They brutalised victim in front of his family – yet still the BBC used the film they worked on: The truly astonishing relationship between two thugs and a key pillar of British life

• Brian Waters, a small-time cannabis dealer, was ambushed by up to six men 
• He was beaten and strung up by ankles at Burnt House Farm in Tabley, Cheshire
• His assailants whipped him with canes and sexually assaulted him with iron bar

It was no way to die. Brian Waters, a small-time cannabis dealer, was ambushed by up to six men in balaclavas as he arrived at Burnt House Farm in Tabley, Cheshire, where he grew skunk.

He was beaten, kicked, strung up by his ankles from a beam and dunked in a barrel of water.

His assailants used a staple gun on his head and body, put a bin bag over his head and set it alight, and seared him with caustic chemicals. They whipped him with canes, and beat and sexually assaulted him with an iron bar.

Mr Waters’ children, Natalie, then 21, and Gavin, 25, were tied up, assaulted and forced to watch their father die.

Two of the gang also kidnapped Mr Waters’ wife, Julie, then 42. All of this over a £20,000 drugs debt.

Brian Waters (pictured), a small-time cannabis dealer, was ambushed by up to six men in balaclavas as he arrived at Burnt House Farm in Tabley, Cheshire, where he grew skunk

Yesterday, at Chester Crown Court, Christopher Guest More became the last of four men brought to justice for the June 2003 murder. Already convicted and serving life are gangster John Wilson, who ordered the attack, his right-hand man Otis Matthews, and Liverpool hoodlum Jimmy Raven.

Two days after the brutal killing, More, now 43, went on the run, to Spain, then South Africa, Mozambique, Turkey and Sicily before settling in Malta, where he captained £2million superyachts from the island’s exclusive Portomaso Harbour, and enjoyed what police called a ‘luxury lifestyle’ until his arrest in 2019.

But what is truly astonishing is the relationship between More, Raven, and a key pillar of British life: The BBC.

Today, the Daily Mail can reveal the BBC paid More and Raven tens of thousands of pounds for four years leading up to the murder. They worked as undercover journalists and were paid £52,000 for their final film alone.

A year after Raven was convicted of murdering Waters, and with More on the run, the BBC chose to broadcast the documentary they had worked on, featuring their undercover footage.

Fiona Campbell, the BBC senior producer who worked most closely with the pair, thought they both had convictions for violence. ‘For ABH or GBH, I can’t recall which one,’ she was to tell police when she was interviewed.

MISS Campbell is now the £215,000-a-year controller of BBC3, home to some of the corporation’s best output, including Fleabag, Normal People and Killing Eve. Back then, she specialised in programmes about criminals, filmed in secret. She came to rely heavily on More and Raven for information and covert footage.

A Crown Court judge in another serious criminal case delivered a searing indictment of the BBC’s dealings with the pair, citing no fewer than six infringements of the BBC’s editorial standards. 

It would have hardly taken a genius to work out that Raven might be dangerous. Shaven-headed, he had ‘psychopath’ tattooed on one leg, while his arms bore the legends ‘approach with caution’ and ‘extremely violent’. More, the son of a wealthy private investigator, and a mother who had a PhD in moral philosophy, was his cousin.

His assailants used a staple gun on his head and body, put a bin bag over his head and set it alight, and seared him with caustic chemicals. Pictured: The room where Brian Waters was tortured to death

The pair also worked for Channel 4, but when TV executives discovered Raven had been jailed for grievous bodily harm in an unprovoked road rage attack they terminated their contracts.

Executives at the BBC were aware of Raven’s violent record. But in a statement to police after Mr Waters’ murder, Miss Campbell felt the pair were ‘reformed characters.’ 

She insisted: ‘I deemed Raven and More to be organised, reliable and professional in their work on undercover journalism… I feel we acted professionally, ethically and responsibly at all times.’ Miss Campbell first commissioned the pair in 2000 for a series on car crime. They went on to work on her next series – Crooked Britain. The plan was to show real criminals committing real crimes.

Keen to film a counterfeit currency printing operation, Miss Campbell asked More and Raven to use their contacts to find one. In the autumn of 2002, they did.

But, before the programme could be broadcast, Mr Waters was murdered.

National Crime Squad detectives interviewed Miss Campbell to find out if she had kept a record of her meetings with Raven and More. Curiously, she told them she had lost her diary and admitted: ‘I’m not going to quiz someone to death about their sources when it’s confidential, especially in this kind of investigation.’

Worse was to come, when some of those secretly filmed in the counterfeiting operation went on trial in 2005. Before the trial, Judge Bernard Lever held a five-week hearing to decide what BBC footage the jury could be shown.

Accomplice James Raven (pictured right) posing for a picture in the run up to his arrest for the murder of Brian Waters. Christopher Guest More jnr (pictured left in 2003) was the fugitive son of former millionaire businessman Chris More

Although accepting the BBC acted in good faith in its dealings with More and Raven, he was scathing in his judgment. 

He said there had been little supervision of the pair, despite then director general Greg Dyke warning Miss Campbell and her colleagues ‘their note-taking was inadequate, and telephone calls to the undercover operatives had to be carefully logged’.

The worst breach of BBC rules was that Miss Campbell’s boss, Peter Horrocks, then head of current affairs, ‘was not briefed’ and there was a ‘lack of control, supervision, and documentation in relation to instructions to and debriefings from the undercover operatives’. 

The programme was eventually broadcast under the title Funny Money. By then Raven was languishing in his prison cell. More, though, was on the run. And his tale is a heady mixture of James Bond and Walter Mitty, until it all came crashing down.

Both More and Raven, who were cousins, worked as undercover operatives for Fiona Campbell, (above) now the £215,000-a-year controller of BBC3

By August 2003 he had secured a fake passport in the name of a stolen alias, Andrew Lamb. After befriending a millionaire in the oil and gas industry in North Africa, he started working for a trader before setting up on his own.

More told the jury at Chester he was a legitimate businessman. He had shipped cranes from Germany to Libya, delivered cargo to Taiwan for BP, and was even invited by the Moroccan royal family to sort out structural problems in Tangier port.

When arrested in June 2019 More was living with his beautician girlfriend of 13 years in a luxury villa with a swimming pool. She had no idea of his true identity. He had an office, four staff, wore designer clothes, and was well known on the island.

The glamorous Maltese brunette, at least ten years his junior, was reluctant to discuss their relationship when contacted by the Mail. ‘It’s a very difficult topic to speak about,’ she said. ‘It’s something that really hurts.’

A close friend, who knew More for more than five years in Malta, said people were stunned when he was arrested.

The friend said ‘Andrew’ claimed he had been brought up in South Africa. He was regarded as one of Malta’s best yacht captains and regularly took out wealthy families, who flew in by private jet, for £20,000 week-long charter trips.

‘He did some work on my house, he had a set of keys, that’s how much I trusted him,’ the friend said. While the game is over for More, the questions – even from events so long ago – are perhaps just beginning for the BBC.

Source: Read Full Article