His response to the police was brief, but resigned. "I'm f****d, aren't I?," Craig Parr said after officers tracked him to a hotel room in Newcastle. They had seized £300m of drugs, and caught him red handed. Just days earlier, Parr had been in a service station off the M25, raising a glass ahead of a daring plot.
He had been tasked with helping transport the ‘immense’ consignment of heroin and ketamine from the south of England to its intended final destination in the north west. Drugs - hidden in bags of rice - which cause misery on the streets, but provide easy money for unscrupulous gangsters.
But as Parr supped from a cold bottle of beer, he and his companions had no idea that they were being tailed. Parr, seen sitting at the right of the table in CCTV from a service station in Essex, led the logistical operation.
READ MORE: Woman appears in court after two friends killed in crash
He was tasked with organising the onward travel of 785kg of heroin and 294kg of ketamine, which had been imported into the country. While he was not accused of being behind the importation, or of enjoying the trappings of wealth associated with large scale drug dealing, Parr’s role was to assist in smuggling the drugs from Felixstowe, the largest container port in the UK, to a farm in Lancashire.
But before the load could arrive in the north west, police monitoring the huge load struck at Keele Services on the M6. The driver, a man named Stephen King, appeared to have pulled over for a break.
When they searched the back of the Salford Van Hire van which King had hired a couple of weeks earlier, what they discovered would likely have been beyond the officers' wildest dreams.
More than a metric tonne of drugs was seized, said to be valued at £300m. Greater Manchester Police described the find as ‘the UK’s largest mainland drugs seizure’.
It was a huge win for the force in diverting a colossal amount of class A drugs away from the streets of Greater Manchester. And it was an extraordinary operation which ended in Parr’s expletive laden admission, and earning him a long jail sentence.
Police became suspicious after King, who prosecutors alleged was a 'professional drugs courier'. hired a lorry from Salford Van Hire in mid January, 2020. Observations were carried out as detectives tried to pick up clues as to what may be in the offing. They learned that Parr had met with King the day before he hired the lorry.
It had been weeks earlier that unknown big time drug bosses had arranged for the huge shipment to be imported into the UK via from Pakistan via sea, under its cover load. The shipment had been arranged using a ‘sham’ company with no real directors. y
On the ground, a team from Wigan led by Parr were involved in dealing with it when it arrived. Another man named Andrew Tait was involved in meeting with and recruiting others to the transport plot.
Their underworld superiors did not want to get their hands dirty and risk exposure. On January 29, 2020, Parr and Tait headed to a transport depot in Essex, where the shipment had been moved to, in a shipping container. It was at Thurrock services in Essex that day where Parr and King were seen on CCTV sipping from bottles of beer.
After staying over in a nearby Premier Inn for two nights, all while they remained under surveillance, January 31 was the date set for the journey back north. Parr had been caught on camera checking the load was secure before it moved onto the next stage of its international journey. King drove the van alone, his final destination being Moss Side farm in Lancashire, near Bickerstaffe.
But he never made it there. Officers struck at Keele services off the M6 when he had stopped for a break, discovering the huge load.
Others including Tait had separately headed for the farm, where he was arrested. But Parr was privy to information which others were not afforded access.
He was said to have learned of the bust and did not travel to the farm as planned. Parr was only caught six days later, at a hotel in Newcastle, where he made his pithy response to his arrest. More than four years later, he has finally faced justice after delays to the court process.
Parr and Tait, both 42, said they were offered £500 a day and £300 respectively to take part. But they were both handed lengthy jail sentences.
Parr was sentenced to 16-and-a-half years, and Tait to 18 years.
Parr, of Barnham Close, Golborne, pleaded guilty to conspiring to supply class A and B drugs, while Tait, of Tram Street, Platt Bridge, was found guilty of the same offences after a trial. Stephen King, then aged 44, of Pipit Avenue, Newton-Le-Willows, went on trial accused of the same offences and denied the charges. A first trial into the case had to be aborted in 2021 and he died before a second trial was heard. In a statement submitted to police following his arrest he said that he collected packages, but denied knowing that they contained drugs.
Three other men who were accused of involvement were acquitted at the second trial, which concluded in December last year. John Hayden, 60, of Roman Road, Ashton-in-Makerfield, Ian Washington, 55, of Edge Green Lane, Golborne, Wigan, and Paul Adair, 48, of Beech Grove, Wigan, were all found not guilty of conspiring to supply class A and B drugs.
