Graeme McLagan (born 1943) is a British journalist who was Home Affairs correspondent for BBC News, specialising in crime and the police about which he has written three books. [1] [2]
McLagan was educated at the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle upon Tyne. Instead of university, he went back-packing and hitch-hiking in 1962 across the Middle East, south and south-east Asia on what later became known as the 'Hippie Trail'. [3]
He was a reporter on the Newcastle Journal and the Daily Mail in London before joining the BBC, becoming Home Affairs correspondent. He won a Royal Television Society award in 1996 for his coverage of the Arms-to-Iraq affair. [1] He travelled to Chile, the United States, South Africa and Jordan, reporting that these countries were used by British interests as secret diversionary routes to get arms to Iraq. [4] He was commended in 1998 for Bent, a Panorama programme on police corruption. [5] He wrote about journalists being caught on tape while seeking information from a private detective in the 'Big Brother' series of The Guardian magazine of 21 September 2002. [6]
McLagan covered many major trials and the successful appeals of the Birmingham Six and the Maguire Seven. In 1997, he reported for the BBC Nine O'Clock News on the trial at the Old Bailey of eight defendants accused of an IRA plot to blow up electricity sub-stations around London. [7] Six of the accused were found guilty and sentenced to thirty-five years in prison. [8]
His reports of the committal proceedings against Jeremy Thorpe, the then Liberal Party leader, led to complaints about him sticking rigidly to the style at the time of calling defendants by their surname alone. The BBC then changed its Radio Four policy, giving Thorpe and those following him into the dock of the Old Bailey the title of 'Mr'.[ citation needed ]
In June 2021, his insight into events surrounding the axe-in-the-head murder of Daniel Morgan was recognised by the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel reviewing the role of police corruption over the killing. [9] In a section on the media, the panel queried why McLagan's articles linking murder suspects with the News of the World had not been seen by the former Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Lord Stevens, before he started writing a column for that newspaper. [10] McLagan also wrote about the Leveson inquiry into the phone hacking scandal, commenting on the revolving door between the Met and the News of the World. [11]
In 2003, his book Bent Coppers examined how Scotland Yard set up an anti-corruption "Ghost Squad" to combat corruption in the Metropolitan Police and the South East Regional Crime Squad. [12] "If you want a book that is genuinely 'unputdownable' read Bent Coppers." (Johnny Vaughan, Sun). "Few journalists are better qualified to write on the subject of corruption inside the Metropolitan Poile than Graeme McLagan... A very engaging read - the outrageous nature of the bent cops' behaviour guarantees that." (Sunday Telegraph). He and his publisher Orion Books were sued for libel by a former policeman, but won the case in October 2007 in the Court of Appeal. [13] The case made legal history as it was the first time the so-called Reynolds defence had been used for a book. Named after the former Irish Taoiseach Albert Reynolds, who sued Times Newspapers, that case established qualified privilege for publishing defamatory statements, provided they were in the public interest. It meant a court would investigate not only the content of the publication, but also the journalist's conduct. The court said of McLagan that "as a result of his honesty, his expertise on the subject, his careful research and his painstaking evaluation of a mass of material, the book was protected." [14] The Reynolds defence was replaced under the Defamation Act 2013 with the statutory defence of publication on a matter of public interest. [15]
In 2005, McLagan published Guns and Gangs about gun crime throughout the UK. "Graeme McLagan provides, perhaps for the first time, real answers... He has looked into the heart of the phenomenon and what he saw there makes compelling, if disturbing, reading." (Evening Standard)
In February 2021, Buddy Club Productions, co-founded by BAFTA-nominee Keeley Hawes, acquired screen rights [16] for a TV series for his book Mr Evil (also titled Killer on the Streets) about David Copeland, who was convicted of murder for the 1999 London nail bombings. [17] [18] The book was co-authored by Nick Lowles, a former editor of Searchlight magazine and founder of Hope not Hate, which campaigns against racism. [19] [20] Copeland targeted black, Asian and LGBT communities (the latter at the Admiral Duncan pub). In the bombings, three people died and 140 were injured. [21] The drama series is being written by twice-nominated BAFTA writer Brian Fillis. McLagan also contributed background material for a Netflix documentary Nail Bomber: Manhunt on Copeland. [22]
In April 2021, he was interviewed for Bent Coppers: Crossing the Line of Duty, a three-part series on BBC2 about police corruption in the 1970s. The programme explained how corrupt police officers in both the Metropolitan and City of London police forces took bribes from armed robbers to water down evidence and help them get bail. [23]
The National Socialist Movement (NSM) was a British neo-Nazi group active during the late 1990s. The group is not connected to the earlier National Socialist Movement of Colin Jordan.
The 1999 London nail bombings were a series of bomb explosions in London, England. Over three successive weekends between 17 and 30 April 1999, homemade nail bombs were detonated in Brixton in South London; at Brick Lane, Spitalfields, in the East End; and at the Admiral Duncan pub in Soho in the West End. Each bomb contained up to 1,500 100 mm nails, in duffel bags that were left in public spaces. The bombs killed three people and injured 140 people, four of whom lost limbs.
