The Whitney family built a criminal empire by peddling heroin and crack cocaine close to primary school playgrounds A notorious Liverpool crime family armed themselves with guns stolen from the army and lived the high level after peddling drugs close to primary school playgrounds. The Whitney family and their gang associates spent years at the top of a massive Anfield-based criminal network which had a stranglehold across much of Liverpool. The gang made selling heroin and crack cocaine a 24-hour business, running a cash and carry-style operation .
However, the gang, which was led by Paul Whitney, largely crumbled in 2011 when 13 members of the gang were handed sentences totalling 82 years. But following his release from prison, Paul Whitney instantly re-entered the criminal underworld, immersing himself once again as a high level drug supplier, now using encrypted messaging platform EncroChat. However, in December 2022, he was jailed once again - this time for nearly 15 years.
As part of a series that looks at Liverpool's criminal history , the ECHO has taken a closer look at the Whitney gang and the control they had on Liverpool during the noughties . For the Whitneys, it was a family affair. Paul headed up the gang with assistance of key family members and a number of trusted associates .
His mum Carol was dubbed "the banker", hoarding the gang's money. Her daughter Lisa acted as a street dealer while Leslie Whitney, Carol’s estranged husband, lived in one of the gang's known safehouses on Watford Road in Anfield . Other members included Lisa's boyfriend Wayne Hincks, Leslie's new girlfriend Emma MacKenzie and her mum Mary McCabe.
Beyond members of the extended family and their partners were Matthew Mayor, Michael O’Toole, Michael Waters, Gary Edwards, Neil Brady and Thomas Dowd. The firm often dealt in close proximity to Pinehurst Primary School in Anfield. Paul Whitney conducted his business using no less than 17 different mobile phones.
He had no official job, and according to reports from the time "seemed to spend much of his time fishing". With a number of safehouses on Watford Road, Hildebrand Road, Cherry Lane and City Road, his operation ran a "cash and carry system" - trading with customers on street corners. Body armour was later recovered at the home of Carol Whitney , while the family also kept an SA80 military assault rifle - stolen from Salisbury army barracks in 2005 and stashed in the Cherry Lane home of widow and nan McCabe.
Officers also discovered 1,200 rounds of ammunition in a suitcase hidden in her car . Some were expanding bullets, designed to cause maximum damage upon impact. It was suspected that the Whitneys employed younger, scooter-riding teenagers to orchestrate attacks - and possibly even shootings - to warn off other dealing factions.
Those at the top of the hierarchy enjoyed the trappings of luxury, funded by their ill-gotten gains. O’Toole lived in a plush home on Baddow Croft in Woolton , an exclusive property that boasted a private driveway and high security gates in an area popular with football stars. He owned seven mobile phones, a Cartier watch and travel documents for Las Vegas, Dubai and Spain.
The rent on his house reportedly totalled £1,000 a month, paid in cash . O’Toole visited the United Arab Emirate for a holiday before the empire came crashing down, with photos showing him riding on a camel and quad bikes and staying at a five-star hotel. Dressing in designer labels and taking luxury holidays, he was not the only one spending his illicit cash.
Mayor lived in Haydock in a house with manicured lawns, with a Harley Davidson parked in his garage. His house was furnished extensively with plasma screens - including one installed in a wet room - costing £270,000. Paul Whitney meanwhile lived in a sought-after road in the Aintree area.
The Whitneys had been in Merseyside Police's sights for years , with Operation Malton launched in 2008 in a bid to take them down. The force began by taking out the levels below, stripping each rung before eventually reaching the top. Police began to watch a gang who, operating under the Whitney “umbrella”, sold heroin on the streets of Scotland , cutting the drugs and ferrying them up to Dundee where they used addicts to peddle their wares.
When police took out the lowly street dealers of the drugs, which were also being passed in Merseyside, they were simply replaced by others. But their operation took a big hit when 21-year-old Stephen Harrison, from Anfield, and Kirkby man Lee Holden, a cousin of the Whitneys, were taken out along with the rest of the crew – nine more men and a woman. A total of 12 people, including former Southport FC striker Terry Fearns , were given 60 years of prison time in June 2010.
With one part of the pyramid gone, the police kept looking up towards the Whitneys. This time, acting on “community intelligence”, the police looked closer to home on the streets of Anfield and Walton . Taking out another 14 dealers put them a step closer to the main targets.
