I Just Loved Nicking People! Podcast w/Peter Bleksley

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:05:21
Matt Haycox
Peter Bleksley started his career in the police. He's been in organized crime, brought down gangs in London.

00:00:05:22 - 00:00:18:06
Peter Bleksley
Thanks for having me. I just loved nicking people. turned around and levelled a .22 pistol at me. Well, how did that work out everybody? If they’re a good cop, I don't give a damn what they call themselves or what their pronouns are. Mine are bloke and geezer by the way

00:00:18:09 - 00:00:19:06
Matt Haycox
What was that first gig?

00:00:19:10 - 00:00:40:03
Peter Bleksley
Oh it was buying a half a kilo of cocaine of some South American drug dealer. And I said, Yeah, right. I’ll have a go at that I've given the signal for the arrest team to come in. and nothings happened! pump, pump, pump, spurting out of my head and all hell broke loose. I could build you a joint like a babies arm. If you feel like you're forced into a corner and you've got to take that line of Charlie.

00:00:40:03 - 00:00:46:26
Peter Bleksley
Or you've gotta smoke that joint. You better be able to justify it. We put hundreds of people away for thousands and thousands of years.

00:00:46:29 - 00:00:49:07
Matt Haycox
You make it sound like popping down the shop for a can of coke

00:00:49:07 - 00:00:51:12
Peter Bleksley
Mate, you’re not the local drug dealer are you? Can we just clarify that

00:00:51:15 - 00:01:15:04
Matt Haycox
No, no, no. We're going to edit that bit out afterwards guys. Matt Haycox here. Welcome to another episode of the Matt Haycox Show, one which I know is going to be super exciting. It's already feels like it's going to be a kind of a schoolboy's dream to brain brain pick someone that we will not we want to ask the questions of, I guess, the life we always read about in the TV shows that we watch.

00:01:15:04 - 00:01:35:03
Matt Haycox
I've got with me Peter Bleksley, who has started his career in the police. He's been in organized crime on the right side of it. That is, he has it brought down gangs in London. So many stories to tell about that life having left the police. He's been an author writing about these times. And I think most recently he is on the hunt, on the hunted.

00:01:35:03 - 00:01:37:03
Matt Haycox
Aren't you as the hunter? Right.

00:01:37:06 - 00:01:44:01
Peter Bleksley
I was on that Channel four show. Yeah. I was the chief on it for six series, but I left back in 2019.

00:01:44:03 - 00:01:52:12
Matt Haycox
Okay. Yeah. So lots, lots of different stories. I'm sure along the way, a bit bit of context to where we're at, but I guess tell me how it all began.

00:01:52:14 - 00:02:13:28
Peter Bleksley
Well, thanks for having me. I was a product of a single parent family, basically. My dad was an abusive alcoholic and he left the family home when I was about ten, 11 years old. And to be perfectly honest with you, it was good riddance to bad rubbish when he scarpered. But that left us in a home that my mum couldn't afford.

00:02:14:01 - 00:02:33:00
Peter Bleksley
I had an elder sister and essentially there were no male role models for me to follow, no close uncles or anything like that. And so I just became a bit of an oik too, to be honest with you. I flunked my education at school. I wasn't really interested in school. We eventually moved into a flat with my mum.

00:02:33:00 - 00:02:57:27
Peter Bleksley
My sister went off to pursue a nursing and I was left to my own devices, left school at 16 as soon as I possibly could because I really wasn't enjoying school. And to be quite frank, school weren't enjoy me either. Not, not anything I'm particularly proud of. I think if I'd knuckle down and got an education and got some solid qualifications behind me, it might have made a life a bit more easier, shall I say.

00:02:58:03 - 00:03:32:13
Peter Bleksley
Anyway, I left school at 16, got a job as a warehouse man in Woolworths, the old sort of store that's long since departed, but used to be on every high street and I loved it. Working in the warehouse, shifting stuff, stacking stuff empty in lorries and earning money. My mum had slightly higher ambitions for me, I think. So One night I came home and there was an enormous uniform police officer sitting in the lounge of this flat, and my first thoughts were, What am I going to get Nick for?

00:03:32:15 - 00:03:42:21
Peter Bleksley
But fortunately he said, Give me a bit of a career talk. And he solved the idea of joining the police. To me, he did a really, really good job.

00:03:42:23 - 00:03:45:03
Matt Haycox
How did you end up there? As in why.

00:03:45:06 - 00:04:05:28
Peter Bleksley
My mum So yeah, you know local beat Bobby that people knew. And so it was like, yeah, I'll pop round. I have a chat with your son and, and it was, it was great. He was terrific. I was only 16, so it was about joining the police cadets. But of course he'd sold me the idea of what policing would be once I'd gone through my cadet training bit.

00:04:06:00 - 00:04:22:14
Peter Bleksley
And it was, it was terrific. And many of the words kind of stuck with me today. He said, you know, if you like dogs, you could be a dog handler. If you like driving cars fast, you know, you can be an area car driver. Those were the cars back in those days at the blue lights and the sirens.

00:04:22:16 - 00:04:54:16
Peter Bleksley
If you could be a detective, you can catch murderers. And I was hanging on every word. And of course, he was a bit of a shrewd out. So so he said, you know what? Your interest. And that was just a lead up to him to be able to go into my bedroom. He said, Well, show me your bedroom, Show me the books you read, show me what you're interested in, and of course, he's having a look around to see what posters are on the wall and see if I'm some threat to the nation, if I'm some rampant anarchist or something, and whether I've got joints on them, you know, in the ashtray and that sort

00:04:54:16 - 00:05:12:06
Peter Bleksley
of stuff. And he was terrific. And he literally, before he left, pulled out the forms for me to apply to become a police cadet. And I filled them out, stuck them in the post. And a few short weeks later I had a haircut, which I thought was short enough. And so but enough for the police on my first day and end.

00:05:12:06 - 00:05:42:15
Peter Bleksley
And I realized it wasn't. And they packaged me off to have it, even showed up. And suddenly I found the discipline that I'd been missing. Really, that I'd disrespected at school and hadn't found and I needed in my life. Because a lot of the instructors, particularly the physical training instructors, they were former Royal Marines. These guys, you know, for a living, they walked around in their vests, you know, in their tight fitting tracksuit bottoms and their sparkling white blimps.

00:05:42:15 - 00:06:01:12
Peter Bleksley
I was a bit very disciplined and regimented and well turned out. And if you lean against a wall and I went, Oh, Bletchley down with ten press ups or war wasn't an option because I did just take you in the dojo, you know, the judo joke and turned you into a crowd in the blink of an eye. And that would have been that.

00:06:01:15 - 00:06:10:13
Peter Bleksley
And I responded to that discipline. I got fit. I learned self-respect and self-discipline as well. And I had a great time.

00:06:10:16 - 00:06:13:16
Matt Haycox
And you're at, what, 16, 17, 18 at this point?

00:06:13:16 - 00:06:34:22
Peter Bleksley
Yep. So that was from 17 to 18 and a half. And the last six months of that time in the cadets, I was actually posted to a police station, didn't have the powers of a constable, but I rode along with them and I walked with the beat bobbies and all of that. So I had a really good it was six months, it was in a place called Norbury, which was just south of Stroud.

00:06:34:24 - 00:07:04:06
Peter Bleksley
So an inner city area got a lot of experience in a very short space of time. I also made hundreds and hundreds of cups of tea as well, because you were the cadet, you know what I mean? I know your place, but I had a really good time, then went back, tended to the other end of the estate because I was sworn in as a constable, then became a police say did the training there, which was pretty intensive, but because I'd had a leg up by being in the cadets, I excelled at the training.

00:07:04:08 - 00:07:13:11
Peter Bleksley
I ended up being the top student in the class again, thrived on the discipline and then at the age of 18 and off, got posted to Peckham in south east London.

00:07:13:18 - 00:07:17:11
Matt Haycox
So that's that's your first job? Yeah. And what are you, like, a Bobby on the beat.

00:07:17:13 - 00:07:40:23
Peter Bleksley
Yeah. They say on the beat so enthusiastic Just wanted to nick people, you know Nick criminals. It's what I wanted to do. In fact, back in those days, I had school crossing patrols. So on the zebra crossing, if the lollipop lady or the lollipop man went sick or was on holiday for a week, a pacey would be allocated to that school crossing.

00:07:40:29 - 00:08:02:01
Peter Bleksley
So you'd help the kids and their parents across the road so that for a guy was soldiers, right? So if at the 6:00 briefing, the sergeant said, Right. PC say you're on summer house flying school crossing patrol from 7 to 840, I'd make sure Nick's summer before seven days I couldn't go and do it, you know, because I just didn't want to do that.

00:08:02:07 - 00:08:21:10
Peter Bleksley
I didn't join to help out like this across the street. And I know that's all a valuable part of policing or it was in those days. But for me it held no allure whatsoever. What I wanted to do was nick burglars, car thieves, drug dealers, robbers, shoplifters, all that kind of stuff. I just loved Nick.

00:08:21:12 - 00:08:31:04
Matt Haycox
And are you on your own when you're doing this? You know, when you're trying to find these people to Nick what, you didn't just like walking and walking around the estate, you know, finding someone who looks like they're up to no good? Or are you part of a team?

00:08:31:04 - 00:08:51:25
Peter Bleksley
Yeah, a lot of the time back in the late seventies, you would be sent out to patrol on foot on your own, and you learn an awful lot of people skills and you learn how hopefully not to get your head kicked in. You know, when you're challenging people in the dead of night, you stop in two people. First of all, you're outnumbered.

00:08:51:25 - 00:09:26:06
Peter Bleksley
And so you learn those sort of skills. Of course, you had a radio so you could get on the radio if you were in a bit of bother, but you didn't know how long it was going to be before that help turned up. Generally speaking, not very long, but and I think the public appreciated the fact that while they were sleeping in their beds, myself and other colleagues would be out there on our own in the dead of night, walking the streets, armed just with a truncheon, a bit of wood, about a foot or so long with a leather strap on the end of it.

