Cash in brown envelope and trip to Alicante landed Curtis Warren back in court

A trip to Alicante, cash in a brown envelope and a secret flat in Birkenhead landed Curtis Warren back in the dock. One of the most notorious criminals in the city's history, the now 61-year-old had been due to go on trial next year facing 18 charges of breaching his serious crime prevention order (SCPO).

But, appearing at Liverpool Crown Court today, Tuesday, Warren admitted six counts of breaching a SCPO and asked for a further like offence to be taken into account during his sentencing. The remaining 12 charges were ordered to lie on file.

Paul Mitchell, prosecuting, described how Warren, originally from Toxteth, was released from prison on November 21 2022, at which point a SCPO lasting five years came into force - having been imposed by the High Court in 2013 while he was serving a 13-year sentence for drug trafficking offences committed in Jersey. This restricted his use of communication devices, vehicles and bank accounts and required him to give the National Crime Agency notice of his home and business premises, foreign travel, sources of income and commercial interests.

Mr Mitchell said: "The crown's case is that Mr Warren has committed regular breaches of the terms of this order throughout its operation. While not all of the individual breaches are serious in isolation, considered as a whole they serve to frustrate purposes of the order."

One of the terms of the serious crime prevention order prevents Warren from owning more than one mobile phone and SIM card and requires him to provide the NCA with the details of this device. But the court was told that there was "substantial evidence" of him using other numbers, including using a device belonging to a man called John Harrison in order to make an application for a passport in December 2022 and having handed over an undeclared iPhone 14 upon his arrest on July 5 2023.

The order meanwhile limits him to the use of one bank account, one debit card and one credit card of which the NCA must be notified. However, a card in the name of John Harrison was used to pay for the insurance policy on a Vauxhall Zafira to which Warren had declared usage as well as for his payment of a speeding fine to Greater Manchester Police.

He meanwhile failed to inform the NCA of a Tide bank account he had opened under the name CF Services Ltd. A Barclays bank statement relating to an undisclosed account was then discovered in an Audi A6 which was parked outside his partner's home in Boldon Colliery, South Tyneside, when he was arrested, with a related credit card in his name also being found in his wallet.

Warren was also said to have only "provided piecemeal disclosure" regarding his sources of incomes, with payments into the Tide bank account totalling several thousands of pounds having not been declared. A total of £500 in cash was found in his wallet upon his arrest, as was £1,000 in a brown envelope in the kitchen of the address - with the SCPO banning him from having more than £1,000 in cash at any one time.

The order further requires him to notify the NCA of his vehicles or of any "travel in a private vehicle" in advance. But Mr Mitchell again said there was again "significant evidence" of Warren not declaring such a journey or only doing so "after the event".

This included him failing to provide details of the ownership or insurance of a Volkswagen Polo which he informed the authorities he had access to on Christmas Eve 2022. The NCA was then only notified of him being carried as a passenger in a Range Rover through the Mersey Tunnels on January 25 2023 following said travel.

Warren meanwhile did not declare that he had been carried in a Ford Ranger in the Cheshire area on March 23 last year, or that he was driven to Liverpool John Lennon Airport in the same Audi A6 on May 13 2023. He furthermore did not declare that he had been added as a named driver on insurance policies for an Audi TT and a Range Rover and only belatedly gave notice that he had "been given a Citroen Picasso" in February 2023.

Further breaches also came in the form of "foreign travel", with the serious crime prevention order making it necessary for him to provide details of his intended movements abroad at least seven days before departure. On May 9 2023, Warren's solicitors notified the NCA of his intention to fly to Alicante on May 13 and return on May 18.

This late notification initially did not include details such as his accommodation and those he would be visiting while in Spain. While he did inform the authorities of his intention to extend his stay abroad, he never declared a return date before arriving back in the UK on May 24.

Warren, who also served a 12-year sentence in the Netherlands after being convicted of importing drugs in 1998, meanwhile did not provide details of premises to which he had access. When initially charged with breaching his SCPO on November 17 2023, he gave his home address as being at a flat in Birkenhead which he had not previously declared - with his only declared premises being the property in the north east and an apartment on Royal Quay in Liverpool city centre which has since been repossessed.

Anthony Barraclough, defending, told the court: "His best mitigation is that he has saved the court from running a two-week trial. He does not want to be in the public glare any more. He wants peace and an end to it. Therefore, he took the advice and - with the great assistance of the crown, who also want him to have a fresh start - he offered a basis of plea to the prosecution that he accepted the totality of the relevant factual evidence in the papers.

