[Music] [Applause] [Music] in the early hours of the 30th of may 1993 a blues party was well underway in a disused warehouse in the ashford street of saiyans among those who had been forewarned about the event was the yadi eaton green mr green had fled to the uk to escape an attempted murder charge in jamaica and to elude fellow yadis who had scores to settle by the age of 12 he had left school in downtown kingston and was mixing with gangsters who had affiliations with the pmp they ran areas of the city with the help of corrupt politicians and policemen by the time of the 1980s elections in jamaica the criminal gangs were emerging almost seamlessly mr green was at the vortex of it now a gunman doing the bidding of corrupt pmp leaders who wanted to take down rivals working for the jlp mr green became part of the tel avi group named after a slum in the area of kingston where he was brought up these were government housing projects built around yards hence the name yadi the tel avi crew was divided into a number of posses or gangs this included the rapid posse the kremlin posse and the desert posse to which green belonged to during the 1980s before the decade was over he had been involved in a number of murders which he would later confess to spent four years in prison and had been arrested for multiple crimes from murder to armed robbery reluctance on the part of the witnesses to come forward shielded him from several life sentences in jamaica in 1991 awaiting trial for a shooting he jumped bail booked a flight to the uk and walked through immigration to begin what he hoped would be a new prosperous life mr green was a dangerous man who was known to use a firearm at the slightest provocation he became a frequent visitor to nottingham from london and was soon known to the police nottinghamshire police intelligence picked up the information that mr green was selling crack cocaine in his city his name had cropped up in a few letters written by ian bedwood which were seized by the police in fact mr green was the only one of a small but growing number of yadis branching out from the capital and selling drugs in major cities like bristol manchester birmingham and liverpool according to testimony at a later court trial two brothers from birmingham who had recently fallen out with the robinsons in an apparent turf rivalry were expected at a blues party which began on the night on the 29th of may police suspected these brothers were ferrying large amounts of cocaine into nottingham at a party two weeks earlier two of the robinson clan peter and ricky boogie man’s grandsons had been severely beaten up another of the family leslie who was working as a clerk at a law firm would later become the main organizer for the nottingham afro-caribbean carnival he had his car torched in an attack police believe was linked to the feud eaton green who had been partying at the marcus garvey center in nottingham the same night with some yardy friends had also been dissed by some locals one of them had saluted ash’s sound coming from the speakers with a volley of gunfire into the ceiling which had almost deafened one of mr green’s associate rohan bumpy thomas and bumpy wasn’t happy about it at all by 3 30 am ashford’s street party was in full swing with around 200 punters enjoying heavy bass sounds from the booming speakers then chaos erupted five men one dressed in a bandana brandishing a luger pistol two of us with handguns and another with a shotgun burst into the building and switched on the light the music ground to a halt the silence was broken by two blasts as the shotgun was fired into the ceiling by one of the raiders next they began to strip customers of their money and jewelry their leader eton green brandished his luger in the face of a number of men who were present taking interest in one in particular michael johnson who had refused to hand over anything and had made his dash to the exit mr green took aim and fired the bullet missed mr johnson and instead hit 20-year-old liber bubbler henry in the foot two of the men who refused to take this disrespect without a fight were beaten up by mr green we are the seek and destroy posse and this is a robbery mr green screamed at the terrified party goes liebert henry blood pumping out of his damaged foot pleaded to be lit out the building and to get medical help but mr green refused torting him with the words lead bleed the gunmen had demanded that the men be separated from the women and began to remove jewelry money credit cards mobile phones and drugs the incident was over within half an hour but in that time mr green and his gang robbed more people in one go than any other recorded british crime the birmingham brothers that mr greene was looking for did not appear to be among the party-goers but he evidently found some part of his mission had been accomplished by robbing the locals and dissing them at first operation warehouse as the police investigation was called had only dug up a few leads to the gunman’s identity but gradually a picture began to emerge or some of the assailants the main protagonist was a slim young black man in his late 20s with a large scar across his right cheek wearing a bandana and had answered the name leon which nottingham shirt detectives knew from recent intelligence was mr green’s street name another man had the nickname bumpy according to some of the witnesses the vehicle mr green and his associates had driven from london was found to be a higher car booked from the company based at heathrow airport cctv images obtained from the company showed mr green and two of his gang meeting elaine robinson at heathrow nevertheless for nottinghamshire police the biggest revelation was yet to come over the subsequent weeks officers began to piece together more information about mr green they found an address that he had been staying at where there was further evidence of a connection to nottingham photographs of elaine robinson and her daughter sophie along with mr green’s mobile phone number information from jamaican authorities revealed mr green to be a very dangerous yadi wanted for the involvement of several brutal murders how had he managed to slip into britain without being arrested or turned back in fact as police in nottingham were to discover mr green had been helped in