Ex-GMP cop set up criminal racket with famous fisherman months after leaving force

A woman has been found guilty of helping her husband and a former GMP officer run a county lines drug operation in Devon.

Jacqueline Harrison, from Hyde, bought a phone online and an unregistered SIM card from a local shop which her husband Warren used to contact ex-policeman Gary Parkinson.

Parkinson started running the cocaine supply business a few months after leaving Greater Manchester Police. He had already moved to Devon and set up a dog training business while he was on sick leave and full pay before he left the force.

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He was invalided out of the GMP after a severe back injury interrupted his 15 year career and left him only fit for desk duties. He went on long term sick because of his injuries and depression.

Parkinson lived near Holsworthy in North Devon but had previously stayed with his parents in Crediton and set up the drug conspiracy in the town with a local man named Benjamin Mennell-Flisher, a court heard.

He still had connections with Manchester and shared an interest in carp fishing with Warren Harrison, an internationally famous angler who has held several world and British records for the largest fish ever caught.

Parkinson and Warren Harrison were caught when Harrison was acting as courier and bringing a half a kilo of cocaine, worth up to £40,000, from his home in Manchester to Crediton.

Parkinson himself was stopped in a car with £7,000 cash and a dealer’s list of customers who apparently owed him money.

The conspiracy started in November 2019 when Parkinson travelled to Manchester to meet Harrison and set up the supply line. It carried on until Harrison was stopped near Tiverton on January 14, 2020.

Harrison’s nickname was