Gangster’s wife: ‘MI5 spied on us all...even our cat’
THE wife of gangster Terry Adams has claimed MI5 surveillance teams intruded on every aspect of their lives, even down to watching her waving at the family cat.
Ruth Adams said police probed into the “most private moments” of her family, making notes and humiliating them.
She claimed that MI5 bugging of the former mansion she shared with her husband was a violation of their privacy and was more akin to an anti-terror operation.
Mrs Adams, 58, set up a “rough justice” blog in the wake of the £10million operation, which eventually ended with her husband’s arrest in 2003.
In a post, she argues that 21 months of secret recordings at a former home in Finchley, north London, from 1997-1999 yielded no evidence of crimes, other than mortgage fraud. She said, instead, investigators took notes about their private life, including toilet habits, when they made love, or chastised their daughter, or even when Adams broke wind. She wrote: “The police deliberately sought to intrude into our most private moments, to transcribe them and... to joke and poke fun at us.
“The incidents are, acts of lovemaking in our bedroom, ‘TA toiletry habits rehearsed; 19/7/97 0951 mention of, our 14 year old daughter’s use of deodorant; TA passing wind’. It’s purpose was none other than offensive and gratuitous.”
Adams is said to have run the crime family, known as the A-Team, with brothers Patsy, 62, Tommy, 60, and Michael, 53, who are all currently in prison.
The gang was suspected of links to 25 murders and crimes such as extortion, drug dealing and police corruption.
At its height in the 1990s and early 2000s, police believed the gang amassed £200million that was stashed in offshore accounts.
Mrs Adams admitted false details were used on mortgage applications and said the court accepted their cash didn’t come from drugs.
Although surveillance stopped in 1999, the couple were not arrested for four years and charges against her were swiftly dropped. Mrs
Adams said they discovered a bug in their sofa and were convinced their phone lines were tapped. She also believed cameras had been rigged up, claiming there were transcripts which said: “Terry shrugs”, “Terry frowns”, or “Ruth gestures to Tiffany the cat”.
She said that the court case and surveillance operation left her and her daughter with psychological issues. Adams, 64, was jailed for seven years in 2007 for money laundering. He had also been ordered to repay £750,000 and cleared most of the debt.
Last week he avoided a further 12-month jail term by paying off £46,258 in court costs. During the hearing, he claimed he is jobless and lives in a council flat with his wife.
‘They joked and poked fun at us’