THE mastermind behind an organised crime crew that used drones to drop drugs into UK prisons was not who police expected.
By day, 47-year-old Lucy Adcock appeared to be a devoted single mum to five children — doing the school run, cooking tea for the kids and preparing for the arrival of a new grandchild.
But by night, Adcock was a Gangsta Granny — the unlikely “operations manager” of an organised crime group which recruited accomplices to carry out her brazen deliveries.
In the space of a month she was responsible for sending nearly £1.5million of ordered contraband including drugs and mobile phones over the walls of six of the UK’s most secure jails.
From her home in Ruislip, West London, she hired four “ground crew” to dump packages of cocaine, the drug spice, mobiles and SIM cards, which trade for a fortune behind bars.
It was like a military operation and Adcock directed it all from “mission control” — her quite unremarkable family car which she parked up to 20 miles from each of the prisons.
In the dead of night she dispatched gang members to the jails, ready to launch heavy-duty drones powerful enough to carry the illegal cargo that was slung underneath them.
The contraband would be wrapped in clingfilm and stuffed inside a man’s sock, with fishing hooks attached to the material.
Once the drone was in position over the nick, operators would release its load, which landed in a prison exercise yard.
Lags banged up inside threw “ropes” made from ripped-up bedsheets out of their barred windows to snag on to the fishing hooks.
They could then haul the stash-packed socks back into their cells and sell or trade the contents.
Phones could be “rented out” to inmates for £100 a night or sold for up to £10,000 cash.
It was a scheme used at a string of prisons including Parc in Bridgend, Gartree in Market Harborough, Leics, Onley in Rugby, Warks, Guys Marsh in Shaftesbury, Dorset, High Down in Sutton, Surrey, and The Mount near Hemel Hempstead, Herts.
Today, The Sun can lift the lid on the full, incredible story of how respectable-looking Adcock came to be part of a criminal organisation — and how greed spelled her downfall.
At the family’s terraced home in a smart, tree-lined avenue, Adcock’s daughter Leah Woolterton, 23, claimed her mother had a visit from someone forcing her to take control of the drugs operation to settle a former partner’s jail debts — and threatening her if she did not comply.
She said her mum was caring for children aged seven and 14, as well as a 29-year-old daughter with learning difficulties, and had no choice but to obey the order.
Adcock recruited a team of four others, including two women, to help her deliver the contraband.
Leah told The Sun: “It’s not a great situation.
“Of course, she’d have done things differently if she could.
“She got made to do it by her ex-partner.
“She did play a part in it, we’re not saying she didn’t.
“But it all started in prison.
“It was a debt that was owed and then they turned up here.”
Adcock’s double life as a mum and a crime boss had appeared to be working perfectly for several weeks, until May last year.
The day that marked the beginning of the end for her began like any other involving a prison drop.
Into the boot of her car she loaded a powerful drone, of the sort used by anglers to drop bait over fishing spots.
She also packed in Class A and B drugs, a number of mobile phones, SIM cards and charger cables.
Adcock would typically ferry the drone and cargo to members of her crew then meet them again after they completed the delivery.
Inmates’ orders that she put out for delivery included cocaine, the opioid Subutex, anabolic steroid Oxandrolone, painkiller Phenacetin, cannabis resin and sheets of A4 paper soaked in the synthetic cannabinoid known as spice.
There were also iPhones, SIM cards, chargers and tobacco in the stashes.
Waving goodbye to family on her fateful day, Adcock drove 165 miles west along the M4 to Bridgend in South Wales, where she booked into a Premier Inn.
But in the early hours of May 11, two guards at HMP Parc, near the motorway on the edge of the town, heard a drone in the air.
The prison was already on high alert because three weeks earlier, on April 24, a drone operator working for Adcock had successfully dropped contraband worth £50,000 for the prison black market into the exercise yard and escaped.
This had not been the first illicit delivery at HMP Parc.