Piers Stefan Pughe-Morgan is an English broadcaster, journalist, writer, and media personality. He began his career in 1988 at the tabloid The Sun. In 1994, at the age of 29, he was appointed editor of the News of the World by Rupert Murdoch, which made him the youngest editor of a British national newspaper in more than half a century. From 1995, Morgan edited the Daily Mirror, but was fired in 2004. He was the editorial director of First News from 2006 to 2007. In 2014, Morgan became the first editor-at-large of the MailOnline website's US operation.
The Admiral Duncan is a public house in Old Compton Street, Soho, in central London that is well known as one of Soho's oldest gay pubs.
Rebekah Mary Brooks is a British media executive and former journalist and newspaper editor. She has been chief executive officer of News UK since 2015. She was previously CEO of News International from 2009 to 2011 and was the youngest editor of a British national newspaper at News of the World, from 2000 to 2003, and the first female editor of The Sun, from 2003 to 2009. Brooks married actor Ross Kemp in 2002. They divorced in 2009 and she married former racehorse trainer and author Charlie Brooks.
His Majesty's Prison Belmarsh is a Category A men's prison in Thamesmead, southeast London, England. The prison is used for high-profile cases, particularly those concerning national security. Within the grounds is the High Security Unit (HSU), which consists of 48 single cells. It is run by His Majesty's Prison Service. The prison has been called "Britain's Guantanamo Bay" due to the long-term detention of terrorism suspects without charge. Belmarsh is also notoriously known as "Hellmarsh" due to the fact that Belmarsh is considered the toughest prison in the UK and due to the high number of physical and authority abuses reported by both the prison's inmates and by human rights activists.
Andrew EdwardCoulson is an English journalist and political strategist.
The Hyde Park and Regent's Park bombings were carried out on 20 July 1982 in London, England. Members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) detonated two improvised explosive devices during British military ceremonies in Hyde Park and Regent's Park, both in central London.
Willie McKay is a Scottish football agent, based in Monaco. He was the agent of many top-level footballers, mainly based in England and France, specifically the Premier League. His clients include James McFadden, Joey Barton, Henri Camara, Scott McDonald, Jean-Joël Perrier-Doumbé, Charles N'Zogbia, Tyrone Mears, Amdy Faye, Ross McCormack, and Pascal Chimbonda. He was Scott Brown's agent and his twin sons' agent, Jack and Paul McKay. His elder son Mark McKay is a registered football agent.
John Yates is a former Assistant Commissioner in the London Metropolitan Police Service (2006–2011). As leader of the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS)'s Special Inquiry Squad, Yates was dubbed "Yates of the Yard" by the British press following his involvement in a number of cases with high media profiles. Yates came to particular prominence for heading the Cash for Honours investigation. Yates also coordinated the UK police response to the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, heading "Operation Bracknell", for which he was awarded the Queen's Police Medal in January 2006. He resigned in July 2011 over criticism of a July 2009 review he carried out of the 2006 police investigation of the News of the World royal phone hacking scandal. He now works for the government of Bahrain advising it on reform of its security forces.
Employees of the now-defunct newspaper News of the World engaged in phone hacking, police bribery, and exercising improper influence in the pursuit of stories.
Daniel John Morgan was a British private investigator who was murdered with an axe in a pub car park in Sydenham, London, in 1987. Despite several Metropolitan Police investigations, arrests, and trial, the crime remains unsolved. An independent review into the handling of the investigation of Morgan's killing was published in 2021; it found that the Met Police had "a form of institutional corruption" which had concealed or denied failings in the case.
The First Domino is a 2009 English play about a fictional terrorist bomber, written by Jonathan Cash, who was injured in the 1999 bombing of the Admiral Duncan pub in Soho, London by David Copeland.
The news media phone hacking scandal is a controversy over illegal acquisition of confidential information by news media organizations that reportedly occurred in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia between 1995 and 2011. This article includes reference lists for various topics relating to that scandal.
Martin John Short was a British TV documentary producer and author. He is best known for his exposés on organized crime and on Freemasonry.
The Balcombe Street siege was an incident involving members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) and London's Metropolitan Police lasting from 6 to 12 December 1975. The siege ended with the surrender of the four IRA members and the release of their two hostages. The events were televised and watched by millions.
Combat 18 is a neo-Nazi terrorist organisation that was founded in 1992. It originated in the United Kingdom with ties to movements in Canada and the United States. Since then, it has spread to other countries, including Germany. Combat 18 members have been suspected of being involved and directly responsible in the deaths of numerous immigrants, non-whites, dissidents, and the German politician Walter Lübcke as well as internecine killings of Combat 18 members.
Kate Blackwell KC is a British barrister. Head of Chambers at Lincoln House Chambers in Manchester, she became a Crown Court Recorder in 2009 and Queen's Counsel in 2012. Blackwell has been described by The Guardian as a ‘no-nonsense prosecutor’.
Bent Coppers: The Inside Story of Scotland Yard's Battle Against Police Corruption is a non-fiction book by award-winning British journalist Graeme McLagan. First published in the United Kingdom in 2003 by Orion Publishing Group, the book examines police corruption within the Metropolitan Police Service and South Eastern Regional Crime Squad—with particular focus on the 1990s and early 2000s—and the establishment and activities of the force's anti-corruption "Ghost Squad". Its publication led to a 4-year legal case resulting in a landmark ruling in English defamation law.