00:09:26:08 - 00:09:51:08
Peter Bleksley
So no tasers, no incapacitating spray, certainly no guns or anything like that. And I think the public looked at us and they thought, yeah, they're a bit vulnerable, but they're still putting themselves out there. And I think that is why at that time, we we had quite a decent level of trust and respect from the from the public because they knew we were doing a job, they wouldn't want a feel.

00:09:51:10 - 00:10:07:00
Matt Haycox
You're talking a lot in the past tense. Is that because that's when when your job was or is that because it's changed over time now? And you're saying that now those pieces on the beat aren't doing the same kind of job and they don't have the same respect from the public, etc.?

00:10:07:03 - 00:10:28:12
Peter Bleksley
Both if not exactly that. Yeah, I am endeavoring to paint a picture of how it was and then if we do contrast it to how it is now, where neighborhood policing, the policing, community policing, call it whatever name the police want to give it, that has been sacrificed in recent years.

00:10:28:19 - 00:10:48:06
Matt Haycox
Because I guess as a as a member of the public, you know, we you know, again, I'm sure it's completely unfair to certain members of the force. But, you know, I guess, you know, we feel that the ones out there that you ever do see patrol, they're not that you do see many of probably, you know, the very lower end, you know, with little ability to want to do anything or to do anything.

00:10:48:06 - 00:10:54:14
Matt Haycox
And, you know, you just you don't feel safe for the things that you're supposed to feel safe for.

00:10:54:17 - 00:11:16:10
Peter Bleksley
When do you see a lone police officer in a smart uniform patrolling the streets, walking the streets, engaging with members of the public? It all got binned off years ago. The police would say they had to do that because of budget cuts and also because of counter-terror isn't work. And I just conned a lot of people into that.

00:11:16:13 - 00:11:47:23
Peter Bleksley
But what they did was they just tore away neighborhood policing. That was the first place they went to get extra officers from. So in doing that, they fundamentally undermined the importance of it. And that is actually the real core for me, important part of policing, because it's how the public engage with the police officer, a police officer, they say on the street now, now certain chiefs of police have vowed to bring it back.

00:11:47:25 - 00:12:04:24
Peter Bleksley
And I sincerely hope they do. And it is happening in some places. But generally speaking, if you see or hear the police these days, it'll be two of them in a car, sirens wailing, blue lights flashing as I go from one, go to another, go to get another go.

00:12:04:28 - 00:12:17:20
Matt Haycox
Well, let's get into the juicy stuff. Tell us, I mean, how did you go from, you know, from being the say to moving onto onto the onto the undercover work and getting involved with the organized crime?

00:12:17:22 - 00:12:40:05
Peter Bleksley
Yes, I did four years of Peckham in uniform, six months in plainclothes. That was kind of like my detective apprenticeship. Then I went up on a detective selection board, was fortunate enough to pass that got posted to Kensington, The Royal borough of Kensington and Chelsea don't you know, which was very different from Peckham in South London. I did my first debate tour.

00:12:40:05 - 00:13:08:10
Peter Bleksley
There was a detective three and half years, absolutely loved it, really loved it, loved being in the city office, loved investigating crime, loved going out, kicking lots of doors in at a at a fantastic time, worked with some really great cops. And then my next ambition was to be a Scotland Yard detective. That's kind of the next step for an ambitious, young, lower rank ranking detective.

00:13:08:10 - 00:13:12:01
Matt Haycox
What exactly is that? I mean, I know the name, but what is it in real terms?

00:13:12:01 - 00:13:38:13
Peter Bleksley
Well, Scotland Yard hosted all the major specialist squads. So, for example, the Flying Squad, that was a Scotland Yard squad or B offices were based in various parts of London. So from things like the fraud squad, counterfeit currency squad, specialist surveillance squads, all of these squads that were allowed to specialize on the serious crime of one form or another were essentially Scotland Yard squads.

00:13:38:13 - 00:14:20:16
Peter Bleksley
And I was fortunate enough to be approached to go on the Central Drug squad. So this is now 1985. And of course, having worked at Kensington, I've seen very close quarters the explosion of cocaine on the streets. You know, this was really the time when as long along with like AIDS, of course, that was the generation of AIDS when the real powder explosion of cocaine on the streets started to happen, because prior to that, cocaine was the preserve of rock stars, the upper class who had the money and had the contacts and the entertainment industry a bit more broadly.

00:14:20:19 - 00:14:29:20
Peter Bleksley
It certainly wasn't the drug that it is now of chippies, sparks, sky folders, painters and decorators. Basically everybody.

00:14:29:20 - 00:14:29:29
Matt Haycox
Everyone.

00:14:30:05 - 00:14:35:22
Peter Bleksley
You know, it was it was a narrow band of people having it in those days. And I saw the explosion of it.

00:14:35:29 - 00:14:38:28
Matt Haycox
Because it was materially more expensive than harder to come across.

00:14:38:28 - 00:15:08:18
Peter Bleksley
So yeah, and not so many people imported it. It was just simply for a very narrow band of people. But of course drug dealers are innovative. They're always looking for new markets because they want to make more money. And so they started bringing more and more cocaine into the UK, and that is when that massive explosion happened. And of course it hasn't slowed down or shown any sign of slowing down to this day.

00:15:08:21 - 00:15:29:28
Peter Bleksley
So I knew by going on that squad we'd get more resources. Ronald Reagan was the president on the other side of the pond. He was banging on about drugs. His wife had a had the most unsuccessful PR campaign in the history of mankind. She started a campaign saying just say no to drugs. Well, how did that work out?

00:15:29:28 - 00:15:50:08
Peter Bleksley
Everybody, right. Everybody actually said yes, and they still are. So I knew what was coming. And and I thought, yeah, that'll be the spot where there'll be lots of over time we'll get lots of resources will be in the spotlight. And so I was very happy to walk in there as a young detective at the age of 25.

00:15:50:08 - 00:15:58:08
Peter Bleksley
You know, when I walked through the the revolving doors there with my shoulders back and the chest puffed out and all that. So right this is where I want to be.

00:15:58:10 - 00:16:16:14
Matt Haycox
And you're undercover. Yeah. It's not like a it's not like a full time gig or, you know, you've been sent on an undercover mission for a couple of weeks here or, you know, I guess, you know, we only, only think how to ask these questions based on what we see on telly, don't we? But how does it work when you turn up at work?

00:16:16:20 - 00:16:38:14
Peter Bleksley
Well, when I went up onto that squad, I had no knowledge of how they were doing it. And the very first undercover job I was a part of, I was part of an arrest team. So other cops had already been in undercover negotiation with the bad guys and they were buying a parcel of heroin and the trade was set for the car park, Regent's Park.

00:16:38:14 - 00:17:01:07
Peter Bleksley
So London's a and I was part of an arrest team. I was an authorized firearms officer, so I was lying on the top deck of the bus. Right. Lying on the floor with me right here, a gun in my shoulder holster, ready for when the signal was given to DBAs off the bus and arrest the bad guys. That was the plan.

00:17:01:09 - 00:17:26:18
Peter Bleksley
However, it didn't quite work out like that because what happened there was two male cops and a female cop been working undercover and unbeknownst to me during the negotiations, were the bad guys. The bad guys had said to the woman officer, right, strip off, because we want to make sure you're not wearing a wire. And her modesty got the better of her, and she refused to take a top in her bra off.

00:17:26:21 - 00:17:38:21
Peter Bleksley
So the bad guys or were these people are just a bunch of patsies because anybody who's a real drug dealer wouldn't have any compunction about whipping a top in a bra, often showing that she wasn't carrying a wire. So the bad guys, well.

00:17:38:21 - 00:17:40:22
Matt Haycox
She carrying a wire? No.

00:17:40:24 - 00:17:59:12
Peter Bleksley
No. So the bad guys decided to rob them instead of do a deal with them. So when the undercover cops rocked up in the car park of London, so then the driver wound the window down. That's how long ago is who has a window? Why do that these days, though? What do they do when the wind is down?

00:17:59:14 - 00:18:19:15
Peter Bleksley
And the bad guy had a little what was in a gift bottle of which used to carry lemon juice, but he filled it with ammonia and he just sprayed ammonia into the eyes of the cop. So he starts screaming. They grabbed the keys, open the boat and grabbed the holdall with 70 grand of the commissioner's money in it and lick it.

00:18:19:17 - 00:18:41:13
Peter Bleksley
So as you can imagine, all hell broke loose. I scuttled off the bus. Could see it gets a leg in the distance. So I went after him. And of course, in those days I was a lot slimmer and a lot faster on the seat and I was close it down on him and shouting at him, and he just put his hand in his pocket and ran and leveled a22 pistol at me.

00:18:41:15 - 00:19:04:00
Peter Bleksley
At that point I built up such at a stain that there was no way I was going to stop, you know what I mean? So I tried a pretty unsuccessful kind of sidestep either way, clattered in it where it went flying, the gun went flying, right, your neck fell and a couple of the others were nicked. But for quite some time, the 70 grand was missing and nobody could find it.

00:19:04:02 - 00:19:30:07
Peter Bleksley
What eventually happened was that somebody spoke to a woman in the zoo and she said, Oh, I saw a man come running through here earlier and he threw a bag under a tarpaulin which was covering a skip over there. So obviously what the bad guy had done was dumped it in the skip, pulled the top back over it, and he probably so I'll come back and retrieve it later when the dust has settled so that that 70 grand was recovered.

00:19:30:09 - 00:19:46:20
Peter Bleksley
And as a detective inspector in charge of that operation said at the debrief that night, he said, Today I discovered the adrenaline runs down your leg because he could have seen his career going down this 23 swiftly. And it was that day also. I never got this on the cover malarkey. You know what I mean? I've seen that I do it.

00:19:46:22 - 00:19:47:28
Matt Haycox
So. So you ask for the gig.

00:19:47:28 - 00:20:11:21
Peter Bleksley
The well, it was very unscientific in those days. The undercover unit hadn't been set up. That was still some years away, although there was a lot of undercover work being done. It was all very unofficial on an ad hoc kind of basis. We didn't have a central place to go to to get folks driving licenses, passports, birth certificates, travel documents, all that kind of stuff.

