Operation Countryman

Operation Countryman was an investigation into police corruption in London in the late 1970s. The operation was conducted between 1978-1982 at a total cost of £3 million and led to eight police officers being prosecuted although none were convicted. The initial allegations of corruption were made by a "supergrass" - an informer occupying an important position in the criminal underworld - who claimed that some officers, including members of the elite Flying Squad (nicknamed "The Sweeny", a shortened version of the Cockney rhyming slang, Sweeney Todd) which dealt with commercial armed robberies, were receiving bribes from criminals in return for warnings of imminent police raids or arrests, the fabrication of evidence against innocent men, and to have charges against guilty criminals dropped.

The investigation initially targeted officers within the City of London Police but spread to include the Metropolitan Police based at Scotland Yard. Codenamed Operation Countryman because of its use of officers from so-called 'rural' police forces of Hampshire and Dorset, the investigating team came to be disparagingly known by London officers as "The Sweedy." The investigation was ordered by the then Home Secretary Merlyn Rees, and began by examining police activity around three major crimes:

• a £175,000 payroll robbery at the offices of the Daily Express newspaper in 1976
• a £225,000 robbery outside the headquarters of Williams & Glyn's Bank, London, in 1977
• a £200,000 payroll robbery at the offices of the Daily Mirror newspaper in 1978. During this robbery, Antonio Castro, a 38-year-old guard working for Security Express, was shot and killed.

As the investigation proceeded, it began to emerge that the corruption was not limited to "a few bad apples" within the forces but was "historically and currently endemic" and "widespread throughout the hierarchical command rather than confined to those below the rank of sergeant."