Police storm the Warehouse. Click here to view the .mpg (624K file) You will need Windows Media Player, Real Audio or Quicktime Player to view the files accompanying this report.

It was the biggest drugs bust Lancaster had ever seen. North Road was closed for two hours and the traffic diverted. Police officers were drafted into the city from forces throughout Lancashire. Up to 80 men dressed in full riot gear wielding batons and 'blinding' dragon torches burst from the police vans. They stormed the Warehouse Nightclub, the owners were arrested and drugs were seized.

It was a "good result" said the police, captured in all its front-page glory by a reporter and photographer from the Lancaster Guardian.

Surely this was an open and shut case?

They had found drugs on the premises, the owner Mark Harding was taken to Preston Prison and the Warehouse was now closed - end of story.

But what the police did not meticulously plan for was the very vocal and angry public reaction to their 'successful' operation.

Up to 60 members of the public turned up to a Lancashire Police Authority meeting the following week to ask why the police had been so heavy handed. The senior officer who organised the raid, Supt Jerry Graham, explained that Operation Bubblewrap had been designed to protect the innocent club goers.

The police round up club goers inside the club. Click here to view the .mpg file (1.59MB file)

To see exclusive footage of the police raid on the Warehouse click here. Can you see the police 'protecting innocent club goers'?

In reality, the people inside the club that night were left terrified and traumatised. A panic stricken asthma sufferer was refused her inhaler. A group of deaf people were left scared and disorientated. People were pushed and prodded with batons. Glasses were knocked out of people's hands and smahed on the floor. Some people were stripped searched in the toilets. Many were herded like sheep into the middle, then made to walk down a long dark corridor one by one. They were stopped in the darkness, torches lit up their faces and they were told to give their name and address to a video camera. They were then released into the streets. Many were young women without their friends or partners.

Yet for some reason, the Guardian's award-winning reporter Brian Carter did not think the obvious distress of these local people warranted a report in the newspaper.

Click here to see Brian Carter waiting outside the Warehouse for his 'exclusive story' (he's the guy smoking a cigarette on the left). What you can't see is the handcuffed owner, Mark Harding (which occurs just underneath the CCTV camera) You can see the Guardian photographer making sure he has a picture of Harding's arrest for that week's front page. Is this policing for the public, or the media? (1.7MB file)

Click this video link to view what happened in the club's chillout room on the night of the raid. (Please note this is currently a 7.7MB file and we are aware it takes some time to download, so we have extracted two pertinent stills from the sequence for your consideration -- in particular what definitely seems to be the sudden appearance of something on the floor in bottom left hand corner).

Click here to see inside the chill out room on 25 May, 2001. Watch the floor space in the bottom left hand corner. Can you see anything appear?

Now watch it again and read this sworn statement from an 18 year-old Lancaster and Morecambe College student, signed as a true and accurate before Harding's solicitor. (We have his name and details, which are available to the police) who was sat to the very left of the picture.

"I was in the cloakroom area and was led into the chill out room. They asked if I knew the law. I said no. The policeman said if I throw my drugs on the floor right now he could choose not to prosecute. This is what I did and they let me go. They didn't take my name or address."

This incident was also witnessed by the female member of staff who is seen sat with her hands above her head in the middle of the chillout room.

Here we have evidence that the police failed to act against an individual found in possession of Class A drugs. They chose to let the one person inside the nightclub in possession of cocaine walk free.

Then, somewhere along the police chain of command, information was given to the investigating officer, which alluded to the cocaine belonging to Harding or his staff (ie. people connected with the Warehouse) Officers knew exactly where the cocaine came from and how it got into the chill out room yet there is no mention of this in any of their detailed statements which are required by law to be accurate and correct.

Is this not a failure to report a crime? Is this not a serious breach of the PACE regulations? Which senior police officers were aware of this and what did they do about it?

Strangely, cocaine was mentioned in a Lancaster Guardian headline next to a front-page picture of Harding being arrested.

Operation Bubblewrap was conceived following intelligence from a source which was acknowledged at Preston Crown Court on February 7, 2003, to be "mischievous."

Harding's business partner, Alistair Pratley, was the original target of the police undercover operation, which involved up to 120 hours of covert video surveillance.

The police had been led to believe that he was involved in serious Class A drug dealing yet, despite their best efforts, they had not found a shred of evidence.

