Straight after university I joined Customs & Excise and when we pick up the story in 1996 I was working as Private Secretary to the Chairperson of the organisation, Valerie Strachan, based at Sea Containers House, near Blackfriars station in Central London. I remember her utter devastation that a serving Customs officer, 47 year old Alastair Soutar, had been killed on duty. But this wasn’t the first Customer Officer to be killed. In 1982, Peter Bennett, a customs officer from the Investigation Division based in the Leeds office, was shot dead in an operation against a tobacco smuggling gang, leaving a wife and two children.
But in that summer of 1996, the news came through that 47 year old Customs Officer Alastair Soutar, had been killed whilst working as Chief Engineer on one of the Customs & Excise Cutters, whilst involved in a live operation to smuggle drugs. The incident had occurred off the coast of Caithness, the most north-easterly point of mainland Scotland.
He was a member of a boarding party detailed to board a suspected drug smuggling vessel, the Ocean Jubilee as soon as it entered British waters. There was a moderate sea running and the wind was a force 3 or 4 so not extreme conditions. The boarding party were equipped with body armour and protective splash down suits and as they approached, at first it seemed that no-one was on the deck of the vessel suspected to be carrying drugs. But as the Customs Cutter’s rigid inflatable boat carrying Alistair and his six colleagues got nearer to the moving vessel (a converted Oakley class lifeboat) smoke was seen coming from the wheelhouse. This suggested that the suspects were more than likely trying to destroy the drugs – as we have heard on this podcast before, a Customs Cutter is the last thing a drug smuggler wants to see on the horizon as they approach with their consignment. Alistair, a highly experienced and talented Officer, took the lead in boarding the target vessel and along with a colleague his job was to bring the moving vessel under control. As he opened one of the wheelhouse doors it all kicked off. One suspect came out and was immediately detained. At the same time, the second person on the craft left the wheelhouse through a door on the other side and jumped in the sea. An interesting move. Maybe it was because the fire was increasing in ferocity or because of the presence of Customs Officers or most probably, as he knew there were gas bottles on board near where the fire was and he thought he would take his chances in the sea rather than any explosion.
Meanwhile, the boat was still moving under its own power with its engine controls jammed. Alastair and the other Officers, felt the best course of action was to move the suspect on board towards the bow where the smoke was less intense. As they did this, the Customs inflatable was attempting to rescue the man in the sea. Alistair instructed a colleague to call the Customs Cutter to come alongside to assist the boarding party and help them and the detained smuggler leave the burning ship. He then moved back down the port side and, despite the fire, tried again to get into the burning wheelhouse to get to the controls, but with the fire raging he wasn’t able to do this.
Alastair moved forward and positioned himself with a colleague so that when the Customs Cutter came near he could throw a line to them. The Cutter approached and as it came alongside, the smuggler’s vessel Alastair was on veered into its path and the two boats collided forward of where Alastair was standing. The movement caused Alastair to lose his balance just as the Cutter rode up over the suspect vessel and Alastair was helpless to do anything as he was crushed between the two boats. Despite his colleagues doing all they could to help him, his injuries were very severe. He was airlifted to hospital but the medical experts were not able to save him. Alastair Soutar, a married father of three children, was just 47 when he died.
Alastair, from Dundee, was about to be married when he was killed.
Alastair was honoured by the Queen for his bravery. In 1998, his mum, Lorna, was given the Commendation for Bravery by Customs and Excise Chairman, Valerie Strachan, at a ceremony near Dundee. And this wasn’t the first time his bravery had been recognised. Back in 1992 he had won a Queens Gallantry Award after he saved five people from drowning in Dartmouth harbour.