00:20:11:29 - 00:20:32:15
Peter Bleksley
We just flew by the seat of our pants, basically. But yeah, a couple of days after that Regent's Park job, we were in the office and the day comes strutting down. The office says to the team, an undercover job is, Come in. Anybody want to go at it? Well, Black went up like I'm a four year old at primary school, you know, who knows the answer to this question?

00:20:32:18 - 00:20:39:00
Peter Bleksley
And I said, Yeah, right. All over that. And and so began over a decade of work undercover.

00:20:39:00 - 00:20:40:10
Matt Haycox
And what was that first gig?

00:20:40:13 - 00:20:45:11
Peter Bleksley
Oh, it was buying a R4 kilo of cocaine off some South American drug dealer.

00:20:45:12 - 00:20:47:22
Matt Haycox
You make it sound like popping down the shaft for a can of Coke.

00:20:47:23 - 00:20:49:05
Peter Bleksley
Well.

00:20:49:07 - 00:20:50:29
Matt Haycox
I guess it gets like that right now.

00:20:51:00 - 00:21:16:06
Peter Bleksley
It doesn't. Thank you for that. It doesn't because it's always, quite frankly, terrifying. But you you learn how to control your adrenaline and because there is so much adrenaline. I mean, my peripheral vision was absolutely astonishing. I could be sitting there like I'm sitting here now talking to you and you, if you were the bad guy, would think you've got my full attention.

00:21:16:06 - 00:21:41:19
Peter Bleksley
But I know who's coming in that door over there. I know who's going out that door over there. I know everything that's going on around me because the adrenaline has got me heightened to such a level. But what I have to do is control that adrenaline in some way. And you're not shaking, you know, and my heart isn't palpitating, so I'm looking as cool as a cucumber, but I know exactly who's over there, of course.

00:21:41:19 - 00:21:47:26
Peter Bleksley
And I've got a nose over there because I'm wondering whether you've got a spotter coming in there or not. And they invariably did.

00:21:47:26 - 00:21:55:03
Matt Haycox
And it's a skill that I mean, they specifically set out to teach you in the police. Is it something that was natural to you?

00:21:55:04 - 00:22:15:08
Peter Bleksley
Well, after we'd set up the the unit, which was size ten and what happened when that unit was set up and there was a need for it so we could get the documents, so we could centralize the expertise. And I'd been doing it for a couple of years by then. And what happened was the 12 of us with the most experience developed the course.

00:22:15:10 - 00:22:43:05
Peter Bleksley
We ran the course as a sort of as a trial run to see what training works, how we could tweak it, what would be better, what we could ditch. And then we had a we then played a part in the future selection and training of undercover cops after that. So it did become formalized. But up until that we just made it up as we went along because I've been a bit of an excuse and because I'd come across a lot of criminals in Beckham and arrested a lot.

00:22:43:05 - 00:22:53:19
Peter Bleksley
I knew a lot about criminality. They were all things. I took a little bit from air, a little bit from there, a little bit from there, and they helped me in my undercover persona.

00:22:53:21 - 00:23:26:28
Matt Haycox
So tell me, I mean, and I guess, again, I only ask these questions in this way because because it's what we think of seeing it on TV. So when when you're undercover, how long do you go for? Like you said, your first job, for example, was was bought or was buying the half a kilo cocaine or whatever. But do you ever go on, you know, one week machines to to butter someone up before you make the buy or do you go on five years living Because I mean, I think about, for example, Donnie Brasco or something like that where we needed like literally I mean, there must have been months and months and months of

00:23:26:28 - 00:23:34:05
Matt Haycox
prep to just get him into that circle before he got into that circle. And he's undercover for years and years and years. I mean, do we have both both things?

00:23:34:10 - 00:24:00:29
Peter Bleksley
Almost all of the above. Yeah. There was never a template You could lay over any undercover operation. I could quite literally get into the office 8:00 one morning. Somebody say, an informant, You know, drops his head up last night, wants to introduce somebody, and ten or 12 hours later, that job could all be boxers and cocks, you know, and it might be a significant seizure of drugs or guns or counterfeit currency or stolen lorry load or whatever it might be.

00:24:01:01 - 00:24:11:26
Peter Bleksley
Other jobs would take days, weeks and months. And would you be able depended on the structure of the job, who we were going up against and what we thought was the best way to capture.

00:24:11:26 - 00:24:14:03
Matt Haycox
Would you be running more than one job at once?

00:24:14:03 - 00:24:18:12
Peter Bleksley
Yes, Sometimes. But that was pretty unwise.

00:24:18:12 - 00:24:39:14
Matt Haycox
Well, because I mean, then the next part of the question was going to be I mean, I guess it depends on your geographic area. It may have been easier in the eighties. I mean, nowadays with the social media, whatever mean, you know, you can't go anywhere without being recognized by someone about something. I mean, once you've kind of gone undercover, do you almost need to keep that persona for the rest of your the rest of your life?

00:24:39:14 - 00:25:00:23
Matt Haycox
But, you know, I don't know if you if you go and play the character ICAC's, you know, the whatever the local drug dealer, then surely no matter what town in England you go to, you all kind of pissing in the same pond, aren't even someone's going to know and come across you when you when you rock up as Mark Southern two years later, you must always be sweating that you're going to get caught.

00:25:00:26 - 00:25:03:02
Peter Bleksley
That you're not the local drug dealer. All like.

00:25:03:04 - 00:25:06:11
Matt Haycox
No, no, no, we're going to do that. But I also have to.

00:25:06:13 - 00:25:09:15
Peter Bleksley
Ask I just sort of ask.

00:25:09:17 - 00:25:19:03
Matt Haycox
Though, I think you have said that I think that you've played the part of Michael going after a local drug dealer. You, me, me worried now.

00:25:19:06 - 00:25:44:14
Peter Bleksley
It was horses for courses. And, well, I always used to tell people was play a part that is as close to your true personality as you possibly can. And and bosses used to say to me, if I'd sometimes I'd get invited up to see the commissioner or the assistant commissioner be awarded a certificate and all that, which is very nice.

00:25:44:16 - 00:26:08:01
Peter Bleksley
And you get cucumber sandwiches which were less nice. And sometimes these bosses would cite the PR How do you manage to do operation after operation after operation in your undercover role and not be compromised? And I would say to them, well, this is the scale and the size of the industry that I'm talking about. You know, this is what we're up against.

00:26:08:01 - 00:26:32:02
Peter Bleksley
It's a vast industry. There are thousands upon thousands of people involved in it in the drug trade, in industry and so as long as I'm careful to make sure that I'm not going up against the gang that I've been up against before, I can carry on doing it. And I did for over a decade. And if my undercover career and all gone belly up like it did, eventually, I possibly would have done it for a lot longer.

00:26:32:02 - 00:26:58:13
Peter Bleksley
But yeah, stick to what you now. I always used to say the other cops when we were training them. Stick to what you know, because I could never of portrayed the role of somebody educated in fine art who went to Eton, you know, and he's looking to buy a Rembrandt, for example. All I could basically play was the role of a South London oik Gazette Zu I am, and that's the role I can play.

00:26:58:15 - 00:27:02:12
Peter Bleksley
You tinker about with it, obviously, but yeah, be who you are.

00:27:02:19 - 00:27:20:11
Matt Haycox
When you got to the end. Ready to make an arrest, would you make the arrest or would you? You disappear and you, you know, so I guess your worst case scenario in the future is someone knew you as Steve last week and you've told John two months later it was never known that you were Steve the copper. You were just Steve who might have changed his name for another reason.

00:27:20:12 - 00:27:44:23
Peter Bleksley
Yeah, I was usually having it on B answers leg away from the saying as the arrest team came out from all manner of places where they'd been hidden and arrested. The bad guys. And a lot of the time that went swimmingly well. On one occasion it wasn't so great. A young guy who was aspiring to be an undercover cop have been pestering me and pestering me who's got pleased.

00:27:44:23 - 00:28:06:13
Peter Bleksley
Blacks going to come out as a driver on the job. Please, please, please, please, please. And he nagged me up and down, dilated and eventually archived in and let him come out on a job as my driver. And I'm buying a parcel of pills other than I by night to his house and ecstasy pills on this job from a load of Irish fellows up in North London.

00:28:06:16 - 00:28:25:29
Peter Bleksley
And I've got this guy who's driving a car is a big old lumpy Mike is a B M or something or a, you know, a big ol big old car. And he's a driver. So I'm, I'm sitting in the I'm dealing with this negotiation, right. With with this little fella. It was jump in, jump in his act and all that kind of stuff.

00:28:26:02 - 00:28:49:11
Peter Bleksley
And eventually it gets to the point where I've shown him the money. He show me the power. So I've taken control of the power. So but he wants the money right now. I've given the signal for the arrest to come in and nothing's happened. Right. So I'm at the back of the car with this guy who quite rightly wants to get his hands on the money and take the money and clear off with it.

00:28:49:14 - 00:29:18:24
Peter Bleksley
And I can't quite allow that to happen. Finally, the arresting did do their thing, and in a moment of panic, this inexperienced bloke who's pestered me work undercover forever and a day, hits the accelerator, travels about a yard, soft whack, slams the brakes on. And of course, because I'm in the boot trying to keep out of the bag with the money in it, the boot slammed straight down on my head, right, splits my head open.

00:29:18:27 - 00:29:42:05
Peter Bleksley
Right. The little geezer finally gets nicked, managing the boat. My job's done. I bet like it. So I'm running up the road. And of course, with a head wound when you're run into. Well, I was pump pub. Pub right. And as Clara spurting out my head, one of the surveillance teams see me running up the road. Right. Pump it out, Clara.

00:29:42:08 - 00:30:02:21
Peter Bleksley
And of course, they've got on the radio and there's all a big panic mad scream up like, you know, they think I'm going to bleed to death or something. Anyway, I eventually sort of, you know, run out of breath, put my hand over me. I tried to stop the bleeding. Somebody came out, picked me up, took me. It was put a lot of out of that was the stitches and I was riding them back at work the following day.

00:30:02:22 - 00:30:09:04
Peter Bleksley
Needless to say, I never worked undercover with that bloke again. That was his first and last job with me.