In court, Pratley's barrister, Mr White, said: "The police received mischievous information about Pratley. The police were told a pack of lies that were not in anyway substantiated despite the police watching him very carefully." This was fully accepted by the presiding Judge Baker.

Comically, following Pratley's arrest, the police searched his house and collected white power found on his carpets. It turned out to be 'Shake and Vac.'

When the surveillance was extended to include the Warehouse club, undercover officers visited the premises and made drug purchases from three different individuals. On each occasion the undercover policemen asked the three dealers if they could get them cocaine. Every time they were unsuccessful. And every time the police arranged to meet the dealers inside the Warehouse. They did purchase ecstasy on each occasion but there was no obvious evidence linking the dealers with the Warehouse staff, despite the best efforts of the police.

Referred to as the "The Warehouse Three" in reports in the Lancaster Guardian, these dealers had no connection with the club whatsoever. In fact, on the night of the police raid one was arrested in the Alex Pub, one was arrested having just left the Gregson Centre and one was arrested at Morecambe Police Station. Could these three dealers have sold drugs at other licensed premises? Chances are they did, but each time the undercover police had arranged to meet them inside the Warehouse.

Five months earlier, in December 2000, Harding was approach by police who said they had information that a dealer was operating in his nightclub. PC Tony Murphy was invited into the club where he successfully apprehended the dealer. In a statement PC Murphy said: "I later spoke to Pratley and Harding and thanked them for their support."

Harding thought he had a good relationship with the police. He had never had a warning - only thanks for co-operation, and he maintained due diligence in what is an increasingly impossible situation for every Lancaster night club to stop drug abuse on their premises.

Compare Lancaster police's approach to the Warehouse to the knowledge displayed by drugs officers in West Cumbria. On 23 May 2001, just two days before the infamous Warehouse raid, a senior Cumbrian officer, Det Srg Cliff Walker, spoke publicly to explain how the drug culture had changed. He said: "Anyone can go into any club and ask two or three people how to get hold of ecstasy and they will not have a problem. You can virtually guarantee that in any busy club on a Friday or Saturday night there could be 20 or 30 people with tablets for sale. That's the culture these days."

Unfortunately for everyone connected with the Warehouse the police had decided they wanted it closed.

Police had gone into the club, found three dealers, made repeat purchases and, with covert video surveillance which showed people around a table smoking cannabis, had organised the biggest drugs bust Lancaster had ever seen. Costs to the public purse of the Warehouse case have been estimated by one defence solicitor to be in excess of £1 million.

When the case finally reached Crown Court, the police backed away from the serious charges and put a deal to the defendants saying they would accept pleas of knowingly permitting the premises to be used for the smoking of cannabis. Reluctantly, Harding, Pratley and the doormen agreed, knowing that if they said the word 'guilty' they were almost guaranteed a non-custodial sentence compared to five years in prison if they lost a court case. Their evidence never went before a jury and Judge Baker, who remarked that they were all men of "previous good character, spoken highly of by all those who knew them" handed out sentences of community service and fines.

The Judge added that it was not "in the public interest" to jail them and, nearly two years later, questions must now be asked if Operation Bubblewrap itself was in the public interest.

Take the three guilty dealers who had no connection with the club out of the equation and you have a million pound operation to secure community service orders for cannabis offences and a number of drugs possession offences (which are normally dealt with at the magistrates court).

Is this value for money? Is it effective policing? What impact, if any, has it had on the local supply of drugs?

There are many other questions. Was the threat of force and the confinement of the innocent clubbers legal? Did the videoing of everyone inside the club breach Article 8 of the European Court of Human Rights? Was evidence gathering inside the club that night lawful? Is the relationship between the police and the Lancaster Guardian healthy and in the interests of justice?

Was the threat to arrest Harding's family members if they reopened the Warehouse nightclub lawful? Who warned various local security firms against working at the Warehouse?

What evidence did Lancaster City Council have of a 'current' drugs problem when they closed the club down? (They admitted there was no recorded evidence for six months before the hearing). Who issued information to local radio stations saying the Warehouse defendants had admitted to charges of possession of 'heroin,' a statement that was quickly retracted having been broadcast?

For the sake of 'public interest,' the architects of Operation Bubblewrap should explain themselves. In particular, how cocaine was discovered on the chillout room floor.

• What do YOU think? Check in at the Virtual-Lancaster forum to have your say.

This article is © 2003 .

See also www.monroes.me.uk - a similar story about a police raid on an independently owned Blackburn Club in Feb 2004 and the aftermath.