Authors: Paul Britton
The blackmailer now had confirmation that the police had been involved from the outset.
David Baker and Malcolm Cairns were furious that someone had leaked the story to a journalist. The long-running undercover operation was now effectively dead and the blackmailer would have to find a new target.
Ten days later he did just that. Arguably, only one product was certain to have more impact on the hearts and minds of the consumer than pet food and that’s exactly what he chose to contaminate - baby food.
One of the world’s largest food manufacturers, H. J. Heinz Co. Ltd, received a written demand for Ł300,000 or the company would ‘be irreversibly ruined after their entire product range has been attacked with most lethal substances and boycotted by the public. There will have been many casualties before we finish with them.’ Again he demanded replies through the Daily Telegraph.
On the same day, a jar of Heinz baby food arrived in the post at a police station in Leicester. It had been laced with caustic soda and the accompanying letter said, ‘This time we will have to ensure that somebody buys the product. Then, if one casualty is not enough for you, we go again.’
The task of investigating the new threat fell to the South East England Regional Crime Squad working out of New Scotland Yard, who immediately contacted Leicestershire CID.
David Baker rang me. ‘He’s surfaced again and found another target - Heinz. We’re going to a meeting at Scotland Yard. I’d like you to come.’
We took an early train the next morning, Baker, Malcolm Cairns, Tim Garner and myself. Having breakfast in the buffet car and discussing policy issues, Cairns was concerned that the Metropolitan Police would try to take over the investigation. Normally when inquiries involve more than one regional force, the initial team is given the lead.
‘The Met are going to want to hijack it,’ he said, polishing off a piece of toast. ‘But we can’t let that happen. It’s our inquiry - we know more about this man than anyone. We ought to be the lead force.’
‘The main thing is that we catch him,’ Baker reminded him.
‘Yes, yes, of course, but I don’t want to see it hijacked. It started here. We should have the lead.’
I sensed that prestige was at stake and the feeling that the Met always assumed it was the premier division compared to the ‘Wooden Tops’ in the countryside.
For all the fighting talk, when we walked into the conference room at New Scotland Yard, it took very few seconds to realize who was in charge. Waiting at the head of the table were Commander Malcolm Campbell and Detective Superintendent David Tucker. The implications were clear - we were on their territory; it was their investigation and they’d set up camp.
I sat at the far end of the table next to Cairns and Baker.
Down each side were representatives of Heinz and Pedigree, who both had legal advisers, marketing men and energetic PRs. At the end of the table sat a younger man, bright, immaculately suited and attentive but saying nothing. Later I learned he was from Controlled Risks, a security firm specializing in anti-terrorism, hostage negotiation and personal protection. Heinz had employed him as an advisor.
The conference room had windows running along one side overlooking surrounding rooftops, although the view was blocked somewhat by the anti-blast coating in front of the glass. Only a fortnight earlier security forces had foiled a terrorist attempt on the life of the Prime Minister when they uncovered a cache of explosives near Scarborough where Mrs Thatcher was due to speak at a Conservative Party central council meeting.
Commander Campbell made the introductions and invited Baker to detail the entire Leicestershire operation. Not surprisingly, the Pedigree team seemed far more relaxed and Heinz particularly cautious. Whenever questions touched upon commercial concerns, previous threats or security measures, the businessmen grew rather reticent, particularly Heinz.
I realized there were two sets of tensions in the room, between the police at opposite ends of the table and, much more interesting, between the two companies facing each other. It was like being in a group therapy room. Something was wrong but no-one wanted to talk.
Finally, I’d had enough. ‘Excuse me. Is it just me or does everyone see that we’ve got a problem? There’s an issue here - I don’t know what it is - but we’re wasting our time unless it’s sorted out.’
There was silence around the table.
John Simmens spoke. ‘He’s right.’ He looked across at his counterpart from Heinz. ‘The problem is that my parent company competes in many important areas with Heinz. I can’t come here and just put confidential corporate material on the table which could be of use to one of my major competitors.’
The Heinz corner stirred. ‘We have similar reservations.’