00:30:09:06 - 00:30:30:29
Matt Haycox
I feel like I've got hundreds of almost like a schoolboy type questions. I can ask that from from all of the TV's off and watched over the years. But you know so can you talk about going back to work the next day or whatever? I mean, have you been on yourself or the people ever on jobs, whether so long term, you're just you're not popping in the police station every day to check.

00:30:30:29 - 00:30:48:09
Matt Haycox
I mean, you're literally just living undercover. So, again, you're told to infiltrate Matt, and you just I don't know, you come and meet me in the pub and then you just come in live in Leeds for weeks and weeks on end and you get impatient. I mean, what you know, you get pissed with me shagging birds. I mean, you're allowed to do whatever you want.

00:30:48:14 - 00:31:24:28
Peter Bleksley
Not whatever you want. But what you've got, remember, is that whatever you do, you might end up having to justify your actions. At number one, call in the Old Bailey. And that's what I always used to say to people, you know, if you undercover cops when Wembley training them, if you feel like you're forced into a corner and you've got to take that law on a Charlie or you've got to smoke that joint or you feel you have to get into bed with that person, just remember you're going to be in the witness box at number one called the highest criminal court in the Old Bailey.

00:31:25:00 - 00:31:36:11
Peter Bleksley
And the and the media will be there to report on your every word. So whatever you going to do, you better be able to justify it or else you're going to get shredded.

00:31:36:11 - 00:31:49:01
Matt Haycox
And is it but is it not a simple justification in that you've asked me to be undercover with one of the most dangerous people in the world. I'm going to I'm going to have to take a line again. I'm going to have to shag a bra or whatever it is. Otherwise it just looks completely out of character.

00:31:49:01 - 00:32:17:24
Peter Bleksley
The esteemed milord who's sitting like as the trial judge, has probably never been in a boozer with a terrifying hoodlum and felt that he's got a hoover up a on a Charlie also. But likewise, the university educated barristers have never been in those kind of situations. And of course, all they want to do is show a seed of doubt in the jury's mind that you are not a witness to truth.

00:32:17:27 - 00:32:41:00
Peter Bleksley
And if they can do that, they've done their job and they'll secure an acquittal for their client. So, yes. And you you package it up really well. The practicalities of it, the danger of it, the situation you find yourself in. But I also used to say to the trainees, when you negotiate with these people, you really don't want to be off.

00:32:41:00 - 00:33:07:00
Peter Bleksley
You're not on Charlie, on on dope or whatever it is. You don't want to be drunk because you need your wits about you. So whenever possible, don't do it. Don't take it. My reasons. Give an excuse. If you've got to make sure it's legitimate, you can carry it. Often it's believable, but don't do it a lot of the time.

00:33:07:03 - 00:33:29:29
Peter Bleksley
You know, when we sit around and negotiate and and people have put out a thought, for example, and I want to sit down and have a joint, you know, and understand modern jazz and eat four boxes of maltesers. Right. So so you're sitting there and I would because I practiced, I practiced like in joints like continue early and racking up lines of powder.

00:33:30:01 - 00:33:48:00
Peter Bleksley
And these were ideas I would give to the trainee and the undercover cops if a geezer sitting over the other side of the table who I'm negotiating with pulls out a lump of resin. For example, it was predominantly resin in those days there was a hub and in that disciples are resin and he's got a packet of skins.

00:33:48:01 - 00:34:13:05
Peter Bleksley
Or am I ever packet skins? I always carry a packet skins, you know, what am I? I mean cigaret pipe was just a so I'll grab these big. Yeah. It's a dope grab is grab. His cigaret pipe was ethereal in these skins and I'll pull a fag and I will build a joint. Right. And if I now I've I've been false in a corner now and I'm going to have to have a taco on this joint with him what I make in the joint.

00:34:13:07 - 00:34:31:18
Peter Bleksley
So what I do is I backloaded, in other words, at the front of the joint, which is a bit is going to get spots up and smoked first. I don't do any cannabis right. But he doesn't know that. He can't say that because I've disguised it with my fingers while I'm doing it. So the first sent him is not got any dope in it.

00:34:31:20 - 00:34:50:22
Peter Bleksley
And I go, I built it, I'm sparking it. Right. I don't mind being perceived as somebody was, you know, not very good joint smoking manners. Right. Amir, do a deal and I'm out on the cover cop and I want to get this guy alive. So I'll say, I built it. I'm sparking it by and I'll spark up and all.

00:34:50:22 - 00:35:12:19
Peter Bleksley
I've got a big couple of tags on it, you know what I mean? Huge, great lung folds bowl. I'm smoking his tobacco because that's what, up the front, the joint. Alright, there might be a bit of residual as the heat travels down the joint through the other smoke. But it's not burning, you know, I'm just banging on the front of it and then I'll just add it round.

00:35:12:23 - 00:35:30:08
Peter Bleksley
Job done. I've not smoke the joint to all intents purposes he thinks I have. You know, I've also built a good joint. I mean I could build a three skin or five skin, a seven skin. I could build you a joint like a baby's arm. You know, like a massive, great, loud cigar, you know, because it was part of my job.

00:35:30:08 - 00:35:50:20
Peter Bleksley
I was working on the cover. I was going to be professional and know what I was doing. Likewise with cocaine, it's the same sort of you suppose that a rapper, Charlie, and we're all going to have a line, but I go, I can't stand like being on gear when I'm driving and I've got the car outside, but I'll rack up the lines and I'll go get a credit card out.

00:35:50:27 - 00:36:09:23
Peter Bleksley
One of the old phone cards out. Jump, jump, jump, jump, jump, jump, jump, jump, jump, jump. Right. You'll raise Your name's Matt. Okay, So I would put your lines in an m a Calvin M, right? It was a bit more difficult if somebody's name was Steve and you've got to make it. S like, okay, but I did because I practiced it right?

00:36:09:23 - 00:36:29:19
Peter Bleksley
Easy. If it's a tape. Terry All of that people. I've never seen it play out like that before and all their suspicions that they might harp about. Yeah, you know, are you an undercover cop? Argue the real deal. They all go when you do little things like that. And they really convinced because they know, you know your way around a bit of gear and you've done something that they've never seen before.

00:36:29:23 - 00:36:38:23
Matt Haycox
I mean, you know you say obviously you put people's suspicions at rest. I mean, how often are criminals conscious of people being undercover cops?

00:36:38:25 - 00:37:00:16
Peter Bleksley
Oh, they're totally paranoid. You know, back in the day, they were all paranoid as well. Some of them because they're on gear, the others because they do not want to get a lengthy jail term wrap around them. You know, back in those days, you get nicked with a kilo of cocaine, you're going to get eight or ten just for one kilo, you know, And if you get nicked for four or five kilos, you'll get in twelves.

00:37:00:16 - 00:37:21:20
Peter Bleksley
And for Eins and people didn't want that sort a bird rat around them so they would double, double kind of suspicious and paranoid and all of that. So you have to win their win, their friendship to a certain extent, you know, to put their minds at ease. And however you did that, yeah, crack on to do it.

00:37:21:21 - 00:37:29:16
Matt Haycox
You get undercover police in jails like dozens of people go and pretend to be criminals and stuff you say on the telly.

00:37:29:16 - 00:38:04:22
Peter Bleksley
But it has happened. It's an incredibly high risk thing though. I never did it. It's easier to get an undercover cop into the cell in a police station. Certainly it was back in the day. I don't know if it's a current tactic or not. I suspect in modern policing probably not. Probably deemed as too high risk, especially putting an undercover cop in a jail, because if they get something wrong and they get undiscovered, it's a very complex procedure to extract them from that jail, by which time it might be too late.

00:38:04:24 - 00:38:21:27
Matt Haycox
And I get hypothetically, if it's not happening, because the follow up question was going to be, how would you get paid in this world? Like, I mean, obviously you've got your money, isn't the undercover cop, but if you had to go and do a gig like being in jail, I mean, it's effectively a you're at work 24 seven in the most horrendous fucking circumstances ever.

00:38:21:27 - 00:38:24:27
Matt Haycox
I mean, would there be more money for something less or is it just for the love of the game?

00:38:25:02 - 00:38:49:18
Peter Bleksley
I suspect you'd have a very interesting overtime negotiation with the officer in charge of that operation. Yeah, that you certainly wouldn't get paid for 24 hours a day. I'm pretty sure that that wouldn't happen. Yeah, but we were generally speaking, because we were specialists, because the people that wanted us to go and do their jobs, you know, once you've got a reputation, people knew you were quite competent at doing it.

00:38:49:20 - 00:39:09:08
Peter Bleksley
Your reputation would spread throughout the country and further afield. So I was forever disappearing off here, there and everywhere and doing operations for different squads, different forces, sometimes different countries. And you just negotiate some kind of deal with the bosses of what you were going to get paid. But needless to say, I don't have a yacht.

00:39:09:10 - 00:39:27:18
Matt Haycox
With the many stories of undercover people who kind of, you know, cross across the line. And I guess you spent you spend so much time in that world that, you know, maybe some time sometimes you do blur the lines between what's what's right and wrong. And it's gone. It's gone past, you know, just taking a few lines. Or maybe you should have taken a few lines and you end up being a bit bent.

00:39:27:23 - 00:39:51:28
Peter Bleksley
It's a matter of great pride that with regards to the So ten unit, yes, they got heavily criticized on one operation, but they basically did that at the behest of a criminal psychologist. But so ten as a unit was never mired in any kind of corruption scandal whatsoever. And it's a matter of great pride for me, because I worked with some brilliant men and women on that unit.

00:39:51:28 - 00:40:12:21
Peter Bleksley
Really, really brilliant, clever, diverse. Every color, race and creed you can imagine some astonishingly brilliant women. And between us and with the assistance of our colleagues that did the investigations, the surveillance, the arrests, we put hundreds of people around for thousands of thousands of years.

00:40:12:23 - 00:40:37:06
Matt Haycox
And you mentioned police corruption. That was going to be a bit of a follow up question as well. I mean, you know, we've talked to now about, I guess, how as the public, you know, we get a lot of our police questions from the telly and one of my personal favorite TV shows is is line of Duty where I guess we get we get both undercover police and police corruption and obviously most things on TV sensationalized to a degree.