So let’s take a step back. What was the Customs operation which lead to Alastair losing his life? Well, it is a long story, and depending on who you talk to, there are a number of variations and sometimes not everything is exactly as it seems. So let’s get started and let you make up your own mind. It starts in Scotland with a man called Rod Mclean who was known as ‘Popeye’. He married young but didn’t want to be just ordinary like others – he wanted money and to make a difference in the world. His first stop in this life was when he was a mercenary in Congo where he saw things that people should never see. He returned to Leith in Edinburgh and his wife Susan down on his luck but he soon found illegal and legal ways of earning money. Lots of it. His shop in Edinburgh was well known as somewhere where hundred of thousands of pounds of stolen goods were stored and sold. And when we pick up the story in 1994, he had made money from, it is said, armed robbery, property developing, gun running and drugs. He owned a huge house on the waterfront in Leith – just what he had aspired to own on his return from the Congo with nothing. But there was always speculation that Roddy was a grass. As always, it is hard to know the truth, but there are a number of quotes out there saying it was well known and understood. In February 1997 the Mirror newspaper said this in an article, I quote:
“Over the years, McLean dealt with several senior officers from Lothian and Borders Police. Most of them met McLean when they were bobbies on the beat and kept in close contact. The crook kept his police handlers happy by feeding them top grade information about serious crime and other criminals. One source revealed: “He was the most important informant this force ever had.” And several senior officers have all confirmed how McLean was getting protection in return for his services as a well-placed grass. One said: “Roddy has been a thorn in our flesh for a long time. There was a feeling he was being allowed to get away with things in return for information. He has been getting some sort of protection.”
This source, like all my sources, can be found at the bottom of this article.
But in 1994, his shop was raided by the police with loads of goods seized. Roddy snr did not face any charges, but his son, father-of-three McLean Jnr was jailed for nine months after admitting 14 charges of resetting stolen good. Meanwhile Roddy Snr had been meeting with drugs contacts in The Netherlands – major players. He planned to buy a boat and sail it to The Azores where he would meet one of the major carriers of cannabis coming from Pakistan and bring it back into Europe. This went wrong when the cargo was lost off the coast of Spain and so Roddy having taken a big financial hit planned his next job – a large importation of Cannabis from Spain. Three tonnes. The plan was for a transfer of drugs to be made by a Dutch-crewed boat, ‘Isolda’ which was sailing from Cadiz in southern Spain with the drugs onboard, having been picked up by an 8 man crew from Morocco. Running this side of the operation was a major Dutch drugs trafficker, rumoured to be very well connected in Organised Crime circles, Jan van Rijs. The dutch crew would transfer the drugs to Roddy’s boat for distribution – and this is where Roddy used his expertise.
He looked at the advantages and disadvantages of which site to load the cargo, examining ports around the north coast of Scotland and even as far down as Leith Docks in Edinburgh. In the end he plumped for Inverness as the port wasn’t bustling but it wasn’t so quiet like others on that coast which meant that every movement would be noted. A tail lift lorry would be used to move the cargo from the boat so that the actual consignment was exposed for the very smallest amount of time – a crucial stage in the operation. Inverness was also good for access to the very busy A9, where lots of lorries travel in both directions every day to Edinburgh and beyond. It also gave good transport routes to Glasgow via the M8 and this was the first drop-off site for distribution of the drugs. A tonne of cannabis would be taken to a Govan industrial estate so it could be sold from there to the Scottish market. The lorry wouldn’t be travelling alone as one car would travel around two miles in front in case of any police checks or other issues and could contact the lorry driver so action could be taken. All contact was through walkie talkies rather than mobile. The other car would be a couple of miles behind the lorry just in case there was a problem such as the lorry being involved in accident, breaking down or similar. The lorry driver had a cover story in case he was stopped by traffic police and this was that he was carrying asbestos material which was sealed in the back of the lorry – it was thought that unless the police had specific information, this should stop any routine search of the cargo.
After Glasgow, the lorry would then continue south to England on to the M1 and to another industrial estate near London’s City airport where a London crime boss would pay £1m for the delivery. The cash would then be returned back to Edinburgh that evening and the lorry, that had been hired for a one way trip, would remain in London.
Now these plans were coming together, it was vital to find the right boat, and Roddy managed to locate the Ocean Jubilee for sale in Milford Haven in south-west Wales. It was an old 36 foot lifeboat which was perfect as it was able to transport the drugs and was also pretty much unsinkable. He travelled from Scotland to Wales with the man he planned to use to help him with the engineering on the boat, Gary Hunter. After driving down and checking out the boat, they paid the money before sailing north on the Irish sea to the North Scottish port of Scrabster, which is about 20 miles west of John O’Groats. They arrived on 20 June after no major mishaps and the boat seemed a good one.
