Albion Dreaming (36 page)

However, although it requires expert knowledge, producing pure LSD is only a small part of the process of getting the drug to the customer. First, it had to be turned into microdots by the tabletting process by Cuthbertson. Then it was passed by another dealer, Henry Todd, to several people from the Reading area who began to distribute the LSD for him. A network, capable of distributing tens of thousands of microdots a week, was slowly forming. Solomon, though, was no longer required to obtain the raw materials, Todd now handling that aspect of the organization.

At first, everything went to plan. Kemp made the acid, Cuthbertson tabletted it and their colleagues Henry Todd, Russell Spenceley, Alston Hughes and others managed the distribution chain. Then, in 1973, things changed. Kemp had always insisted that each dose of LSD was a minimum of 200 μg, to ensure the customer had a guaranteed full-blown psychedelic experience.
Something about Todd made Kemp suspicious and to test his integrity he bought some of his own microdots at a festival. The dealer assured Kemp that the acid contained a guaranteed 100 μg.
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To verify this Kemp asked a friend of Solomon’s, chemist Andy Munro, later to become another crucial player in the Operation Julie events, to analyze the acid. Munro tested the LSD in the laboratories of a university and Kemp was horrified, but not surprised, to find the microdots contained 100 μg. He immediately confronted Todd who freely admitted his deception, but promised never to do it again.

Todd and Kemp were quite dissimilar individuals. Todd was a man’s man, a
bon viveur
who enjoyed playing rugby and mountain climbing, paying lip service to the ideals of the LSD counter culture, more interested in profit than revolution. On the other hand, Kemp was seriously committed to social change through the agency of LSD. Kemp embraced the hippie ideal of self-sufficiency, at one point after his arrest telling the police, “I’d have everyone out in two-acre plots like ours, being self-sufficient”.
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Todd and Kemp parted company in the latter half of 1973, a number of factors precipitating the split. Personality and ideological differences had existed for some time but Kemp was now realizing how central he was to the entire LSD conspiracy, “I was the goose that laid the golden egg”, and wanted more of a financial cut. One source close to both men recalled that it was Kemp’s discovery that Todd had invested heavily in General Franco’s Spanish Highway Bonds that finally caused the rift between them.
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The consequence of the split was good news for the psychedelic community. Ideas for a new laboratory were mooted and Kemp once again took up with David Solomon and Paul Arnabaldi. Feeling the need to escape from London if they were to practise their hippie ideals and manufacture high quality LSD in seclusion, a suitable property was located in Wales. Arnabaldi paid £26,000 for the dilapidated manor house of Plas Llysyn near Newtown, Montgomeryshire in June 1974 and Kemp set about building a laboratory.

Kemp and Bott bought a property near Tregaron, some fifty miles from Plas Llysyn. It was a small and primitive cottage but
it suited them and they fitted in well with the numerous hippie settlers in the area. Bott was a member of the Soil Association, an organic gardening group, and a keen member of the Goat Society. She owned two pet goats and the only known photograph of her shows her proudly exhibiting one of them at a local agricultural show.
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Todd, meanwhile, had been equally busy. He had recruited chemist Andy Munro and set him up with a laboratory, initially at unknown addresses and finally at 23 Seymour Road in the London suburb of Hampton Wick. Munro made LSD on the top floor and Cuthbertson handled the tabletting on the first floor. The Seymour Road lab was active for several months before Kemp’s new lab became operational. By 1975, two laboratories were in production, making millions of doses of LSD. This period was the height of the free festival years and the market for the drug was huge in Britain, America, Australia and mainland Europe.