00:40:37:06 - 00:40:50:03
Matt Haycox
But I mean, you know, how how possible or prevalent is that level of police corruption? I mean, I mean, are there any stories that never come out or is there much that goes on that, you know, you can't talk about police corruption?

00:40:50:11 - 00:41:06:04
Peter Bleksley
Will be there, sadly, And corruption comes in many different forms. Back in my day, a lot of corrupt officers were caught because they were fabricating evidence. And that was called noble cause corruption. Yeah. Nothing fucking noble about fit in. Someone I.

00:41:06:10 - 00:41:10:06
Matt Haycox
Saw someone. Someone who you know is dirty anyway, but you can't get them for what they've done. So you.

00:41:10:13 - 00:41:27:12
Peter Bleksley
So you attribute a false confession to them? Yeah. You know, somebody goes through the door with what? What corrupt cops used to call a happy bag. So that would be a bag with a sawn off shotgun, a balaclava, a pair of gloves and this, that and the other. And I plant that in their car or plant in their bedroom, that kind of stuff.

00:41:27:15 - 00:41:28:21
Peter Bleksley
And that was good. And that.

00:41:28:21 - 00:41:30:05
Matt Haycox
So it doesn't sound very happy.

00:41:30:07 - 00:41:59:21
Peter Bleksley
No, no, exactly. Exactly. It's it's odd. Same as is not to call it noble cause corruption nothing noble in it whatsoever. And then of course there's the self-gain corruption where people still drugs or money for their own gain and all that kind of stuff. And there's a corruption where people use their power and their influence, unfortunately. And we've seen a lot of these cases lately where they use it to kind of coerce victims of crime into having sexual actions with them.

00:41:59:21 - 00:42:25:14
Peter Bleksley
And so it comes in many different forms. But I guess the most interesting corruption story of the I personally was ever a part of was when I got a phone call from a young detective that I knew because I'd worked with him elsewhere. He was on a specialist squad and he rang me one day and he was in a dreadful site.

00:42:25:16 - 00:42:53:29
Peter Bleksley
You know, you could tell by his voice and the way he spoke and he like we've got ever meet, we've got over make please, please, please go over mate. And I knew it was urgent. So I went over, met him and he said to me in a pub detective, you know, in pubs we met in a pub and he said, Blokes, I've been out of order, I've been awful.

00:42:54:04 - 00:43:28:26
Peter Bleksley
He said, But I didn't ever think it would come to this. And I said, Alright, stop talking in riddles and tell me what's happened. He said, Well we went out on an operation and we stole £200,000 cash off a drug dealer. They said on our team there was like nine of us that were in the inner sanctum. So this was nine corrupt detectives within a team of, about 15 detectives.

00:43:29:03 - 00:43:50:12
Peter Bleksley
So the others on the outside were never made privy to any of the corruption that went on within the inner sanctum. They said. So we've nicked this 200 grand and we've had a divvy up between us. But one of the corrupt cops was going out with one of the strike cops. So one of the nine was going out was one of the 15.

00:43:50:14 - 00:44:29:22
Peter Bleksley
Right. And what he did was divided up is £20,000 with his girlfriend cop. Now all of a sudden that as potentially put the nine or ten corrupt cops at risk because she's just been bled into being corrupt because a partner's given a ten grand ladies. So of course in a corrupt sanctum were livid about this because suddenly a weak link had been created, you know, And if she'd got a ten grand and gone right, I'm going straight to the complaints department and I'm going to tell them everything that's going on.

00:44:29:24 - 00:44:53:08
Peter Bleksley
The others would have all got nicks had gone to jail, you know, for some considerable time. So he said, And it gets worse. He says the inner sanctum was decided that because she's a weak link, they're going to murderer. I said, You serious? He said, Yeah. I said, Well, what about the boyfriend? I said, Well, he ain't going to know until it's too late.

00:44:53:11 - 00:45:18:06
Peter Bleksley
Well, this is clearly a dreadful, shameful scandalous situation, getting potentially a whole lot worse. And the fellow was beside him. So he said, I know I've done wrong and I've been stupid. No, just, you know, I just don't know what to do. I don't want to have her blood on my hands. I said, Oh, I leave it with me So I went off and I think about it.

00:45:18:12 - 00:45:46:13
Peter Bleksley
What I will say is that I didn't go down the official route. In other words, I didn't go straight to the complaints department. I didn't go to the complaints department at any point. And I'll accept any criticism anybody wants to level at me for that. What I will say, however, before anybody jumps on social media to have a pop at me, is that that woman police officer did not die.

00:45:46:15 - 00:46:00:12
Peter Bleksley
So that's very much a positive. And at some later stage, certain detectives from that squad went to jail on Connected Matters.

00:46:00:15 - 00:46:04:13
Matt Haycox
They found a happy bag. They found a happy bag in their downstairs toilet.

00:46:04:15 - 00:46:47:28
Peter Bleksley
So, you know, I'll leave it at that. So they got. Yeah, yeah. I'm unfortunately, as long as the police is populated by people, there will be corruption. I mean, but the levels of wrongdoing we're seeing in the police now is absolutely scandalous, is way, way, way beyond anything that ever happened in my day in terms of numbers and the seriousness of it, you know, with people, police officers murdering entirely innocent, beautiful women, kidnaping, raping and murdering them and then another police officer, I'm not even going to mention their names because they're such dirty, filthy, monstrous scumbags, you know, being convicted of 60, 80 sex offenses, many of them rapes and so many other cases.

00:46:48:05 - 00:47:03:00
Peter Bleksley
There are crooked police officers appearing in court every week. And it's scandalous. Policing has really hit the depths. And no wonder the public don't trust the police. It's in crisis. It's in a dreadful state.

00:47:03:00 - 00:47:11:21
Matt Haycox
I mean, when these police are obviously, you know, getting arrested, going to trial and getting presumably getting done, I mean, I would imagine they're not having a fun time on the inside as well.

00:47:11:24 - 00:47:44:25
Peter Bleksley
No, but they probably got a whole bloody prison to themselves by now. So many of them really, you know, there are so many obviously, I'm a very keen follower and watcher of crime and policing because it's my job to comment in the media, as I do on a on a very regular basis about crime and policing. So I'm across all of these cases, and it's absolutely scandalous that the chiefs of police telling us they're doing things about it and well, let's hope they do, but by crikey, have they got a job on their hands?

00:47:44:27 - 00:47:54:14
Matt Haycox
But and is it worse now than it was back in your time? Or is it just that, you know, think things are more more visible now? It was more whistleblowers now on most social media, whatever it may be.

00:47:54:18 - 00:48:09:27
Peter Bleksley
Now it's worse. Just look at the numbers. I mean, there was a former commissioner of the police called Paul Condon and to call average would be really doing him a favor. But he stood up once upon a time and said there were 250 corrupt detectives in the Met police some years ago.

00:48:09:28 - 00:48:11:24
Matt Haycox
Now, because the force.

00:48:11:26 - 00:48:39:00
Peter Bleksley
Though, there are 30,000, 20,000. But however, last week or the week before, they said there's going to be 2000 police officers drummed out of policing across the board. So not just in the Met. The Met, the Met guesstimate was 500. So if either of those figures stack up, it's least twice as bad as it used to be, you know, given regard some fluctuation in the police officer numbers.

00:48:39:02 - 00:49:07:18
Peter Bleksley
So the problem is much, much worse. The police only have themselves to blame in many regards because the vetting wasn't good enough and they let people with criminal convictions join the police and they also let people who were entirely unsuitable join the police. So some of it is of their own making. And the people I feel really sorry for primarily, of course, the victims of the dreadful crimes these so-called police officers commit.

00:49:07:20 - 00:49:28:18
Peter Bleksley
But I really feel sorry for the good cops. They're the ones I feel sorry for because I would not want to work alongside a police officer who had come in the police with a criminal conviction, for example. And I'll tell you one of the many reasons why not. You imagine you've worked on a long, complex case. You've arrested the bad guys.

00:49:28:24 - 00:49:50:04
Peter Bleksley
They've been charged. You're incl you've got the witness box at the Old Bailey and you give your evidence and you are robustly cross-examined. But because you're a witness, the truth. You stick to what you've said. Because that is the truth and you've done your job. Then your colleague gets in the witness box first. What is the first question?

00:49:50:04 - 00:50:14:09
Peter Bleksley
You know, it's that first question from defense counsel Officer, Do you have any criminal convictions? Yes. I mean, well, it makes it so easy for the defense counsel to just send out the jury and say, members of the jury, this man or woman, as a conviction for dishonesty or a sex offense or wherever it might be. Are you going to believe their testimony.

00:50:14:12 - 00:50:30:01
Matt Haycox
And are they letting them in because they're not vetting them properly? Or is it is it part of part of the new world wokeness that they've got to give everyone a chance? BOTH What? So it's not it's not a prerequisite of being a police officer that you must not have a conviction.

00:50:30:02 - 00:51:08:13
Peter Bleksley
It hasn't been. But certainly the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Jamal Rowley, is heavily indicated that he's going to turn the tide on that. And the only people that are suitable police officers become police officers, which really isn't too much to ask, isn't it? Yeah, utter, utter nonsense. But you see, so many senior police officers these days, you know, come from this period of evolution around about the time that Tony Blair said education, education, education and some of these aspiring ambitious greasy pole climbers walks the front lines.

00:51:08:13 - 00:51:34:27
Peter Bleksley
Pollution is beneath them. You know what I mean? They don't like rolling around on the pavement with robbers above as it's all a bit grubby for these people who just want to climb that pole and sit behind a bloody desk all day. Right? So they all try it off to university and got their degrees and come back police to police him with their heads full of pseudo intellectual claptrap, which at very little relevance to police here.

00:51:35:00 - 00:51:54:19
Peter Bleksley
It might help them manage a budget and that's what most of them do. Once you get beyond SUPERINTEND, you get a chief superintendent and that kind of level, they manage budgets well. Why do we need a senior police officer to manage a budget, get a civilian in on a fraction of the cost, who's actually got experience in accounting and the like?

