Detective ‘took bungs off killer’

7:03am Tuesday 7th October 2008

A FUGITIVE gangster wanted for murder stayed one step ahead of the law by paying a North-East detective in cocaine, cash and call-girls, a court was told yesterday.

Allan Foster – who executed a drug-dealing associate – paid Detective Constable John Jones £2,000 per week to keep him updated on information held about him by Northumbria Police, Newcastle Crown Court heard.

This meant Foster was able to continue running his criminal empire, knowing he was not about to be arrested.

Toby Heworth, QC, prosecuting, said Foster first met Det Con Jones in 2003, when he turned police informer to receive a low sentence for a drugs offence.

Det Con Jones, who worked for Northumbria Police, should have then passed his case over to the Serious Organised Crime Agency and stopped any contact with the then 27-year-old.

But Mr Heworth said they remained in regular contact and, in April 2006, the men travelled from the North-East to London’s West End, where they visited nightclubs, hired call-girls and took cocaine.

They visited the Prada shop in Chelsea, before being taken by limousine to bars and clubs, including Stringfellows and Knightsbridge private members’ club The Wellington.

Then the gangster took the married police officer to his Kensington mews house and call-girls were brought.

Mr Hedworth said: “These sex workers will give evidence before you I anticipate, including the fact both men were snorting cocaine to the extent that DC Jones was unable to take advantage of the favours bought for him.

“What, you may ask yourself, was this Northumbria Police officer doing to be rewarded in such a way by a man who he will have known to be an active professional, criminal?”

The court was told Det Con Jones developed a contact with Foster, following his decision to turn police informer, through a friend, Bruce Mc- Call, who ran the Marlboro gym, in Seaham, County Durham, where all three worked out.

As an official informant he was given a shorter sentence, after he tipped off police about a stash of firearms in a van in east London.

The court was told Det Con Jones’ relationship with Foster was exposed when Foster was named as the primary suspect in the shooting of David “Noddy” Rice.

Mr Hedworth said Foster shot Mr Rice, a one-time lieutenant of the drugs baron, as he sat in his car at Marsden Grotto, South Shields, South Tyneside, in May 2006.

“He was shot no fewer than nine times in what was clearly a planned criminal execution designed to send out a message,” said Mr Hedworth.

The gangster then fled the country using a false passport.

Mr Hedworth added that Foster was able to stay “one step ahead” of the authorities and spirited himself out from the country.

Foster is now believed to be in Spain.

The court was told an associate of Foster would give evidence to say that Det Con Jones took £2,000 every week from the criminal when they met at the Seaham gym.

The 48-year-old detective denies three counts of public misconduct.

Bodybuilder Mr McCall, 42, denies one count of aiding and abetting public misconduct, and counts relating to the importation, supply and possession of illegal steroids.

The jury was told that before the murder, Foster had fallen out with Det Con Jones for failing to tip him off about a police raid on his home in Rushcliffe Gardens, Sunderland.

The prosecution claimed Foster went into hiding by flying to Majorca, and returned secretly to the UK the next month to carry out the murder of Mr Rice.

Police quickly identified the gangster, now 32, as a prime suspect.

Det Con Jones told his superiors he knew Foster used the Seaham gym owned by McCall, but did not say he had been to London with Foster the month before, tell them they were friends, give them the phone number he had for the wanted man, nor the address of his Kensington mews.

Mr Hedworth said: “He, in effect, quite deliberately told the inquiry team nothing of any value.

“Why was that, if his relationship with Foster was above board?

“It was what he quite calculatingly decided he would not tell that is so damning.

“Allan Foster has never since been traced. There is an international arrest warrant for him and he is still actively sought.”

After he was arrested, Det Con Jones told officers he associated with Foster in all innocence.

“I will be honest with you, I did like the lad,” he told police, and accepted he had been foolish.

The jury was told that Det Con Jones thought Foster was a reformed character who managed an industrial cleaners and owned two guesthouses.

He denied travelling to London with him, taking cocaine with him or any attempt to have sex with prostitutes.

The trial continues.

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