While the Operation Julie conspirators were busy setting up their manufacturing and distribution networks the forces of law and order were, at first, blissfully ignorant of what was taking place. Drugs, not least LSD, were relatively new to the police and it had only been since 1966 that drug use had become widespread in Britain. It was clear to anyone who studied the figures that LSD use and, by implication, manufacture, was on the increase. Convictions for LSD related offences rose sharply from 159 in 1969 to 1457 in 1972. Some police officers were very aware of this growing trend, one writing in his annual report “... this [1972] has been without doubt the year of the acid tablet.”
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From September 1971, scientists at the Central Research Establishment at Aldermaston had been monitoring seizures of LSD and they too had commented on the rise of the LSD microdot. Microdots were one of a number of LSD types known to scientists as triturates – tablets formed from a mould. Other types included domes or, less frequently, squares. Microdots were made by mixing unadulterated LSD with calcium lactate or talc and with gelatine for bulk. A colouring agent was added and the mixture spread across a sheet of perforated metal or plastic. After the paste had dried, the microdots were pushed out by using a pin
board corresponding to the mould. The Aldermaston scientists quickly realised that within a few weeks of a particular type of tablet becoming available in Britain it would appear in countries as far away as Australia. They concluded that 95 per cent of LSD in Britain and 50 per cent of the world’s supply of LSD originated in Britain.
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Despite extensive knowledge of the differing types of microdot produced by the clandestine British LSD laboratory, the police were unable to gather any useful intelligence to indicate who was behind it or where it was situated. Then, in 1973, came a major breakthrough. Solomon’s occasional partner in crime Gerald Thomas was arrested in Canada in possession of 7 kg of cannabis. Hearing of Thomas’ arrest, Solomon panicked and destroyed all his possessions and the cocaine making equipment. Thomas took offence at this and in order to get both revenge and lighter sentence provided the Canadian police with the names of the major figures involved in the microdot gang. Thomas’ information was accurate; he claimed the LSD was manufactured by a qualified chemist called Richard Hilary Kemp and his common law wife Dr. Christine Bott, while a man Thomas only knew as “Henry” carried out the tabletting. Thomas also named expatriate American author, David Solomon as the man initially responsible for acquiring the necessary precursor chemicals.

Thomas’ information was passed to the recently formed Central Drugs Intelligence Unit where Detective Inspector Derek Godfrey followed it up. Godfrey soon found plenty to substantiate Thomas’ claims. Kemp had been the subject of a Special Branch report in 1970 that established he had strong links with Ronald Stark. Godfrey knew that if Kemp had been consorting with the enigmatic Stark he was sure to be involved, at some level, in the manufacture of LSD. All the police had to do now was find him.
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As Kemp had now effectively dropped out of society, the police were unable to locate him immediately. It would be Kemp’s notoriously bad driving that would be the cause of his eventual downfall. In September 1974, he was involved in a car crash and his distinctive red Range Rover, mentioned by Thomas to the police, alerted them. Perhaps knowing he might be under surveillance
Kemp gave his defunct London address but foolishly elected to produce his documents at Welshpool in mid-Wales, suggesting to police he was living in the area.

Drug Squads across Britain had been hearing rumours that LSD was being manufactured in Wales and Kemp’s apparent residence there strengthened that suspicion. Additionally, an LSD dealer arrested in possession of a large quantity of microdots in Australia during 1974, claimed that the manufacturing source was in Wales but that one of the main distribution centres was a well-known restaurant in London, The Last Resort.

Although there was now strong circumstantial evidence of a Welsh LSD laboratory, there was no proof and Kemp’s exact whereabouts were still unknown. It would take a death, a stroke of luck and good police work to begin to pull the strands of information together. In the spring of 1975, Kemp was involved in a fatal road accident near Aberystywth and, unaware of the CDIU’s interest in Kemp, the local police allowed him to remove all personal effects and correspondence from the vehicle.

The distinctive red Range Rover was kept in police custody for a while, where it was noticed by a Thames Valley police officer who was in the area trying to trace Kemp. A painstaking examination of the vehicle revealed Kemp had overlooked several tiny scraps of paper which when pieced together showed a map of the area marking a number of locations. More significantly, another piece of paper bore the words “hydrazine tartrate”, a crucial substance in the manufacture of LSD. Kemp’s bad driving and the unfortunate death of a local vicar’s wife had resulted in the police knowing his current address, the remote farmhouse near Tregaron.