avoiding deportation back to jamaica not only that he had brought two violent associates over from jamaica on false passports with a little help from some friends in high places friends specifically in the metropolitan police and the immigration service eaton leonard greene was a top-level yadi informant playing a double-agent role within the metropolitan police so-11 intelligence unit his code name was aldridge clark by july 1993 some resourceful nottingham shared detectives were closing in on mr greene despite the lack of assistance from scotland at around 2pm on the 8th of july 1993 after tracking him through several addresses that they had gained from the social security details they formally located their man walking down mandela road in newham east london he was handcuffed and led to a car that would take him up the m1 to be questioned about the blues party robbery but as nottinghamshire officers were soon to discover this was far from an open and shut case the metropolitan police were ended up hampering the progress of their colleagues perhaps on the basis that the ends justifies the means ultimately the criminal trial would descend into chaos as nottinghamshire police began to question mr green a complex story began to unfold mr green said he had not been at the blues party but could identify the asylum he then told them to check in with a constable called steve barker at the metropolitan police’s so-11 intelligence unit and it all would be explained mr green insisted he was working for the met and had became involved in gaining intelligence on the local drug scene particularly as a man with the street name pepsi had been relocated to nottingham from london to sell crack pepsi was supposedly one of the leaders of the tel avi crew based in kingston jamaica the nottinghamshire detectives were highly skeptical nevertheless they would have to check out the story before they could carry on with any questioning particularly as the repercussions could prevent them from charging him for the offences he was being suspected of in nottingham what they began to uncover though with a little help from the met was that mr green and two other men believed to be involved in the robbery rohan colonel bumpy thomas and cecile thomas were actively being shielded by scotland yard detectives because of their valuable information as informant indeed mr green had been deemed so important to the yard that he was given an a grade informant tag denoting an agent whose information was prized at the highest level he had his own code name to prevent his identification a specialist hander who would meet him at pre-arranged secret locations to pay him and debrief him and a two-year history of providing top intelligence on yadi’s deprived in the city areas he was in fact scotland yard’s most prized asset in a battle against an unpredictable yadi gangster perhaps the met thought that mr green was an asset worth sticking your neck out for as they proceeded on a path that seemed to break the conventions of policing justice and the law the detectives from nottinghamshire were unimpressed the more they discovered about the nature of mr green’s relationship with their london counterpart the more it strengthened their resolve to see mr green put on trial for the robbery on their patch they did not doubt that he had provided good information on the movement of firearms around the capital and the arrival of yadi’s in london but to turn a blind eye to an armed robbery of 150 out of 200 people at a pie was not something they were prepared to do or to justify to the victim as far as they were concerned kotlin yard had effectively done nothing to help with mr green’s arrest after the robbery moreover some individuals had effectively helped mr greed avoid arrest not least his handler who had met him during the weeks after the robbery and allowed him to walk away despite the yard having been told by nottinghamshire that he should be arrested detective inspector michael layton was among the senior nottinghamshire police officers trying to track down mr green and his accomplices the team had been given full authority by their bosses to nail the gang putting them on a collision course with scotland yard that would deserve neither justice nor public they were still in the dark about the extent of mr green’s role as an informant even after they tried to solve the major case and the economy of truth displayed by their fellow agencies was something they could never have predicted indeed it would take the court case to flush out the truth by july 1993 mr green along with rowan thomas cecile thomas stephen crossdale and errol lynch alleged to be the fourth and fifth members of the gang had been charged with robbery three robinsons from duggy man’s side of the family were also arrested sisters elaine valerie and their brother leslie detectives were convinced some of the robinsons had played a role in sponsoring mr green’s gang to carry out crack cocaine business in the city and ultimately extract revenge on the two birmingham brothers for humiliating members of the robinson family the three robinsons were charged with conspiracy to cause grievous bodily harm right up to the start of the trial at leicester crown court scotland yard concealed the importance of mr green’s role as one of their most prized agents in october 1994 a few weeks after the troll opened tactics that seemed almost machiavellian were used to protect mr green who was pleading not guilty at a first mitigation text a method sometimes used by the police to tell the judge that the defendant has provided crucial information to help solve a crime and should be sentenced leniently but without telling the barristers all jewelry was received by the judge from the metropolitan police it indicated that mr greene had been very helpful in the arrest of a number of cases and should be given credit with a reduced sentence should he be found guilty defense barristers tipped off about mr green’s role in the arrest and his co-defendants demanded the informant be identified the prosecution barrister also indicated that senior officers from scotland were imploring him to abandon the trial on the 14th of october with the truth in danger of coming out the officer went to the court to see the judge richard pollard and ask him not