00:51:54:19 - 00:52:12:02
Peter Bleksley
You know, Mike's off glove, boy. But anyway. Yeah. So they all came back to policing and that's why now so much of policing from the senior leadership downwards is fluff, is woke, is liberal and is not what the public want out of their police service. It's nonsense.

00:52:12:05 - 00:52:14:23
Matt Haycox
It won't be long till we get a transgender will.

00:52:14:25 - 00:52:34:20
Peter Bleksley
Oh, I'm sure there are now. I mean, I'm sure there is and I'm sure you know, if there are good cop, I don't give a damn, you know, what I call themselves or what their pronouns are. Mine. A bloke, a geezer, auto officer. Right. You know, I don't care if they're a good, dedicated public servant. And I like Nicki people and they like looking after victims.

00:52:34:25 - 00:52:55:07
Peter Bleksley
And they know how to gather evidence. They know that I keep the streets safe. I don't give a damn who they are, what bits they've got or not, what I call themselves. I just want it to be a dedicated and I mean dedicated, committed public servant who hates bad guys and loves locking them up.

00:52:55:10 - 00:53:14:08
Matt Haycox
I mean, obviously every kind of answer you've given shows you clear passion for passion for policing. But it's been obviously 20 odd years since you're in it because because of the the downfall of your career. Just I mean, I could ask you questions all day long about undercover policing. I think I could literally sit with this sit with you for days on end.

00:53:14:13 - 00:53:17:24
Matt Haycox
But, you know, tell me tell me how it ended and what went wrong.

00:53:17:26 - 00:53:45:29
Peter Bleksley
Together with an undercover colleague from what was then called Customs and Excise, we infiltrated a bunch of extremely well connected villains who were offering vast quantities of heroin for sale. And they said they could supply it on a regular basis. And if we couldn't pay them in money, they were willing to accept consignments of guns or explosives or missiles as payment.

00:53:46:01 - 00:54:16:15
Peter Bleksley
So you could probably get what their sort of danger was. They were they were connected to terrorism. We negotiated with them. I was sort of, you know, the Yorkie bloke. It was going to deal with the drugs and, you know, run the the contraband about and all that stuff. And this long, complex, multi-agency operation which involved the Drug Enforcement Agency from America, the FBI, the Regional Crime Squad, Customs and Excise, Garda Chicano, the Irish Police, and more.

00:54:16:17 - 00:54:45:19
Peter Bleksley
This complicated operation was all to come to a crescendo when the drugs were going to be delivered to me at a hotel, the Gatwick Gatwick Airport. So that day we had a big briefing in a moment and I was to receive the drugs. Another one of the bad guys was going to be shown hundreds of thousands of pounds in safety deposit lock ups in boxes in central London and film, because we'd been very convincing during the negotiations.

00:54:45:19 - 00:55:17:16
Peter Bleksley
I did think we were prop up pukka bad guys. A man rocked up at Gatwick Airport with an extremely heavy holdall with 15 kilos of high grade heroin, divided a half kilo sort of egg shaped parcel. Basically, he rocks up. We got to the hotel room, which, unbeknownst to him, is already wired for audio video. And we sit down and about the next 4 hours I weigh and test every package.

00:55:17:19 - 00:55:41:01
Peter Bleksley
When I say test, it was a bit unscientific, but I knew my gear. So what I would do with a standing knife was make a small slit in each half kilo package with the tip of the standing off for a little bit. The heroin on a piece of silver foil holds a silver foil in front of me and away from me and then burn it with a cigaret lighter afterwards so the fumes would go off.

00:55:41:03 - 00:56:12:16
Peter Bleksley
You know, the old chasing the dragon expression. If I was a heroin addict, you would hoover those fumes up and inhale them in the rolled up £10 note or whatever. After that's done, I by way of my very unscientific but also pretty good testing would look at the burnt residue on the silver foil. The more burnt residue on the foil, the more sugars or mixing agents cutting agents were on the drug, the cleaner, the foil the better the gear.

00:56:12:18 - 00:56:34:01
Peter Bleksley
This was all very good gear. But because I wanted to show that I was a consumer professional and because all those miles away in London where the money was being shown and there were complex surveillance operations going on and all of that, I wanted to buy some time for them. So I did every parcel 30 of them. And then of course, I'd have to retake the map and all that.

00:56:34:01 - 00:56:55:15
Peter Bleksley
And it took about 4 hours. I was having a banging headache at the end of it because of course, it was inevitable that some I would have inhaled, but nonetheless, job done. Oh, successful man. The little fella going to go down to the hotel bar and celebrate the start of a long, fruitful and profitable relationship until we got to the lobby.

00:56:55:15 - 00:57:01:16
Peter Bleksley
That was an armed police, jumped out, slammed us to the floor, handcuffed and dragged us off.

00:57:01:21 - 00:57:03:11
Matt Haycox
That you were expecting?

00:57:03:13 - 00:57:24:18
Peter Bleksley
Yes. Yeah, but typical. Even though I'd been at the briefing in the morning with the firearms officers and I told them that I was one of theirs, and they'd say me and they'd heard me talk at the briefing. And I said, So please, when is it he's facing away from mine? You can be a little gentler with me because I am actually a police officer.

00:57:24:20 - 00:57:45:22
Peter Bleksley
But no, those numskull friggin people slammed me in the ground just as hard and slammed the handcuffs on just as tight and bruised me as much as I bruised him. Thank you very much, officers. So other arrests were made, number of people remanded in the prison. And so the wheels.

00:57:45:24 - 00:57:51:03
Matt Haycox
You get taken at that point, do you get do you get taken off to to the police station, escape at the back?

00:57:51:08 - 00:58:15:29
Peter Bleksley
No, I got taken off elsewhere and I handcuffs were tight enough. And then I got driven off for a debrief somewhere and all that sort of stuff. Then a lot of people senior people wanted to buy me a drink because at the time that was the biggest landslide seizure of heroin in the UK ever. I mean, I know it's been dwarfed now, you know, many, many times over, but at the time it was the biggest landslide seizure of heroin in the UK.

00:58:15:29 - 00:58:16:15
Peter Bleksley
So I.

00:58:16:15 - 00:58:17:07
Matt Haycox
Interrupt your story.

00:58:17:07 - 00:58:44:26
Peter Bleksley
Anyway, know, and I saw a lot evidence of some, you know, exhibit labels etc. to give to officers, blah, blah, blah, all that kind of stuff. And then, then people took me for quite a few drinks. Anyway. What happened was I knew there was some kind of threat against me by the bad guys because what happened, they sort of rocked up in the dock as part of the committal procedure to the Old Bailey.

00:58:44:29 - 00:59:11:09
Peter Bleksley
And of course, they look around in a dock nowhere. Where's that long, long haired bloke from South London? Full payer. Uh, maybe he's an undercover cop. So then they were. It's on the theory that if they killed me, I'd kill the evidence. And to a certain degree, they were right. But of course they weren't going to fire me, you know, I didn't know what was her name was or anything like that.

00:59:11:09 - 00:59:31:18
Peter Bleksley
You know, they wouldn't have family. So I'm being threatened. Was, you know, went with the job. It was part of part of territory, really. Anyway. Well, that was a few weeks or months later. I'm driving home from work, actually, I've finished early, so I'm going to go to the pub and have a drink. You know, I'm. I'm happy about that.

00:59:31:21 - 00:59:55:15
Peter Bleksley
Driving to the boozer, mobile phone rings and it's one of the bosses at the yard. And he says, Blakes, don't go home. I said, Oh, what was that? He said, I can't tell you. He said, But being here, Scotland yard 9:00 tomorrow morning, I was right. Okay. He said, Would you live with. I said, my girlfriend. He said, Well, get to your flat.

00:59:55:15 - 01:00:14:19
Peter Bleksley
And pack an overnight bag. But that's all. And then move into a hotel tonight using one of your false identities, one of me undercover identities. Make sure you're here tomorrow. And there was a in a panic in his voice. And I went, Well, I got my girlfriend booked in a hotel, smashed the granny out the minibar that night.

01:00:14:21 - 01:00:16:00
Peter Bleksley
It's again, like, you know what.

01:00:16:03 - 01:00:19:02
Matt Haycox
I miss is a bit of both that you.

01:00:19:05 - 01:00:35:22
Peter Bleksley
Think of what's going on. And of course, I turned up at 8:00 the following morning. Not not a you know what I mean? I'm a detective. And that was my really amazed me. And in his hands he had a report called A Briefing. And he said, Have you seen this? I said, No, no, I did. It was anything before.

01:00:35:24 - 01:00:53:09
Peter Bleksley
He said, Right, come with me. It locks me in the copyright. But with this report he said, Read that and stick that copy in your pocket because you're going to need it. Well, what I then rape was a it was called a briefing note from Operation Zulu Cricket and it's available on my website, by the way, a black sitcom.

01:00:53:09 - 01:01:13:15
Peter Bleksley
And this was just quite astonishing for me to read for the first time. It details the level of the threat. You know how much I was in danger, but the report adds my real name in it. Right now, when you work undercover, any report should only have your undercover number and it should never have your real name in it for obvious reasons.

01:01:13:18 - 01:01:20:03
Peter Bleksley
Anyway, my name features in this like on every page, you know, about the death threat and you know about the issue.

01:01:20:03 - 01:01:21:13
Matt Haycox
Of the people to do with the heroin.

01:01:21:16 - 01:01:43:03
Peter Bleksley
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. For the assassination that they're going to me and all this guy and blah blah blah blah blah. I just got my real name in it. And the astonishing thing is I'm told that report has been stolen from an unmarked police car, so now it could be in possession of the bad guys. So there's a preexisting plot to kill me, married up with this repo.

01:01:43:06 - 01:02:06:19
Peter Bleksley
There's got my real name in it. Suddenly, I'm very easy to find because I've got a very unusual surname. There's only about 14 blacks in the UK, and I fathered most of them. Well, now. No, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, honestly. So now the enormity of the situation is beginning to dawn on me. And then there was a series of meetings all day long.