A shocked Campbell looked ready to bang a few heads together but held his temper in check. ‘Gentlemen, we’re dealing with a very serious offence here. These people have already been through this,’ he motioned to the Pedigree team, ‘things have gone extremely well; they know this man as much as anyone can. Now he’s threatening to poison babies and, much as I appreciate the delicacy of corporate rivalry, I can’t let anything stand in the way of this investigation because lives are in danger. If this goes wrong then we’ll have dead babies on our hands and unless I get complete cooperation you’re going to have to take some responsibility for that.’
Such a stern warning would normally be calculated to have an immediate effect, however, these were international businessmen who had reached the very top of the pile. They were assertive, intelligent, analytical, very motivated people and risk assessment, in the commercial sense, was their daily bread and butter. They had yet to be satisfied that the rest of us at the table weren’t overreacting to a paper tiger. From their point of view, it was easy for the police to say, ‘Clear the shelves. Hold a press conference. Put your hardest won corporate intelligence on the table.’ But if we were wrong then thousands of jobs were at risk and millions of pounds would be lost.
It fell to me to break the deadlock and over the next few hours a compromise was thrashed out. Thankfully, with the most senior company personnel in the room, decisions could be made on the spot. Finally each side entered into a gentleman’s agreement to pool whatever commercial knowledge and resources both companies had which could help in the inquiry. In return, nothing provided would be used to gain a commercial advantage.
Finally, the meeting returned to the real issue. The Heinz team didn’t know me. I was an NHS psychologist telling them to take the threat seriously but why should they believe me? They had their own advice from Controlled Risks and had probably encountered many attempts at blackmail, mostly cranks and non-starters.
But security consultants get paid thousands of pounds a week solely to protect their client, no-one else. I had no such master and had been asked to look at the whole picture.
Running through the various options, I suggested that similar tactics should be applied as before and we should appear to give just enough to keep this man in the field while aiming to move control away from him. Already we knew far more about him - his likely age, where he lived and his movements.
At about 6.00 p.m., the meeting ended and the company men drifted out to the lift. Although cooperating, I couldn’t imagine them going for a beer together at a local pub. Downstairs, chauffeurs were probably waiting to whisk them away.
Commander Campbell invited us to his office where he opened a cabinet and produced half-a-dozen glasses and a very pleasant bottle of Scotch. At the ragged end of a long day, we sat in silence and sipped our drinks.
I had something to say that I couldn’t have revealed in front of Pedigree or Heinz because of the implications.
‘Get it off your chest,’ said Campbell, leaning back and resting the glass on his knee.
‘It’s about our man. I think he is, or was, a police officer.’
The silence took on a new meaning. Tucker shook his head.
‘That’s quite a call,’ said Campbell, dubiously.
I went on, ‘Everything about his actions suggests a detailed knowledge of the way police investigate crimes -how they can monitor account withdrawals, trace telephone calls, identify where products are bought. He uses commonly available paper, photocopies the letters first, he hasn’t left so much as a fibre. More importantly, every time a major surveillance operation is organized he goes to ground. It’s as if he knows which days and what machines are being watched. How could he know that?
‘The only other known blackmail attempt that used cash-point machines to collect the money was kept secret by the trial judge to prevent copycat crimes. Now it’s possible that our man just happened to come up with the same idea - or as a policeman he’s more likely to know the details.’
I could see they weren’t entirely convinced. A great deal of loyalty exists within the police force and it can’t be easy accepting or contemplating that one of your own might have turned. To his credit, Campbell encouraged me to go on and tell him more of my theory.
‘At some stage he was metropolitan-based and more than a PC,’ I said. ‘He is demonstrating a deep understanding of both crime and the investigation of crime. For him it’s a way of making money but he also really enjoys putting it together. It’s almost an artistic form of self-expression.
‘He’s tenacious but hasn’t done well in the police service. He thought he was going places but his career stalled and he blames his superiors. By putting this operation together on a national canvas he’s demonstrating just how good he could have been.