to reveal mr green’s identity faced with some unquestionable questions the judge halted proceedings as a top level discussion took place between nottinghamshire police scotland yard barbara mills the director of public prosecutions and sir nicholas liel the attorney general nottinghamshire police were astounded to discover that mr green had been given met information about the weapon used in the robbery who the assailants were where they were holed up and where some of the jury had been fenced they also learned that the mets intelligence report stated that all this information had been supposedly passed on to nottinghamshire police during the first few weeks of the investigation which was news to them it was suggested that there had been either an extreme breakdown in communication between the two forces or that the met was lying the trial judge also found that the met had misled him and the cps about mr green’s relationship with so11 and that a senior met officer had made inappropriate approaches to the judge and council in an attempt to get the trial thrown out after battling the issue back and forth over a number of weeks director of public prosecutions and the attorney general ruled that the met were in the wrong the role of mr green would have to be revealed in court and the trials should continue after a month away from the courtroom however judge pollard had no option but to discharge the original jewelry and call for a degree trial defendants were remanded in custody faced with nowhere to hide mr green now changed his story once more and began to admit to a catalogue of crimes in jamaica 11 murders as well as robberies shootings and cocaine deals whilst in london on the payroll of scotland yards he described in graphic detail to the metropolitan police officers how he had murdered on behalf of senior pmp politician three yadi suspected of snitching to the jamaican authorities he went on to explain how he was spotted carrying out the killing by a passing taxi driver and so he executed him too along with his passenger crucially he was prepared to plead guilty to the robbery in nottingham by the time the case had came to re-trial in june 1995 again at leicester crown court mr green had already pleaded guilty and had been sentenced to six years in prison a new trial judge mr justice smedley fully aware of what his counterpart judge judge paula had been put through during the original trial has some choice of words to describe the conduct of the metropolitan police i am very disturbed that the way in which those responsible for handling mr green as an informant appear not only to have failed to cooperate but possibly have impeded inquiries that causes milan meanwhile so11 had given mr green a new identity and placed him in witness protection on a prison wing in parkhurst prison on the isle of wight it was an area reserved for just a handful of supergrasses including darren nichols the main witness in the 1998 essex range rover murders fictionalized in the essex boys film met clearly still believed mr green could be of use to them if he went back to jamaica the retrial jury was told the events at ashford street warehouse were like a hollywood-style robbery barristers for the robinson trio argued forcibly that their clients knew of no bad blood between them and the two birmingham brothers and that the gang was simply doing what all yadi gangs do at blues nights rob fellow partygoers by the end of the re-trial the jury was unconvinced that any of the robinson family had been involved in a conspiracy to commit violence against anyone at the party though it was clear from cctv images at throw that elaine robinson knew mr green well and that a phone linked to her sister valerie had been used to contact mr green right up until the minute the robbie was taking place all the robinsons were cleared of the gbh conspiracy charge the alleged gang members did not fare so well rohan colonel bumpy thomas was convicted along with stephen crossdale cecile thomas and errol lynch were cleared but deported back to jamaica mr crosstair was eventually cleared on appeal and mr thomas who had been faced with a 14 year sentence had some of his convictions quashed as a result of an appeal which ruled that mr green’s evidence could not be relied upon meanwhile hampshire’s police chief constable sir john hoddynot was giving the role of carrying out a major inquiry into the metropolitan police handling of eaton green and another yadi dalroy denton who had murdered a woman while on their informant payroll delroy denton was jailed for life in 1996 for killing martial laws the story of mr green’s recruitment emerged from 15 000 pages of evidence collected by hampshire police the report published in 1999 revealed just how far the authorities were prepared to go in allowing a gun-toting killer to help in a battle against the yadis mr green had arrived on british soil in february 1991 and quickly immersed himself in the yachty hot spots of brixton and hackney where he found former associates from jamaica doing roaring trade in the crack cocaine business and robberies by the 21st of may he had been arrested for traffic offences by a young constable stephen barker following a 1am chat with mr barker in brixton police station mr green took the only available option to avoid extradition back to jamaica he turned into a grass over the next two years he was able to provide detailed information to mr barker of murders and robberies in london new york and jamaica the traffic of cocaine and firearms into the uk and the movement of yadi’s through immigration desks in the uk and the united states he was paid up to 1 000 pounds a time for the 170 detailed reports that he gave to mr barker through their sheer scale meant that they were able to rarely rely on the resources to act upon them but all this time mr green was himself dealing in cocaine and robbing other dealers with a firearm by his side almost everywhere that you went everybody carries a gun in jamaica so we do the same in england he told detectives who would later question him sometimes we whip it out and shoot up the roof we’re just saluting the music during his time as an informant mr green was arrested on three separate occasions by other metropolitan police units for possessing crack cocaine but each time