After a practice run on 25 July, the handover was set for 29 July 1996 as Jan van Rijs sent the co-ordinates of the meeting point to Roddy. Just to be on the safe side, the Ocean Jubilee contained a number of flammables in the event of the authorities intercepting them. Frankly, the boat was the evidence and if it sunk, it would be an almighty pain for the law enforcement agencies to retrieve the consignment. With some apprehension, Roddy & Gary headed out to the meet. There were more boats about than Roddy expected which concerned him and there was also aircraft traffic just above the clouds, but he told himself that he was being unnecessarily jittery.
The meet took place and the drugs were loaded on the ocean Jubilee and they set off for Inverness. But the grey dot on the horizon worried Roddy and as it got closer he could see it was the 34 metre Customs Cutter, Sentinel – the largest boat in the UK Customs fleet. He knew that the game was up and somehow, somewhere the plan had been compromised. When he saw the inflatable with the boarding party approaching, he doused the boat in spirits and set it alight. When the boat veered violently to port in the growing swell, Gary fell off the boat – he didn’t jump – and while the inflatable went to pick him up the cutter hit the Ocean Jubilee, killing the Customs Officer who Roddy later knew as Alastair Soutar. Roddy and Gary were brought back to the mainland at Wick where they were taken into custody.
It was clear that Customs had been very aware of the plot for a while through their ‘Operation Balvenie’. A tracing device had been placed on the Isolda whilst she was still moored in Spain. And Customs investigators had broken into the Ocean Jubilee before the rendezvous to place trackers. On the day of the meet, surveillance video was taken from the sky – in one of the low flying planes seen by Roddy before the drugs were transferred on board his boat.
Nine men stood trial in Dunfermline, just north of Edinburgh, for a trial that lasted 55 days. Roddy McLean snr admitted trying to bring the cannabis into Scotland, and endangering the life of Alastair Soutar. His son, McLean jnr was found guilty of drug-smuggling. The case against a ninth accused, Kenneth Corrigan, 38, of Edinburgh, was found not proven.
At the end of the trial there really were quite remarkable scenes as one of the men, 38 year old Brian Silverman from London, took the guilty verdict very badly. He turned to two of the Customs Officers in court who had played a part in the operation and accused one of being “a fit-up merchant” and shouted at the other: “Believe me, when I get out I will get you.” Calming down, he then turned to Alastair Soutar’s sister Eleanor, sitting in the public gallery, and said: “I am sorry your brother died. Lady, I am sorry.” And Roddy Mclean also expressed his sorrow that Alistair Soutar died during the course of the operation.
At sentencing which took place at the High Court in Edinburgh, Lord Dawson told the gang members that they were involved in a major league smuggling operation. The judge told McLean he had placed flares and accelerants among the contraband cargo with the intent of destroying it if they were intercepted at sea, saying: “You put this deadly plan into operation, endangering the lives of a number of officers bravely doing their duty and causing the death of one such officer.” For his crimes, Roddy Mclean Snr was sent to prison for 28 years and Gary Hunter got 21 years.
Alastair’s sister Eleanor commented: “The verdicts are brilliant. I hope they spend an awful lot of time behind bars.”
Roddy Snr and Gary Hunter both appealed their sentences, with their lawyers arguing the pair should not have been sentenced on the basis that they caused Alastair Soutar’s death. It was also pointed out that the Crown did not charge them with the culpable homicide of the customs officer. The Lord Justice Clerk, Lord Cullen, who heard the appeal with Lords Kirkwood and Hamilton, said they found the trial judge’s reference to the cause of Alastairs Soutar’s death “disturbing”.
The judge Lord Dawson had said in the original trial, when talking about the plan to destroy the evidence, ‘You put this deadly plan into operation endangering the lives of a number of Officers of Her Majesty’s Customs & Excise bravely going about their duty, and, indeed, causing the death of one such gallant officer. Had you been, as your Counsel envisaged, charged and convicted of his homicide, I would have had to hesitation in sentencing you to a life imprisonment”.
But Mclean Snr wasn’t responsible for Alastair Soutar’s death.
The senior appeal judge added: “We have come to the conclusion that he misdirected himself in this respect. Lord Cullen said the appeal court had decided to cut two years from the sentences imposed on both McLean and Hunter for drug smuggling as they were both first offenders.
