24 Hours In Police Custody (Channel 4)
Picture a drugs dealer and you might imagine a Mexican tattoo artist with a machete in his closet and a rucksack full of crystal meth.
That’s not a cheap racist stereotype: during a real-life raid filmed on 24 Hours In Police Custody, officers arrested a man fitting exactly that description . . . in Norwich, of all places.
Axel Cruz was caught after customs officials at Stansted Airport intercepted a kilo of cocaine, hidden inside a consignment of gym equipment addressed to his apartment. He was sentenced to 16 years in jail.
The character you probably didn’t envisage as a drug peddler was 50-year-old Toby Bunting, a senior clinical nurse at a London hospital who was recovering from recent cardiac surgery.
Toby fell asleep in his car after pulling over into a layby, while driving home from a party. Next thing he knew, police were knocking on his window.
The moment was captured on an officer’s bodycam. It would have been comical, if it hadn’t been so pathetic. Scattered over the car seats were the remnants of a Chinese takeaway, an assortment of sex toys . . . and bags of white powder. Clearly, that was quite a party.
Toby knew at once that his life was ruined. He made a few desperate attempts to lie his way out of trouble, then burst into tears and begged for mercy. At the station, he tried to act the innocent: ‘I didn’t know there was going to be drugs at the party. I was asked to get rid of it, and that’s how it ended up in my vehicle.’
One of the interviewing officers sighed heavily. It had clearly been a long morning. ‘I’ll be totally honest with you, Toby,’ he said, ‘I don’t believe anything you’ve told us there.’
Realising that no jury would believe him either, Toby pleaded guilty to four counts of possession with intent to supply, and was sentenced to two-and-a-half years.
‘I feel sorry for him,’ remarked a female officer. ‘He is a character.’
Her sympathy was misplaced. Toby had £800 in cash in his car, and was clearly making a lot of money selling illegal drugs when, as a nurse, he must have known the horrific damage they do.
But it was harder not to feel pity for Daniel Fordham, a young father struggling with debts who agreed to store a shipload of cocaine at his house for the Mexican tattooist. Fordham was promised £15,000 for taking the risk, money that he hoped would set him on his feet.
Instead, police smashed down his door early one morning and arrested him in front of his children. He’s now doing 10 years . . . and he didn’t get the 15 grand. ‘I can’t believe how stupid I’ve been,’ he said.
These overlapping stories gave three very different perspectives on a toxic trade. There was no pretence that all this was dealt with in 24 hours, as happened in previous series.
That always did feel like an artificial format. Straightforward case histories work much better.