John Bartlett

Setting the Scene: February 1993

What you’ll see on these postings will generally be based on my actual case, the events of which commenced more than twenty years ago.

So, what was on the public’s mind back then?  Let me set the scene back in February 1993…

As with present times, the UK economy was sliding deeper into recession; a recession that had commenced some three years earlier during the final term of Thatcher’s ‘reign’.  To the everyday citizen, burgeoned with debt, the future was becoming ever bleaker with spiralling interest rates. February, two decades ago, economists issued a stark warning that unemployment would exceed three and a half million before the end of the year, a poll indicating that 80% of the country was dissatisfied with Thatcher’s replacement, John Major.  Whitney Houston was in the charts, belting out:  I Will Always Love You, and the news reported the horrific story of two year old James Bulger, who had been murdered by two ten-year-old boys, Robert Thompson and Jon Venables. The UK was in shock, debt and depression.  Across the Atlantic, Americans were digesting the news of a terrorist car bomb exploding in the underground car park of the World Trade Centre.  Also in the news at this precise time, was a totally unconnected story… the case of Vic Lee, the owner of a prominent British racing team, ultimately sentenced to twelve years in prison.  Lee was convicted of importing drugs worth £6 million, hidden in his race transporters.  At that time I was barely aware of the case, or that his trial was taking place in a South London court… a significant detail I’ll return to later.

Against this backdrop of fear over unemployment and new apprehension over terrorism, there was also a developing prejudice, a prejudice I was oblivious to…. that anyone involved with motorsport was likely to be corrupt!

On this day, 8th Feb 1993, under cover of darkness, no less than 12 Metropolitan police officers raided my Sussex home, in an operation code named: “Operation Spider”

Link to Motivating Force Page

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1. The day my life changed forever