Related Post
To the outsider, Lynne Leyson oozed respectability.
Motorists winding down the tight lanes around the tiny village of Capel Dewi in Carmarthenshire, south Wales, will have first spotted the pristine Range Rover – or the silver Audi, or the VW Beetle, or even the family motorhome – and noticed a well-turned-out if otherwise unremarkable woman in the driver’s seat.
With her ‘fancy hairstyles’ and ‘impeccable’ dress sense, the mother-of-three fitted well into the stereotype of middle class farmer’s wife, confidently handling the A40, the A48 and windy B-roads around her rural community ‘as if she owned them’, neighbours would remark.
But arriving at the family home – Pibwr Farm – would tell an altogether different story.
The state of the place would apparently give Katie Price‘s famed ‘Mucky Mansion’ a run for its money.
Inside it was said – by one of the few outsiders to have crossed the threshold – to be ‘filthy’.
Farmer’s wife Lynne Leyson operated a hidden double life as the godmother of a family crime gang
Lynne’s husband Stephen Leyson (left) and his son Samson (right) were jailed for a total of 17 years after the farm was raided by police
The Leysons’ farm near the village of Capel Dewi is nothing more than a collection of ramshackle wooden buildings and Portacabins
One of the bags of cocaine seized from the Leyson’s farm
Ramshackle small holdings were guarded by a pack of more than a dozen semi-feral large dogs.
Why? The lines of polytunnels were a clue.
The pungent, unmistakable sweet whiff of cannabis in the air was another.
Locals brave enough to put two and two together were soon able to work out how the Leysons could afford such an extravagant lifestyle.
And last year, Leyson’s secret double-life was unveiled when her husband Stephen and son Samson were jailed for a combined 17 years for drug offences.
But Lynne – the ‘Godmother’ of the criminal operation – avoided jail.
The police investigation – codenamed Operation Hilston – led officers to two dealers living in Pembrokeshire who had been selling drugs for the family, including one who goes by the nickname Mr Pickles, who were also jailed.
But Lynne skipped bail after the trial and disappeared before she could be sentenced.
The judge, Catherine Richards, said Lynne was a ‘dominant force’ who played a ‘leading role’ in the drugs enterprise by ‘directing events from the farm’.
She was handed a nine-year sentence in her absence.
And she is now on an Interpol wanted list, with Crimestoppers offering £1,000 for information to snare her.
Mystery surrounds her whereabouts – although her father previously living in southeast Asia has provided a scintilla of a clue.
The Leysons were running a large-scale drugs empire using quad bikes to run drugs through forestry to meet up with couriers at a designated spot on the A48 near Carmarthen
Railay Beach in Krabi province, Ao Nang, Thailand – a country where Leyson could be in hiding
Expert Peter Bleksley said it was ‘entirely credible’ that Leyson could have gone to Thailand, where her father used to live
Peter Bleksley, a former Met detective and star of Channel 4 show Hunted, said it was ‘entirely credible’ Leyson could have gone to Thailand or Spain.
He told MailOnline: ‘The most important thing you need if you want to stay on the run for a long time is having a support network.
‘By that I mean someone who is going to feed you, clothe you, put a roof over your head, give you access to cash, transport you and provide you with fake documents.
‘It’s virtually impossible to go on the run on your own.
‘It’s entirely credible to expect her to go somewhere like Thailand, particularly if she has contacts that her father might have had.
‘That could provide her with some kind of network that could hide her from the prying eyes of authority.
‘That’s why when you’re hunting for a fugitive you look at where they have been in the past or where they have friends or family.
‘Spain is also a popular destination for fugitives, with countless people going on the run there since the 1960s and 70s.
‘It has lovely weather, vast mountainous regions and nowhere near the amount of CCTV Britain has.’
Mr Bleksley said Leyson’s ability to project the image of being an apparently normal woman would help her fit in.
‘Unfortunately, she sounds like the ideal kind of fugitive to hide away in a remote part of Thailand or Spain,’ he said.
‘Unless she causes trouble she is unlikely to stand out or attract the attention of the local police.
Police recovered a 9mm semi-automatic handgun which was found stashed at the farm
Police also recovered thousands of pounds of cannabis
And officers also discovered bundles of cash
‘Plus, she will be well equipped as she’s used to living in a rural area, so is unlikely to be showing up in the city to buy a Gucci handbag.’
Her half-brother Patrick Brooke, 56, said he had not seen her in an age, but offered the same theory.
‘Nobody has had anything to do with her,’ he told The Telegraph.
‘No one even knew anything about the court case. I didn’t even know she was married. My dad had a place in Thailand. It is in a village.
‘Not one of the main towns, I could not tell you where it was. She may be heading to Thailand. She won’t be coming to us, that is for sure.’
Lynne was found guilty by a jury of conspiracy to supply cocaine, conspiracy to supply cannabis, and possessing criminal property.
After the case, one near-neighbour said: ‘We just couldn’t believe it.
‘They seemed like a normal farming family, well a bit rough around the edges like a lot of country people.
‘Lynne seemed very normal really – not a cocaine dealer like she was. It is all very odd.’
Others were more guarded, however.
A neighbour, too frightened to be named, said: ‘It was like the Wild West living close to that lot – people were scared stiff.
‘One family complained to the police and were visited by one of the Leysons carrying a shotgun.
‘They were told they would all be killed if they complained again.
‘Two of them may have been locked up but people are still frightened of them.’
The Leysons moved in in the late 2010s and at first just annoyed neighbours by driving their Range Rover around country lanes ‘as if they owned them’.
Locals were suspicious of how the family made its money and there were rumours that they were growing cannabis on their land.
They were nicknamed ‘the druggies’ by worried villagers who installed CCTV cameras to protect their rural properties.
But the Leysons were running a large-scale drugs empire from Capel Dewi using quad bikes to run drugs through forestry to meet up with couriers at a designated spot on the A48 near Carmarthen.
The family knew that if the police were on to them they could escape on their quad bikes through forestry tracks back to their headquarters, Pibwr Farm.
Another neighbour said: ‘That’s how they were running drugs – they would turn up at an arranged lay-by on the A48, hand the cocaine over and be gone.
‘It was all over in a few seconds so it was very hard for the police to detect what was going on.’
Local builder Mark Jones, 42, said: ‘The first we knew was when police started flying a drone over the farm – after that there was a lot of police activity in the area.
‘I didn’t know the people but they weren’t very popular, they would drive around the lanes as if they owned them.’
The Range Rover was seized by police along with the family’s pack of dogs.
The family’s farm and its yard is now deserted.
But a family member calls around every day to feed other pet dogs belonging to the three convicted dealers.
Locals in Capel Dewi said the Leysons lived two miles out of the village and everyone stayed ‘well clear’ of them.
Retired forestry manager Tom Emerson said: ‘Most people here avoided them, I met the older fellow once and didn’t make much of them.
‘There were second-hand BMW and Mercedes going back and forth and there was talk of drugs.
‘But I didn’t even know they were in jail until I saw it in the local paper.’
For the latest headlines, follow our Google News channel
Source link
