‘Crimebuster’ feted on TV was part of £17m cocaine gang
A PRIVATE security boss praised for cracking down on thuggery and theft on troubled estates was, in fact, part of a £17million drugs ring.
Far from helping reduce low-level crime, John ‘Winky’ Watson, 41, was fuelling it through his role in flooding the streets he was paid to protect with cocaine.
He is now facing jail after a jury decided he was part of a sophisticated drugs operation that smuggled £17.25million of cocaine into the UK and moved large quantities from Merseyside to Teesside.
The 16-stone former Army boxer was one of three men convicted at Teesside Crown Court of conspiring to supply Class A drugs.
The trial exposed Watson’s public persona as a crime-busting man of the people as a sham. He appeared on national television in 2018 when he set up John Watson Security – charging an annual £13 fee per household to keep residents safe from yobs and anti-social behaviour.
Watson, a former soldier in the Green Howards, told Good Morning Britain: ‘There is a large demand in my community, it is very high in crime.’
He even boasted: ‘My service is better than the police – that’s why people pay me.’
Thousands signed up and he became a cult figure as communities in Middlesbrough, Hartlepool and Redcar put their faith in his private police force to protect their estates and businesses. The police and the authorities had nothing to do with his operation but it was reported that he had cut crime.
His activities were even discussed in Parliament with Redcar’s then Labour MP Anna Turley saying locals were ‘losing such confidence in the ability of the police to protect them’. She added: ‘I’m deeply worried about the legality of such companies.’
It turned out that her concerns were well-founded. Police amassed damning evidence in the form of thousands of calls and texts involving the ‘Guisborough Gang.’
The court heard they showed that Watson, and his co-defendants Steven Beazley, 39, and Craig Costello, 38, all from Middlesbrough, were part of discussions involving drugs being couriered in from Liverpool, and payments involving tens of
‘Just mates calling their mates’
thousands of pounds in cash.
A fourth man, David Wright, 43, admitted supplying Class A drugs before the trial.
The drugs charges covered a period from September 2015 to October 2016. Watson had denied everything and insisted the phone calls were just ‘mates calling their mates,’ but he was found guilty by a majority decision of 10-2 on Wednesday.
The group were snared in Cleveland Police’s long-running Operation Spoonbill, which has already seen 33 others jailed for a combined 262 years.
Watson and his accomplices will be sentenced at a later date. The security firm in his name is still operational on Teesside.