This was the information the police needed and a conference was held in Carmarthen in April 1975 to plan the way forward, which was to initially place Kemp under surveillance. This soon confirmed that Kemp and Bott were away from their property for up to twelve hours at a time, often for several days. No direct evidence of LSD manufacture was apparent but a major LSD dealer from south Wales had been seen near the house and in the nearby village. The police seemed to be on the edge of a major breakthrough.

“It was at this point, when the momentum of the inquiry should have been reaching a peak, that it in fact began to flag.” Those are the words of the 1978 post-trial Home Office Operation Julie report, noting the failings in the police system at the time. What should have galvanised the police into a major operation against the suspected laboratory almost caused it to fizzle away to nothing. Though the evidence was mounting, there was considerable resistance within the police force to any form of unilateral approach to the problem. When, in May 1975, Detective Inspector Godfrey, in conjunction with Detective Superintendent Gittus of the Metropolitan Police Drug Squad, sought permission and resources to mount a major operation against the laboratory they were turned down on grounds of cost. A meeting in June at Swindon saw permission granted for No. 8 Regional Crime Squad to mount a full-scale surveillance operation, but this too concluded without any breakthrough. The CDIU continued to gather intelligence about the major suspects and the Drugs Intelligence Laboratory analyzed and monitored seizures of LSD microdots but there were no further moves to locate or decommission the clandestine lab.
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But ignoring the problem would not make it go away and the Welsh connection came to the fore again in November 1975. Two officers from the Thames Valley Drug Squad working undercover in Chippenham, Wiltshire were offered quantities of up to 10,000 microdots from wholesalers who clearly belonged to a tightly organised LSD distribution network. Once again intelligence suggested the source of the LSD was in mid-Wales and another meeting took place in Swindon on 12 February 1976. Officers from six regional police forces plus representatives from the CDIU and the Home Office Drugs Branch were present. They reviewed all the evidence suggesting a major LSD manufacture and distribution ring was operating in Wales, concluding that a major initiative against the microdot gang was justified.

A meeting in Brecon on 17 February ratified the decision and Detective Inspector Richard “Dick” Lee (Thames Valley) took the role of investigating officer and Detective Chief Inspector Herbert (Avon and Somerset) was designated as officer in charge of the
operation. Detective Superintendent Dennis Greenslade, also from the Avon and Somerset force, replaced Herbert almost immediately, and a squad of 25 officers was drawn together at Devizes police station. Such a huge operation needed a code name and during the discussion, Sergeant Julie Taylor entered the room. According to Dick Lee: “All attention suddenly turned to her and within minutes the decision was unanimously reached – the operation would be called ‘Julie.’” Operation Julie was born.
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For the next thirteen months, the Operation Julie team worked flat out on the case. Eschewing normal working hours and practices and using cars and other equipment donated by various forces the team lived cheek by jowl in cramped surveillance conditions in Wales and London. A request to use phone taps was allowed by Home Secretary William Whitelaw and suspects were followed by car and on foot. The team quickly worked out the distribution chain was set up on the lines of a terrorist cell, which meant that each person in the chain only knew the one below and above him or her. Vast quantities of LSD, hundreds of thousands of trips at a time, were being moved round Britain, with about half being exported to the drug markets of America, Australia and Europe.

Desperate for some concrete evidence about where the LSD was being made the police broke into Plas Llysyn, finding that the cellar had been used as a laboratory. Although it was initially thought by police that there was no LSD laboratory at Seymour Road, by following Todd and Cuthbertson to a council rubbish tip officers were able to unearth paraphernalia connected to LSD manufacture. The full story of how the Julie team painstakingly stalked and eventually arrested the LSD conspirators is too detailed to go into here and those interested in the fine detail should read Tendler and May’s excellent
Brotherhood of Eternal Love
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or Dick Lee’s
Operation Julie
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