‘He knows there is no way back - the police are involved. He knows there is a major operation underway; he knows that he has to be so careful because his police experience tells him that you only need a single thread to follow him home.
‘But he doesn’t plan to get caught. He’s going to put together this wonderful series of offences against the largest corporations in the world and it’s going to make him famous. No-one will ever know his name but his old colleagues and his superiors are going to talk for ever about this master criminal with a delicate touch who left no footprints.
‘Given his movements, I’d say he’s possibly retired, on suspension or on sick leave; however, he seems to know so much about what’s going on, you have to look at someone who has an inside contact.’
‘Christ,’ said a voice nearby. Campbell’s face gave nothing away.
I knew I was right - all the facts supported me but it was an embarrassing scenario coming from an unlikely source.
Even as we spoke, contaminated food was already on supermarket shelves. A farmer’s wife from near Chelmsford in Essex burnt her face and fingers on sodium hydroxide (caustic soda) as she opened a jar of baby food that she’d purchased from Sainsbury’s supermarket in nearby Rayleigh on 8 April. Later tests showed the jar had been laced with twenty-seven times the lethal dose for a child along with two brass drawing pins. A message inside, punched on a Dynotape, warned: ‘POISON. Three more unmarked jars in the store.’
Two days later, Helen Coppock of Cowley, Oxford, was feeding her nine-month-old baby daughter yoghurt. She told police, ‘I glanced down at the jar and I saw what appeared to be shavings of metal in there. When I looked at Victoria she appeared to be chewing something. I opened her mouth and found what looked like a piece of metal on her tongue which turned out to be from a razor blade.’
Victoria’s mouth was bleeding and she was taken to hospital. While waiting in casualty, Mrs Coppock noticed a Dynotape message in the jar saying, ‘Poison also in Heinz beans and soup.’
Heinz immediately cleared the shelves at the supermarket branches where the products had been purchased. If the company had pondered the seriousness of the threat before, it was now in no doubt.
Another meeting of all parties was arranged, this time at Leicestershire Police Headquarters. What I remember most about it was that Heinz was unwilling to adopt the same strategy that had worked for Pedigree. It was impatient and didn’t relish the prospect of several months of playing cat and mouse with the blackmailer. It was a variation on the theme, ‘we don’t bargain with terrorists’.
Again and again, I was asked, ‘How serious is he? If we don’t do as he says, what will he do?’
So far every contamination against Pedigree and Heinz had been flagged with a warning message and telephone calls giving the stores a chance to intervene.
‘Will it always be the case,’ I was asked, ‘or is he likely to escalate?’
I could sense the frustration around the conference table. ‘Yes,’ I answered. ‘His behaviour is in direct response to yours. If you decide to face him down and pay him nothing, then he’ll feel that you’re giving him no alternative. His sense of pride and investment won’t allow him to do nothing.’
I recommended the same strategy as before but Heinz seemed adamant that it wouldn’t negotiate.
‘Then you have to go public,’ I said. ‘If you slap him in the face and he carries out his threat a child dies, two children die … where does that leave you? This man is not about to waste his time.’
The police agreed with me. Their overriding concern had to be for public safety, although none of them was cavalier about the damaging impact disclosure would have on Heinz. The company’s team took a very forceful view. They knew about the marketplace and the potential losses they faced, running into millions of pounds.
‘This is a major undertaking. We have to be sure.’
‘I’m sure,’ I said.
Newspapers had already reported several of the contaminations but these had been labelled as being unrelated. It wasn’t until Wednesday 26 April that the extortion attempt exploded into the headlines: TERROR OF BABY FOOD BLACKMAIL wrote the Daily Mail, while the Evening Standard reported, MORE DANGER JARS FOUND.
Scotland Yard released the bare minimum of information for ‘operational reasons’ but the publicity quickly triggered a wave of contamination reports. That afternoon John Patten, the Minister of State for the Home Office, told the House of Commons that ‘British shoppers were at risk from a new and frightening threat “consumer terrorism” … It is difficult to imagine the twisted minds that could mount such a vicious attack on defenceless babies.’