A further five years was taken off the sentences imposed on them for the additional charge of attempting to defeat the ends of justice and endangering the lives of customs officers.
Alastair Soutar’s sister, Eleanor, said she was “sickened” by the decision.
She said: “I feel sick, just sick. Hunter was one of the main men involved. They deserved everything they got.
“As far as I’m concerned life sentences for them would have suited me.”
Whilst of course having tremendous sympathy for Eleanor who had lost her brother, others were still confused by the sentences. Barry Silverman – the angry man we spoke about earlier – was described by Lord Dawson in the trial as a ‘major player’ and given 10 year in a retrial after he appealed against his original conviction which was quashed. And yet Gary Hunter, who was not a major player by any means, still received a huge sentence of 17 years whilst Mclean snr got 21 years. I wonder what you make of these sentences? Had the Customs Officer not been killed would they have been so high? Or is this the right sentence for people importing drugs?
Mclean himself asked a number of questions about the Customs operation that saw Alastair Soutar lose his life. Look, I usually don’t explore these theories in detail, but in this case I think there are valid questions to be answered. Firstly, with the huge amount of time and resources that had gone into the Customs operation, why did they decide to board the moving boat offshore? They knew where the Ocean Jubilee was going to dock so why not carry out the seizure there rather than at sea where there is more danger? Or even why not tail the consignment as it arrived at Glasgow and London thereby arresting more of the big players? I am clearly no expert but I am not sure I understand why this didn’t happen.
There was also no fatal accident report which is highly unusual. Why not? Mclean snr asked a number of questions around this and concluded that it is due to the major problems with the Customs operation. Of course, he has a great deal of bias and he believes that he was entrapped by Customs Officers, which is illegal in the UK.
He claimed that the money to buy the boat used was provided by a Customs officer and he believed that all the gang sentenced were part of this entrapment to catch four major Dutch drug traffickers who were all members of the Dutch mafia. Normally we may just dismiss this, but Customs investigations had a number of issues around this time with allegations of entrapment.
So much so that West Midlands Police ran ‘Operation Brandfield’ in 1999 after the collapse of several drug smuggling court trials involving the Customs and Excise National Investigation Service. This came about due to the customs investigation tactic used in the late 1980s onwards known as ‘controlled deliveries’. It seems that Customs began to post drug liaison officers at embassies around the world to cultivate informants. The officer would arrange for the drugs to be bought and delivered to the UK while the informant would contact the British buyers and arrange the transfer. Customs officers would be involved in supervising the transfer in the hope of catching both the supplier and British dealers.
But the issue is that under their own guidelines, customs officers should not ‘counsel, incite or procure the commission of a crime and on no account act as an agent provocateur’. Operation Brandfield looked at 92 cases and saw a number of convictions quashed. It is hard to know how many Customs officers were convicted and a number were not charged as it was ruled not to be in the public interest. At least three were sent to jail in 2006 after, and I quote from a Guardian article:
“A jury heard how they allowed at least 1.7kg of heroin to be sold in Leeds and Bradford and collaborated with a drug smuggler on the run from UK justice. They also permitted heroin suppliers in Pakistan to receive a share of customs reward money funded by taxpayers as well as cash from street sales in Britain, and planned how to break rules covering informant handling and undercover smuggling operations. Allegations against a further five officers in the north of England and a customs informant were not pursued by the Crown Prosecution Service after the long-running investigation by West Midlands police scrutinised at least 11 operations during which up to 200kg of heroin was imported into Britain during customs “controlled delivery” operations. A junior customs officer killed himself because he feared he was going to be made the fall guy for questionable operations.
So was Roddy Mclean set up by Customs Officers or was it his excuse for not getting caught? We are unlikely to ever know for sure. There is more to come and next week I will conclude this story.
This story was released as episode 419 of the UK True Crime Podcast .
The sources used were as follows:
https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/55087/supplement/3858/data.pdf
Medal for drugs hero. – Free Online Library
PressReader.com – Digital Newspaper & Magazine Subscriptions
BBC News | UK | Drugs smugglers’ jail terms cut
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cut-Throat-Vicious-Mercenary-Gun-Runner-International/dp/1840189754