for more money when, in July 1996, who should get in
touch from exile in the Netherlands but Curtis Francis Warren, the
country's 401st richest person, through his property holdings,
according to the Sunday Times "Rich List", and the most successful
British criminal ever captured.

Warren was worth UKP180m, garnered from drugs dealing and smuggling on
a grand scale, who needed a favour from a well-placed policeman. The
son of a "business associate" was in trouble after shooting at a
police officer - could Elly fix it for an appropriate payment? Davies
agreed.

Warren was riding his luck. He stood trial in 1992 charged with
importing 18 lead ingots concealing a ton of cocaine, worth UKP260m.
After being acquitted on a technicality, he told Customs officers as
he left the court: "I'm just off now to spend my UKP87m and you can't
touch me."

Despite his brush with the courts, he resumed his transatlantic trade.
"He was greedy," a Customs man said. "And there are no escape clauses
in Colombian contracts. If they want you to carry on working for them,
it's prudent not to quit."

Warren assumed Customs officers were watching him, so he moved his
cocaine concession to the Netherlands, but he was caught and last year
began a 12-year jail term after bungling the import of 317kg of
cocaine, 67kg of heroin, and 1.76 tonnes of cannabis.

He was caught after Customs told Dutch police all about the
semi-literate Scouser who had moved in to the mansion at 53
Hoofdstraat in Sassenheim. The Dutch listened to Warren's phone calls.
Among the conversations were discussions about an attempted murder
inquiry involving Philip Glennon, scion of a notorious Liverpool crime
family who had amassed a fortune from drug-running.

Warren's closest business associates included Philip "Philly" Glennon
senior, father of Warren's lover, Stephanie, and chairman of his local
Neighbourhood Watch. Each week he buys at least UKP25 of lottery
tickets - driving to the newsagent in his Mercedes.

Glennon junior's machismo had got the better of him on 14 July 1996.
He quarrelled in the Venue nightclub, with members of the rival Ungi
family and shot at the bouncer who threw him out, then fired at the
constable who pursued him. The bouncer was allegedly paid UKP50,000
from Glennon. Next day, he retracted his statement.

That left the officer's evidence and the gun. The family turned to
Warren and Warren turned to Elly Davies. The incident had taken place
on Davies's patch. Phone calls collected by the Dutch made clear that
the detective chief inspector was only too keen to help. He could get
information on anything Warren wanted. Elly was "made up"
(delighted).

While the Dutch had been bugging Warren, suspicions about Davies were
growing in the Merseyside police and, in December 1996, they arranged
for "friends" from another law enforcement agency to install a
miniature microphone in Davies's sitting room. Merseyside police had
justification for cocking an electronic ear to his sitting room. The
microphone picked up Davies plotting to have the attempted murder
investigation "boxed off". Davies disclosed to Warrior, and other
Warren emissaries, forensic information, warnings about bugged
telephones, and strategies to get Glennon junior bail.

Warren was going to meet Davies in North Wales, but there was a delay
and then Warren got arrested. Davies was heard on the secret bug
saying if the appointment had been kept, that Warren "wouldn't be in
prison in Holland. I would have said to him, 'Don't talk on the phone
and don't go back to Holland'. I bet he would have paid UKP50,000 for
that."

Checked-by: Patrick Henry