The Whitney gang was kept under surveillance by detectives from the force’s Matrix gun and gang crime unit , who recorded hours of damning evidence. Police seemed well aware of the Whitneys' capabilities, particularly during one raid when officers smashed through the front window of the house on Watford Road, knowing the front door was reinforced deliberately to hinder such forced entries. A series of raids on a number of safe houses also discovered large quantities of heroin and ecstasy-type tablets, an assault rifle with ammunition, body armour and a CS gas canister.
In total Merseyside Police stormed four properties including raids on Cherry Lane, Hildebrand Road and City Road. All the locations acted as hiding places for heroin, crack cocaine, fake ecstasy tablets, the firearm, ammunition and huge amounts of cash amassed by the Whitneys. In total 12kg of heroin was recovered by police during the whole sting, equivalent to £600,000 when sold on the streets of Liverpool.
Detectives recovered cocaine which would have resulted in a £100,000 profit and 47kg of "bash", a substance used in the adulteration process to dilute class A drugs to lower purity and boost profits. On November 22 2011, Judge John Roberts jailed the 13 members of the Whitney gang for a total of 82 years and three months. Paul Whitney was handed nine years and four months while Mayor received eight years and four months .
Carol Whitney was locked up for eight years, and O'Toole got eight years. Leslie Whitney was jailed for seven-and-a-half years, while Mackenzie was sentenced to 834 days in prison. McCabe was sentenced to eight years for her part in the conspiracy and for possession of a prohibited firearm.
Whitney and Edwards were each given four years, while Waters was sentenced to five years and four months. Brady was jailed for six years and nine months, Hincks got six years and eight months and Dowd received four years and four months. Speaking at the conclusion of the Whitney gang sentencing, Detective Chief Superintendent Tony Doherty said: “ This family is so dangerous that guns and drugs are part of their daily business .
The Whitneys are an unpleasant family, significant in the Anfield area. Their reputation was well-known. They were an organised crime group that needed taking apart.
” One of the last remaining members of the gang still on the run was extradited from Spain in 2011. Anthony Whitney fled Liverpool after police raided a “safe house” in City Road, home of co-conspirator Thomas Dowd. He fled to Spain after jumping from an upstairs bedroom window when police raided one of the gang’s Anfield crack factories, after hours of secret observation.
Anthony Whitney lay low in Spain while his relatives were gradually rounded up by Merseyside Police. But while abroad, he got mixed up in another smuggling plot , and was apprehended for smuggling 50,000 tablets of an ecstasy-type substance which had been loaded into a vehicle at his home address in Denia. He was extradited back to the UK to face justice for his part in the Merseyside drugs operation.
The Whitney name faded following their convictions. However, in 2022 the former ringleader of the gang, Paul Whitney, appeared back before the courts after he was identified as the user of EncroChat handle BulletHawk . The courts heard he again had a "network of couriers and drivers" at his disposal.
After the authorities gained access to the underground messaging service, officers executed a search warrant at his house on Clocktower Drive in Walton on March 30 2021 - his 43rd birthday. On this occasion, Whitney answered the door and replied: "It's my birthday. This is a joke.
" Merseyside Police seized £600 in cash, a quantity of cannabis and several expensive motorbikes during the raid . A previous visit in August 2020 had unearthed monies totalling £15,000 in a locked cupboard, as well as a number of high value goods. The court heard that Whitney had been involved in the supply of at least 4kg of heroin, 1kg of cocaine, 30kg of cannabis and 2kg of ketamine.
It had previously been suspected that the then 44-year-old may have been concerned in the supply of up to 83kg of class A drugs alone. The handles of 38 other service users had been stored in his Encro phone, and he was found to have been in contact with around half of these. Whitney admitted conspiracy to supply cocaine, heroin, ketamine and cannabis and conspiracy to launder money during an earlier hearing.
He was jailed for 14 years and nine months. As the sentence was handed down, the defendant shook his head and said: "That's a f***ing joke that." Detective Inspector Peter McCullough said: "This is a welcome result in this latest court sentencing for Whitney who we put before the courts for his drug dealing crimes.
Whitney demonstrated that he had a significant role. He thought he could fly under the radar and escape justice.".
