LEON REID IN HOT WATER
MENAPIANS CLUBMAN LEON REID’S OLYMPIC DREAM MAY BE OVER AMID DRUGS CONTROVERSY
WITH a cursory glance at the Menapians Athletics Club website, you’ll notice several pictures and little pieces on Leon Reid. Though not a Wexford native, Reid was welcomed with open arms upon deciding to switch allegiances from Team GB to Ireland. He immediately blew everyone away with his talent, one which he was set to take to the world stage to represent Ireland in the 200m at the Tokyo Olympics in just over three months time. However, those involved with the club could only watch on in shock last week as their poster boy became embroiled in a high profile scandal.
It emerged that the 26 yearold sprinter was among four men charged with drugs, firearms and money-laundering offences in Bristol Magistrates’ Court. He is now facing charges relating to a South West Regional Organised Crime Unit investigation into the large scale supply of drugs. Individually, he is facing charges of conspiracy to supply class A (cocaine), permitting premises to be used in the production of class A (crack cocaine), concealing criminal property and acquiring criminal property.
He was released on court bail, with one of the four arrested, fellow sprinter Romaine Hyman, remanded in custody. A warrant was entered for the arrest of a fifth man. Reid has not yet entered a plea and is due to appear again at Bristol Crown Court on May 12.
Full details of the arrest were first reported by Matt Lawton for The Times, noting that the arrests were part of Operation Venetic, ‘the UK law-enforcement response to the take-down of encrypted global communications service EncroChat’.
Items including six encrypted phones, a Glock 19 handgun, a carbine conversion kit, a silencer, an extended magazine, ammunition, eight kilos of cocaine, four kilos of crystal MDMA, 3,000 ecstasy tablets, a hydraulic press, and £434,000 cash have also been seized during the investigation.
The athletics community seemed stunned as the allegations emerged. In Wexford, for Menapians AC it was a bolt from the blue. Club Chairman Michael McKeown followed the approach being taken by Athletics Ireland and offered little comment.
‘We had a committee meeting last night, which was scheduled and not directly related to this, and basically we decided that we would be following the advice of Athletics Ireland and will offer no comment until due process has been followed,’ he said.
When pressed further, he said: ‘Of course it was a big shock. We’re only reading about it in the media like anyone else. I’d say he’s been representing us for about four or five years. For an athlete to represent Ireland, they have to be affiliated to an Irish club.’
How Reid came to be associated to the Wexford club is somewhat of a long story. The woman he calls his mother, Claire Russell, gave him his connection to the model county. A native of Enniscorthy, she works as a lecturer at Bath University and is also a practicing solicitor and, after he became good friends with her son Ryan, she took Leon in at a difficult time in his life.
Reid’s upbringing was a difficult one. His mother Anne-Marie Holland was born in Belfast, but moved to Bath with her parents. She developed a severe drug addiction and died a few years back. Leon had little or no relationship with his father, owing to various stints in jail. As a result, his youth was spent moving between foster homes across the UK. He’s previously spoken of how his siblings ran into trouble ‘getting arrested, fighting, selling drugs’, but it seemed that he had avoided a similar path and put all his efforts into athletics.
In a previous interview with Balls.ie, Reid said:
‘My brother got arrested when he was 14 and he was in prison for like three years. He was in and out. So I was like, “It doesn’t look fun. It’s an inconvenience for me to come visit you in prison, so I’m not going to do that to anyone else, to inconvenience them”.’
Eventually, Reid wound up with Claire Russell and her son Ryan, who he refers to as his mother and brother.
‘He (Ryan) was always like asking why are you always moving?’ He recalled previously. ‘And he was like, why can’t you come move in with us? And I did end up moving in with them and then I moved out and then I moved back in.’
Aged 15, Reid signed up for athletics and his talent was immediately evident. He went on to win silver medals for Great Britain at the European Youth Summer Olympic Festi
ITEMS SEIZED INCLUDE A GLOCK 19 HANDGUN, 8 KILOS OF COCAINE, 4 KILOS OF CRYSTAL MDMA, 3,000 ECSTASY TABLETS, AND £434,000 CASH
val, 2013 European Athletics Junior Championships and 2015 European Athletics U23 Championships and has also represented Northern Ireland (owing to the connection via his mother) at the Commonwealth games, winning a bronze medal in the men’s 200m and earning a first athletics medal at the games for Northern Ireland in 28 years.
A souring relationship with British Athletics resulted in Reid deciding to seek a transfer to run for Ireland. It was at this point he joined Menapians AC. Sprint coach Shane McCormack, a cousin of Claire Russell’s, took him under his wing and Reid previously noted: ‘All of those guys treat me like family and they always invite me down to parties, birthdays’.
Currently away on an Olympic training camp, Mr McCormack, who also trains Irish women’s 200m record holder Phil Healy, didn’t want to be drawn on Reid’s current situation either, noting that he had stepped back from the club (Menapians) over the last few years and that he only knew what was being reported in the news the same as everyone else.
Inevitably, Reid had it levelled at him that he was ‘not good enough’ for Team GB and that’s why he sought a transfer to Ireland, but he was clear that he turned down the offer to run for Britain back in 2017, instead making clear his intention to don the green singlet. With the Tokyo Olympics due to begin on July 23 and Reid due back before the court on May 12, it’s unclear yet whether his Olympic dream is over. Athletics Ireland have offered no comment other than to say:
‘Athletics Ireland has been notified today that an Irish international athlete, Leon Reid has been charged with a criminal offence outside the jurisdiction of Ireland. Athletics Ireland cannot comment further until all elements of due process have been completed.’
Meanwhile everyone at Menapians will await the outcome of illegal proceedings, no doubt a major tarnish having been put upon what would have been a great summer occasion cheering on someone adopted as one of their own on the world stage.