"He was doing his best and had the great assistance of his previous solicitors. It is a very, very, very draconian order. A man who had been in prison all of those years is being made toxic. He is accepting and he is taking it on the chin.

"He did wish to say that he was less than perfect in the detail within those communications which he did organise. He did not turn a complete blind eye. He was sending messages to his solicitors to try to get them to communicate with the NCA.

"Imagine Curtis Francis Warren - with all of his background and the publicity and people wanting to make films - trying to open a bank account. As soon as it is checked, they have closed the bank account.

"A normal life is something he will never have. He is going to be restricted for the remainder of the five years and then the length of the sentence my lord imposes and then suspends. There is no evidence of him doing anything in furtherance of the criminality which the intention of the order was to prevent. It has to be seen in the context of what they think this man is.

"He further asserts that the NCA already had or were contemporaneously gathering a substantial amount of information. They were watching his every move and following him everywhere, even checking his going through the tunnel. He was seen because they were following him.

"He is a person who comes out, and the press were expecting all sorts of thing on the first hearing. They were gathered outside and gathered at his home and so on. They expect him to be a drug baron. The NCA expect him to. It is very difficult for him to lead a normal life.

"He has accepted the totality of the evidence, but I say he was doing his best. He said he was not perfect. This is a man who had been in prison for many, many, many, years - including a long sentence for not paying back the 200 or whatever million that the court in Jersey found he had hidden away. His staying in Liverpool is not on some fancy yacht somewhere."

Of Warren's trip to Spain, Mr Barraclough added: "They did not find that he was in contact with major criminals or even those who have run off to the Costa del Crime, or whatever the press call it. There was no meeting up with people sitting on a yacht drinking. It was a holiday after many, many years in custody and him doing his best to report it through his solicitors.

"I just hope and pray that he is able to lead that normal, peaceful, quiet life and not breach this order. I do hope that the NCA do not take an overly draconian attitude. But they can, because the order is as it is."

Wearing a black Nike tracksuit in court, Warren was handed a 14-month imprisonment suspended for 18 months this afternoon. He was told to pay a victim surcharge but was not subjected to any further requirements as part of his sentence, with the Honorary Recorder of Liverpool Judge Andrew Menary KC deeming that "it would cause chaos" among others serving community service if he was to be handed unpaid work.

Sentencing, the city's top judge added: "The order was made, plainly, because it was feared that you were someone, despite your convictions, who was still actively involved in the commission of serious crime. The order was made to prevent, restrict or disrupt your potential involvement in serious crime in the future.

"The order is comprehensive in its nature, in terms of the restrictions and the obligations it contains. It is described as draconian by Mr Barraclough in his submissions. That might be one word to describe it, but it is necessarily comprehensive in its effect in order to achieve its objective of preventing any risk of future involvement in serious crime by you.

"It contains a number of obligations. None of the conditions are complicated. You being an intelligent man would understand why the order was made and the risks it contained.

"There is no evidence before me that you have been actively involved in the commission of any serious criminal offence, other than breaches of the order, since your release from custody. That is an important consideration for me today. But the admissions by you do demonstrate a pretty comprehensive catalogue of failure to abide by the conditions within the order.

"Those breaches by you have no doubt seriously undermined the effectiveness of the order. On one view at least, they do seem to indicate a decision by you not to take the order seriously.

"It is right to say that you have made some notifications to the National Crime Agency, as you are required to do. But, equally, there are many occasions where you have failed to give an obvious notification or where one you have given has been late or incomplete.

"Your plea is entered on the basis that you had made efforts to comply with the stringent obligations under the order and that, while there have been some failures, that they represent careless rather than deliberate failures. I do not necessarily accept that view.

"It seems to me that you were not keen to assist the National Crime Agency by giving them all the information that they plainly were entitled to under the order. You simply thought this order should not be in place and you were not going to take it seriously.

"This is serious offending and it requires a prison term. Because there is no evidence that you were actively involved in criminal activity and this represents the first occasion you have been prosecuted for these breaches, I am willing and able to suspend any prison term which might otherwise be deserved for these offences."

Head of the NCA's prisons and lifetime management unit Alison Abbott said following Warren's conviction: "Curtis Warren treated his order with contempt, breaching it within days of his release from prison and going on to breach it multiple times. Serious crime prevention orders are a powerful tool to help prevent those convicted of serious offences continue their criminality when they come out of prison.

"This case should serve as a warning to others. As we did with Warren, we will actively monitor all those who are subject to such orders and they will stay on our radar even after they are released from jail."