his crimes were never reached to the court until the audacious robbery in nottingham he was allowed to bring his own associates into the uk including rowan thomas who had served 14 years in jamaican prison for shooting a policeman and cecile thomas anova both came in on false passports despite the fact it was known by both metropolitan police officers and immigration officials that they had violent past and were wanted by jamaican authorities colonel bumpy alone was believed to have been involved in around 10 murders two weeks after the robbery in nottingham and despite knowing he was on the run from their nottinghamshire colleagues the mets so-11 unit sanctioned a visit by mr greene to holland where he was promptly robbed by some local dealers at gunpoint with an uzi submachine gun pistol later steve barker after specifically being asked by nottinghamshire officers and agreeing to help fire mr green had met the fugitives whatever was said during the meeting mr barker did not arrest his informant and allowed him to walk off sir john’s report which went to the crown prosecution service stopped short of recommending criminal charges being brought against police and the immigration officers involved in handling the yadi informers including mr green even though there seemed to have been a possible breach of the immigration act proven misconduct deliberate failure or willful neglect would have to have been shown what did result from the report however were the sweeping changes in which informants were being handled by all law enforcement agencies the recommendations resulted in a new regulation of the investigatory powers act ripa of 2000 which specifies a large number of rules to be followed during the handling of a human covert resources not least those recruiting informants could be kept away from those handling informants and that the informants themselves would have to sign a far-reaching contract which lay them open to prosecution if it was not followed it would inevitably mean that mr green’s episode would be harder to repeat but it would also mean fewer officers being able to recruit fewer informants ultimately the intelligence which had been pouring in on those fighting to keep drugs and firearms off the street would often come only from criminals hoping to take competitors and opponents out the game officers became reluctant to handle informants fearing they could be prosecuted themselves if snitches ran right as eaton green had done by 1997 mr green still in his cell on the isle of wight was fighting a deportation application from nottinghamshire police he was already 18 months past the time when he could have been freed from his six year sentence but found the cell walls at parkhurst even more inviting than the freedom of the streets his lawyer argued that a very senior police officer from the met had promised mr green his wife a british citizen and his mother protection for the rest of his life and that if he was sent back to jamaica it would be sending him to a certain death as if status and his informant was well known due to media coverage of his case this time the home office was not prepared to play ball with mr green and the home secretary jack straw took the personal decision to rubber stamp the deportation order mr green was sent back to kingston a few months later john grieve the head of so11 team that handled mr green seemed unfazed he did however apologize for not sending nottinghamshire the right information at the right former at the right time he told reporters mr green was well worth the investment it is an extremely unfortunate and to the detriment of the people of london that we no longer have him nottinghamshire’s police head of cid philip davis took a different view informants are essentially set however there is to be a stringent guideline and procedures which must be observed in the integrity of the system if it is to be maintained no doubt his officers wouldn’t disagree with the sentiments of using informers like mr green in an ongoing battle against seemingly impenetrable problems such as jardi gangs after all they have used many such informants themselves in february 2006 a man whose identity they protected as a witness in a murder case trinidadian trevon thomas shot and seriously injured one of their own officers rachel baum as she investigated a burglary in lenten what angered nottinghamshire police was that their scotland yard counterparts had failed to control their source and then when presented with an unpleasable truth tried to protect his identity and installed the work to arrest him by withholding information the fallout led to poor relations between the two forces for years it also led to tensions between local police and the victims of the blue party robbery who felt that nottinghamshire and the met were using the black community as pawns in a game against each other for eaton green it was to be predictably perhaps a short-lived existence in jamaica on the 20th of april 2005 police were directed to his mitsubishi car close to a central sorting office in kingston in the boot they found mr green’s body wrapped up and riddled with five bullets signifying a yadi execution mr green had been lured from his craigtown home along with two other men who were also shot dead it seems that mr green who had been back for more than three years had carry on with his trigger-happy exploits police suspected him of a number of crimes including the murder of a young woman who was found dumped at constitution hill the previous year mr green was the 508th murder victim of jamaica in that year and that was only four months into the year he was 37 having passed the average lifespan of a yadi criminal by some five years the scale of the death toll demonstrated just how cheap life was in jamaica the ripple effect seen in britain with yadis like mr green and his associate carried on with a cut-price attitude towards lodge by the turn of the century black on black violence that became an everyday occurrence in nottingham london bristol manchester and birmingham the difference was the crimes were being committed by a new generation of criminals so-called homeboys born and bred into british life who were now setting up their own posses rapping in patois dripping in gold jewelry and carrying very big guns [Music]