01:02:06:19 - 01:02:27:09
Peter Bleksley
I floated around the edges. Chickens were running about left, right and center. Didn't really have a clue what they were doing. And in the end, by the close of play that day, it had been decided that I had to abandon my home, abandon my life, my identity, abandoned everything that was close to me and hurriedly going to the witness protection program without you.

01:02:27:09 - 01:02:43:07
Peter Bleksley
Mrs. No, she came with me. She was she had the choice. Oh yeah. They graciously said to me, you know, you could offer your girlfriend the choice. Oh, thank you very much. Can I? Well, so this job then was to decree who I'm going to live with or not. I mean, she did come with very eternal credit to her for that.

01:02:43:11 - 01:02:47:13
Peter Bleksley
But sadly, I had two years in the witness protection program.

01:02:47:18 - 01:02:53:29
Matt Haycox
Which you saw eventually on the way. But where do you go first? You later. If you were in London for your job, they send you to Manchester or something?

01:02:54:04 - 01:03:18:09
Peter Bleksley
No, I only went a few miles from my home. But you know, our big London is now anonymous. You can be in the city like that. They gave me a few options, none of which were very desirable or palatable. But in the end I had to take one. The place was an absolute dump, so I. I negotiated with them to get a few quid to bring it up to a habitable standard.

01:03:18:09 - 01:03:37:03
Peter Bleksley
And they still want me to work. Bizarrely, I still work undercover. So like on any given day I could be three different people. You know, I wake up in this hideout, I go and check the car, I make sure no one's put a bomb under it from the during the car journey from this hideout to work, I could be a Bletchley, put on whatever radio station.

01:03:37:03 - 01:03:54:22
Peter Bleksley
I want to be myself for an hour, get the work, and the bosses say Black's never on the cover job. Come in. So I'd go out and do that undercover job. And of course, when I woke up in that hideout, I was in the name of, you know, the folk saying that it's a live in. So one day, three different people.

01:03:54:22 - 01:04:17:23
Peter Bleksley
And this went on day after day after day. And of course, I was conspiracy theories, Minister. Well, why was my name in that report and how did he get taken out of police premises? Why did it go in an unmarked car, an outcome that car got broken into and the driver of that bloody car, the author of the report, believe it or not, I later found out, claimed that he had his watch stolen at a glovebox.

01:04:18:00 - 01:04:39:12
Peter Bleksley
Because you know how it is. It's all you got. A supermodel. You just take your watch off and stick it in the glove box, don't you? I mean, what allowed a nonsense and so on conspiracy theories about, oh, this working on the cover, this, that and the other intolerable strain. Yes, I played a part in my own downfall because I drank too much and I smoked too much.

01:04:39:14 - 01:05:04:02
Peter Bleksley
You know, I was just trying to make sense out of all this. I self-medicate through booze. I really didn't help myself. And in the end, after just over a couple of years of living in this hideout, I had a catastrophic mental health breakdown. My girlfriend quite properly left me because I'd become an absolute monster, and I got put in a lock in psychiatric ward for three and a half weeks.

01:05:04:07 - 01:05:28:18
Peter Bleksley
And that basically signaled the end of my undercover career. It was the beginning of the end of my police career, albeit I tried to cling on for a bit, you know, once I'd got sort of better, but it didn't, you know, it was always the failure, really. So in 1999, just, you know, not even fully 39 years out, I'll get medically retired from.

01:05:28:18 - 01:05:42:18
Peter Bleksley
The job I'm on the scrap heap of life. I've got no education to fall back on foolishly, no trade. I'm not a chippy or sparks or anything like that. I'm on the scrap heap a life. What the heck am I going to do?

01:05:42:24 - 01:05:54:05
Matt Haycox
And if I mean, I guess hypothetically, if if you hadn't have had the breakdown and hadn't have left the police in that way, how long does the the witness protection mushroom and at what point do they decide that you're safe?

01:05:54:08 - 01:06:12:10
Peter Bleksley
Nobody. So, yeah, it's just a brilliant question. Thank you nobody thought it out. They all just kneejerk and I just had to go along with it because I was the subject of it and I was just I should have asked that question, but I didn't. You can imagine, you know, I've just I've just been turfed out my flat the night before.

01:06:12:12 - 01:06:30:22
Peter Bleksley
You know, I am not thinking logically or strategically somebody at Scotland Yard who gets paid a shitload of money to be a senior police officer should have gone. Take a breath. Let's think about this. But not knee jerk after knee jerk after nature.

01:06:30:29 - 01:06:41:09
Matt Haycox
Well, I guess is as dramatic is the as the end of it was then led onto the next adventure of your life, which is which has been been far from dull for the last 20 years as well.

01:06:41:12 - 01:06:56:15
Peter Bleksley
Yes. Thank you. Yeah. No, it's not been down and it's been a lot more enjoyable than living in protection. Yeah. When I was contemplating what I was going to do, I So you know what? I think I've got a cracking book, sir, I, I really do. All the tales work, working undercover and the such.

01:06:56:15 - 01:06:58:13
Matt Haycox
Like that was your idea? Yeah.

01:06:58:19 - 01:07:20:09
Peter Bleksley
Yeah, my idea. And I was fortunate enough through a friend to get an introduction to a publisher. Eventually. And I sent in my synopsis, and very, very soon afterwards, he was on the phone saying, Yeah, let's do this book. I was threatened by police officers not to do it. You know, I was called on to meetings in pubs just so people could threaten me.

01:07:20:12 - 01:07:21:14
Matt Haycox
As in threatened. Threatened.

01:07:21:15 - 01:07:40:16
Peter Bleksley
Yeah. Yeah. If you won't write this book. Yeah. I really says, okay, you're not my sergeant any more, pal. I'm not in the police anymore. Look, I don't have a warrant card. You can't tell me what to do. This book is going to be written and it's going to be published. No, it isn't. Oh, yeah? What you going to do about it?

01:07:40:23 - 01:07:55:20
Peter Bleksley
I say, Yeah, I'll wait and see. They'll still bet, you know what I mean? They this is I, they didn't chase me into the car park, put their hands up for a tear up did they. Because I didn't have the bull. Obviously my street fine days are long behind me and I couldn't condone violence in any way, shape or form.

01:07:55:23 - 01:08:09:16
Peter Bleksley
But I did use to be the Metropolitan Police light heavyweight boxing representative, and I got to turn them into a crowd. They probably knew that. So they didn't follow me in a car park. Yeah. And The Gangbuster was published in 2001. I think it was.

01:08:09:20 - 01:08:10:20
Matt Haycox
Sunday in the gangbuster.

01:08:10:21 - 01:08:14:22
Peter Bleksley
Yeah. Yep. Still available on Amazon and then all that kind of stuff. Plug, plug plugs.

01:08:14:25 - 01:08:17:27
Matt Haycox
Have you an audio version. You've got to put an audio.

01:08:18:00 - 01:08:37:23
Peter Bleksley
I've recorded the audio version of all my, of all my four books. Yeah, they're all out there. Thank you very much. Yeah. And it opened doors. Suddenly the media wanted me to go on the radio and the television and talk about crime and pollution, and I did. And I still do to this day, remarkably, to which I'm extremely grateful.

01:08:37:23 - 01:08:45:01
Peter Bleksley
And I owe a huge debt to John Blake, who published the book by back when because it opened doors. I'm still walking through today.

01:08:45:04 - 01:08:51:28
Matt Haycox
And as we said in the intro, you had a bit of time with the hunted. Yes. What was said? What was that like and how how realistic is that.

01:08:51:28 - 01:09:19:14
Peter Bleksley
Channel force hunted? Yes, I came on when it was just an idea on a largely blank piece of paper. So I was there from the off very exciting Times first series. I was a deputy second series. I got promoted to chief, so I did three main shows as chief and two celeb versions. The chief met some wonderful people on the Hunters team, some of whom I'm still in contact with and will be until I gasp.

01:09:19:14 - 01:09:34:29
Peter Bleksley
My last had a brilliant time bowed out when we caught all the fugitives on the main show in 2019, much to the annoyance of the fugitives, obviously, but also the production company.

01:09:35:02 - 01:09:39:18
Matt Haycox
I, I wanted to contact the content show to.

01:09:39:23 - 01:09:48:21
Peter Bleksley
Say that I just I think that was their plan. I think they wanted somebody with the manager grab, but they didn't. And they.

01:09:48:24 - 01:09:52:06
Matt Haycox
And any particularly annoying celebs that you enjoyed catching all.

01:09:52:06 - 01:10:15:01
Peter Bleksley
The celebs. Alva So that celeb version always had a slightly lighter touch to it, you know, because it was for charity and, and that kind of stuff. It is a source of deep, deep shame that I got done over by Tory MP Johnny Mercer. Anyway, he didn't get captured, but yeah, yeah, it was, it was good fun while it lasted.

01:10:15:03 - 01:10:33:22
Peter Bleksley
There always comes a time when it is time to move on. And I knew that and I think the show realized as well. So we, we parted our ways. But I knew I did a good job, but predominantly for me, the buzz was the people on my side, the people I worked with. I must say they were great and that was good fun.

01:10:33:25 - 01:10:51:18
Matt Haycox
Well, a couple more things I will ask you ask you before we wrap up. You it's hard to pick a last couple of things because, you know, we all going have to do another one of these at some point in the future. But I mean, it is a big it's a big talk at the moment around, I guess, you know, nanny states and been, you know, governments overreaching, etc., etc..

01:10:51:18 - 01:10:55:08
Matt Haycox
I mean, how how true is that? You know, how much are we being watched?

01:10:55:12 - 01:10:59:07
Peter Bleksley
Oh, not as much as the Chinese people are.

01:10:59:10 - 01:11:00:15
Matt Haycox
That's for sure. I would imagine.

01:11:00:20 - 01:11:26:08
Peter Bleksley
With their facial recognition at every corner and all of that, because fortunately, we don't live in a we don't have an autocratic leader, I would hope, and we enjoy many, many freedoms. CCTV was originally conceived as a crime prevention. So, you know, back in the sort of sixties when it first became a thing and then again in the nineties, really exploded out onto our streets.

