Trips home to mother to stock up on narcotics

Investigators also found evidence Karl Chapman was able to supply heroin to a girlfriend in a women’s prison despite being in custody at a Leeds police station.

Pamela Chapman told North Yorkshire Police that her son would arrive at her home without handcuffs and she was able to supply him with heroin.

She said: “On two or three of these visits to me by Karl, Karl would pick up his clean laundry. I can recall on a couple of occasions I put a £10 wrap of heroin in the ticket pocket of the clean jeans which Karl took away with him.”

Visits to his mother’s to pick up laundry were “clearly an accepted practice,” the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) noted.

The CCRC report detailing the findings of North Yorkshire’s Operation Douglas also highlighted that when Chapman was found in possession of heroin while at Millgarth police station the custody sergeant associated the laundry with the source of the drugs.

Reviewing the content of taped telephone calls from Millgarth, investigators found Chapman arranged to go to his mother’s to smoke cannabis – and asked his mum what time would be convenient.

The custody record subsequently showed Chapman was taken out of the police station for “exercise”, at an undisclosed location, at the time the supergrass agreed with his mother.

At the time, Chapman was being kept at Millgarth while he gave evidence against criminal accomplice Gary Ford. The CCRC noted that “... it is apparent from other evidence that Mr Chapman was allowed to visit his mother’s home unsupervised several times during his production for the Ford trial.”

Another taped call, this time from Chapman to a girlfriend who was in prison, included the supergrass stating he had smoked a cannabis ‘spliff’ at the police station.

He was recorded saying: “I had one the first night I was here but the smell sort of stunk the place out...”

The CCRC report records that counsel for both Paul Maxwell and Danny Mansell, who were subsequently convicted of murder on the basis of Chapman’s tainted evidence, were adamant that the references to drug usage were not on the tapes the police disclosed to the defence ahead of the trial.

Letters from Chapman’s girlfriend indicated the supergrass expected to be able to access drugs when he was next in police custody and suggested he had offered to supply some of them to her.

A subsequent letter from Chapman’s girlfriend said: “Well you’ve certainly spoilt me today love, like my birthday early. The gear came through sweet and I really appreciated that...”