The previous year, Simeon Richards, then 22, had attached to a drone an orange-and-black football sock which held four packages including 399 buprenorphine tablets, 30g of cannabis and 11 mobile phones and their chargers.
He had been caught hiding in bushes near the jail.
Prosecutors at his trial said that in prison the buprenorphine would have changed hands for between £12,000 and £18,000.
The cannabis had a potential value of £2,240 to £6,720, and the phones up to £11,000.
So when Adcock’s drone flew over the prison during the early hours of May 11, extra-vigilant guards quickly located two dropped packages containing drugs and phones in the exercise yard.
South Wales Police were alerted and automatic number plate recognition picked up a car, registered in West London, close to the prison.
Adcock’s motor was soon found three miles away, outside Bridgend’s Premier Inn, with the drone in the boot. She was arrested.
When police technicians downloaded the device’s software it revealed flights over six jails, giving times and directions, plus take-off and landing points.
Computer analysts discovered one trip had been at 4.33am, at HMP Onley. The drone had been airborne for 17 minutes.
On Adcock’s seized mobile phone they found messages between her and the team she had put together to carry out drops.
One simply said: “Up.” Another, from one of her worried ground crew, read: “It’s really heavy.”
Adcock replied, saying the weight of the cargo was 1,047 grams — well within the capability of the drone.
She got made to do it by her ex-partner. She did play a part in it, we’re not saying she didn’t
Leah Woolterton
Using ANPR, police were able to track Adcock’s car at least three times on its way to missions across the Midlands, the South East and Wales.
Under her command, drones were flown 22 times over the jails.
Analysis of her phone records also led cops to her ground crew, including the two women.
The prison value of their drops, during April and May last year, was estimated at between £1million and £1.42million.
Detective Inspector Ian Jones, who led the investigation, codenamed Operation Wormit, said: “We quickly identified that Lucy Adcock was the principal member of this organised crime group.
“It was clear that she wasn’t flying the drone herself.
“She was in communication with the other members and orchestrating each drone incursion.
“We have seen other examples of drones being used in isolation for a drop, and usually we can show there is contact between whoever’s flying that drone to somebody within the prison.
“This investigation showed us that this was an organised crime group and they were out almost every other day, flying or piloting a drone into a prison.”
The senior cop added: “Lucy Adcock’s defence was that she had to take on a drugs debt incurred by her partner, who had been imprisoned.
“The investigation into this matter showed no evidence to corroborate Adcock’s claims.
“She had previously seen how lucrative this type of activity could be and went on to carry out drug drops via drones into six prisons, all of which would have required someone to receive the contraband inside and provide precise coordinates within the prison.
“Such was the success of Adcock’s endeavours that she recruited others to her organised crime group and generated an income of thousands of pounds.
“The driving motivation behind this, for Adcock and her co-conspirators, was financial gain.”
We quickly identified that Lucy Adcock was the principal member of this organised crime group. It was clear that she wasn’t flying the drone herself
Detective Inspector Ian Jones
Adcock was last month jailed for six years after pleading guilty to conspiracy to convey what are known as A-list and B-list items.
Her crew also admitted their part in the operations.
Craig Davenport, 46, got four years and nine months behind bars, while Ryan Dorland, 45, was sentenced to four years.
Nicola Ogle, 43, was given a term of two years and six months.
Today, the last gang member, Emma Watson, from West London, who has also pleaded guilty, is due to be sentenced at Cardiff Crown Court.
Money the gang made from flying drugs into prisons is expected to be seized at a proceeds-of-crime hearing later this year.
Adcock’s daughter Leah said: “There’s not much you can do when you plead guilty, is there?
“She just wants to get out and get it over and done with.
“She’s got a date when she will be home, then hopefully we will start afresh and move away and everything will be good.
“We’re not millionaires.
“We don’t have millions of pounds.
“Our cars are on finance.
“She’s got a disabled daughter and she’s on benefits.
“We’ve got nothing.”