01:11:26:08 - 01:11:50:19
Peter Bleksley
So now we've got hundreds of millions of cameras and ring doorbell cameras and what is now yeah, it was originally going to prevent crime. Well, it didn't for very long and now it's an evidence gathering tool. That's what it's predominantly used as by law enforcement. Certainly they use it a to gather evidence. We are a long, long way away from being something like China.

01:11:50:19 - 01:12:19:18
Peter Bleksley
We have checks and balances and an information commissioner, for example, and many other establishments which will prevent us from living in an autocratic state. I'm very pleased to say I'm of the fact that Britain is a flagship democracy, far from perfect, of course, and its police are a long way from perfect. But let's hope they take the steps that they need to or else they will simply become extinct.

01:12:19:20 - 01:12:34:17
Peter Bleksley
There are private security companies now that patrol streets, investigate crime, prosecute people, arrest people, prosecute people. They take them to court themselves. They do the job of the police where the police fail to do it.

01:12:34:19 - 01:12:35:09
Matt Haycox
The local, the.

01:12:35:09 - 01:13:05:11
Peter Bleksley
Local residents, basically all local businesses that chip together. And it's a price worth paying because the astonishing results that some of them have got and make these companies more profitable, these shops are more profitable. Shoplifting has decreased hugely, pickpocketing crimes of violence. They're doing what the police should be doing. The police really need to reconnect with the nine principles of policing laid down by Sir Robert Peel in 1829, then 8200 years old.

01:13:05:11 - 01:13:23:29
Peter Bleksley
But you know what? You can find them on the Internet. Just just type in the search engine. Robert Peel's Principles of Policing and that they will come and they are as apt, as relevant and as opposed to society today as they were when he all those years ago.

01:13:24:06 - 01:13:40:06
Matt Haycox
I mean, you talk about violence. I mean, you know, knife crime seems to be something that's mentioned, you know, breakfast, lunch and dinner. And, you know, in every piece of media nowadays. I mean, why why is that getting worse? And what's what can we do? What can we do to stop it or not so much? What can we do to stop it?

01:13:40:06 - 01:13:46:10
Matt Haycox
But, I mean, you know, of of a police adequately, adequately equipped to deal with these kind of things.

01:13:46:13 - 01:13:54:06
Peter Bleksley
The reasons are complex as to why people take a knife out onto the street and there's many kind of potential factors.

01:13:54:09 - 01:13:56:23
Matt Haycox
Is it because it's easier to get than a gun? But then again.

01:13:56:25 - 01:14:17:03
Peter Bleksley
Well, yes. Yeah, that that that is a reason, of course. But also these wicked, horrible knives that could be sourced on the Internet. And they certainly regulate or tie in that. But absent parents, for example, some people say, oh, we can't say that as something not that kids need. That's right. In the story, I've got three. They've needed me.

01:14:17:03 - 01:14:43:18
Peter Bleksley
I've been there for them. I've got three contributing, very decent members of society as my boys. So I'm hugely proud of kids need that child. 35, 22 and 21 kids need that. Even if the dad isn't there full time, it needs to be there at the weekend. It needs to set some kind of example. These are an example for to follow or an example for the kid to not follow.

01:14:43:21 - 01:15:12:02
Peter Bleksley
At least he needs to be there and see him and hear him and be told he loves him and is loved by him and and all of that school, excluding kids from school, is a very easy way of allowing gang members to prey on them again in their clutches. You see the hoodlums that hang around outside pupil referral units, which is where excluded kids often get sent to the like vultures hovering poverty.

01:15:12:02 - 01:15:37:28
Peter Bleksley
Is that a reason I should think it is with some lack of community policing? Yes. Lack of positive role models? Yes. Childhood trauma? Yes. But predominantly it's the illegal drugs industry. That's what most of this knife crime is about. It's about people imposing their authority on their patch, on their business, on their trade in the illegal drugs industry.

01:15:38:01 - 01:15:40:01
Peter Bleksley
That is a cause of so much of it.

01:15:40:04 - 01:16:00:22
Matt Haycox
Kind of leads me on to what was going to be my last question then, which was to say, I mean, you talked about at the beginning of your career that, you know, cocaine was just was just starting and now, I mean, to say it's everywhere is the understatement of the fucking century. I mean, you know, if you if you don't do it, if you don't know where it is, then you are the absolute minority.

01:16:00:25 - 01:16:29:21
Matt Haycox
And I guess kind of, you know, coupled with that question, I mean, if I think about Leeds, for example, where I'm from, I could, you know, well, anywhere I could go I could find Fine Gael Friday night, Saturday night, Tuesday night, but then also a to that I could quite easily say that ten well known drug dealers there, two or three, you know, reasonably well known armed robbers, you know, these are, these are people that would just, you know, we know as part of the community that everyone knows what the fuck up to.

01:16:29:21 - 01:16:41:14
Matt Haycox
I mean, we've been known it for 20 years. I mean, half of my mates that have been interacting were buying from them. What? Why? Why can't something be done about it? Why are they still there? If I. I know it, why does it why doesn't the law deal with it?

01:16:41:18 - 01:16:47:08
Peter Bleksley
Yeah, because law enforcement don't have the resources. I suspect, you know, they just not enough of them.

01:16:47:10 - 01:16:54:11
Matt Haycox
Well, at what point does it become I mean, I'm not talking about guys who sell a robbery or that amount to, you know, substantial or substantial criminals.

01:16:54:11 - 01:17:17:20
Peter Bleksley
People at the top, the top end of that pyramid, you know, the whole drug pyramid, you know, So at the very bottom you've got the hapless problematic users and the pyramid narrows. So at the top you've got the kingpins. There's a solution to this. There's a solution. And I'm not promising that it's going to be easy and it might not happen in my lifetime, but it will happen in my children's lifetimes.

01:17:17:22 - 01:17:51:27
Peter Bleksley
And that is the legalization and regulation. Please don't separate those words. The legalization and regulation and of the entire illegal drugs industry. That is the only way we are going to be able to rip this industry from the vice like grip of organized crime. It can be done. The drug law reform movement is gathering pace all the time and peace is seeing the light, but not in the numbers that we need.

01:17:51:27 - 01:18:12:07
Peter Bleksley
It will happen. That's how we reduce the harm, reduce the violence, Stop People like Eliot was getting murdered on Christmas Eve. Stop people like dear nine year old Olivia Pratt getting murdered in our home because we take the industry away from the bad guys.

01:18:12:09 - 01:18:31:19
Matt Haycox
And I mean, I guess you could give it you could give hours and hours of answer to what I'm about to ask. But I mean, for anything that is legal and regulated, those, though, I guess by definition there's going to be rules to that legality. Like I don't know, you know, the gig is going to look like this and you can only buy X amount or whatever the rules are.

01:18:31:20 - 01:18:46:28
Matt Haycox
Yeah. So there'll always be the people who can't get serviced by the by the legal side of it that it would therefore always be some illegal side. How would you we stop that or is it just because if it's legalized and it's taxed, therefore the governments are going to think, fuck it, we've got plenty of money at stake.

01:18:46:28 - 01:18:48:18
Matt Haycox
Yeah, well, actually do a proper job of fixing it.

01:18:48:21 - 01:19:17:12
Peter Bleksley
The government will make billions and billions and billions, and so will the retailers. Absolutely. Billions will reduce the prison population. We'll have money to educate kids away from drugs. We can train people in prison to give them proper, you know, reading and writing skills and vocational skills. And the reason I'm holding up three fingers in answer to your question is we have to beat the criminals on three fronts to make this work number one price simple.

01:19:17:12 - 01:19:38:21
Peter Bleksley
That's so easy because drugs are only the cost. They are because everybody involved in the dealing puts a levy on their involvement in it. So the person that ships it from Colombia to Africa, they have to get paid. The person who ships it from Africa to Spain, they have to get the person that gets it from Spain through Europe to the UK.

01:19:38:23 - 01:20:07:08
Peter Bleksley
Every stage somebody dumps on their wages. So first of all, we have to beat them on price. Secondly, we have to beat them on purity so that the drugs are better, purer. That's easy because the drugs under my vision will be in a licensed factory. So of course they'll be purer and they won't add the toxins and the poisons and all the unpleasant kind agents the unscrupulous drug dealers put in there.

01:20:07:10 - 01:20:36:06
Peter Bleksley
And thirdly, which will be a challenge, but it's easily done availability in. Other words, the drug stores which I unimaginatively, name them, will have to be open 24 seven, like so many petrol stations are price purity availability beat the criminals on that. I got nowhere to go. Now, I'm not saying that every drug dealer is going to follow a law abiding life and it'll be queuing up at the Jobcentre to get the employment.

01:20:36:13 - 01:21:15:23
Peter Bleksley
Of course I won't. And some people will want to carry out criminality elsewhere. Well, many criminals are morphing onto the internet anyway, so I'm sure a proportion will go there and we might see a rise in other types of crime. But so much crime revolves around illegal drugs. I was on my mind the other day, it was a senior magistrate and he says, every case that comes through my on my list, that comes through my core is drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs, either drugs, charges or drug related in one way full blown and other, including, of course.

01:21:15:23 - 01:21:20:02
Peter Bleksley
Yes. Murders by the bucketload.

01:21:20:04 - 01:21:26:09
Matt Haycox
Well, I like your theory a lot a lot you stories. And it's been a pleasure having you here, buddy.

01:21:26:12 - 01:21:34:22
Peter Bleksley
Matt, it's been a great honour. Thank you very much for having me. And to everybody that aren't saying them on camera or heard, I'd like to thank them all very much as well.

01:21:34:22 - 01:21:41:10
Matt Haycox
And you mentioned as well. Just before you go, you mentioned your website where you for books on social media or anywhere else.

01:21:41:10 - 01:21:58:28
Peter Bleksley
But yeah, I've actually been like I said, why on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Insta, TikTok, although content on TikTok is a bit sporadic and hugely embarrassing because it's usually involved alcohol and dancing.

01:21:59:01 - 01:22:02:12
Matt Haycox
Page Well, it takes a little getting out of hand. I love talking to you again in the future.

01:22:02:16 - 01:22:03:02
Peter Bleksley
Thanks for having.

01:22:03:02 - 01:22:03:27
Matt Haycox
Me, Matt. Thanks.