Paul Thorne's murder on Fenwick Moor uncovered international drug links to Glasgow

A short time later the van made the same journey back to the city minus one of its occupants, Bristol drugs courier Paul Thorne.

Thorne had arrived in the city earlier that day with a £30,000 consignment of the drug amphetamine sulphate – worth £82,000 in today’s money.

Once the drugs were sold in Glasgow to local dealers, his job was to take the cash payment back to his masters in Bristol.

His companions that Saturday afternoon in early October 1988 included four Glasgow men and a Spaniard called Ricardo Blanco.

Thorne had agreed to be taken to a safe house in Ayrshire for a few days, while the five sold the drugs.

The gang stopped on the way to Ayrshire to buy a spade and then for fish and chips.

Later, they joked about this being Thorne’s “last supper”.

READ MORE: Police appeal for help to find Paul Thorne's body

Outside the village of Moscow, the five took the courier into a wooded area where Blanco, 26, produced a sawn-off gun and blew off part of his jaw.

A second man, John Paul McFadyen, 24, reloaded the shotgun, blasting Thorne at point-blank range. Two others, Thomas Collins, 25, and Thomas Currie, 28, took turns to shoot their prey.

A fifth man Stephen Mitchell, 26, refused his turn and ran off.

Then, the real purpose of the spade was revealed.

Thomas Currie.

All five men dug a grave, placed the 24-year-old’s body inside and covered it with a mattress.

Once back in Glasgow the gang dumped the gun in the River Clyde, the spade in a refuse bin and burned the courier’s belongings.

The brutal murder would have remained a secret but for a dramatic twist of events nine months later.

In early June 1989, Detective Sergeant Steven Heath and a colleague had arrested a husband and wife from the Millerston area of Glasgow for drug dealing.

Facing several years in prison the pair offered up some information in the hope of a more lenient sentence.

Although that was nothing unusual, the tale they told was extraordinary.

They named Collins, Currie and Mitchell as being involved in the murder of a drugs courier and burying his body on the Fenwick Moor.

All three were arrested later that day and in turn named McFadyen and Blanco as their partners in crime.

At first sight it seemed a great result for the police. Three men arrested for a murder they didn’t even know about and two other prime suspects.

However, that was just the beginning of their problems.

At this stage they had no name for the victim other than Paul or where exactly he was buried.

Thomas Collins.

As the investigation was stepped up a picture began to emerge of the people behind the murder.

Ringleader McFadyen was on remand in Barlinnie Prison having been arrested for brandishing a gun in a disco.

Blanco, known as The Mad Spaniard or Ricardo The Hitman, was said to have killed a man while deserting the French Foreign Legion.

The two men weren’t strangers to using violence to rip off rival drug dealers.

Both had supposedly mutilated the body of a German courier in Spain to get the drugs he carried in his stomach. Collins, Currie and Mitchell were strictly small time.

Thorne’s murder had involved drugs brought from the notorious St Pauls area of Bristol.

His boss was Lennox Gayle, who had sent him and a female known as Scouse to Glasgow on October 8 with the amphetamine.

Blanco and the others had taken the pair to a flat in Whitevale Street, Dennistoun where they all smoked cannabis.

Thorne agreed to go to Ayrshire, but a suspicious Scouse returned to Bristol later that day leaving him with the drugs.

The man who led the investigation, Detective Superintendent Joe Jackson, said it was one of the most complex and satisfying cases of his career.

He told the Glasgow Times: “My immediate aim was to find the body, so Collins, Mitchell and Currie were taken to the moors. The hunt was conducted by about 100 officers.

“The area covered 30 square miles, so I went up in a helicopter and was shocked at the scale of what we were attempting.

John Paul McFadyen one of five men who stood trial for the 1988 murder of drugs courier Paul Thorne on Fenwick Moor.

“The murder victim had also been lying for at least eight or nine months which added to our problems. We used the latest technology including heat-seeking cameras and borrowed dogs from Yorkshire which had been trained to find buried bodies.”

A search of every bridge under the River Clyde in Glasgow failed to locate the murder weapon.

The spade was recovered but it yielded nothing of forensic value.

Jackson added: “At this point the case wasn’t looking too hot. We had suspects but didn’t know the victim’s full name.

“We didn’t have a weapon or any of the drugs. We also didn’t know the real name of the girl who had been with Thorne. Crucially we didn’t have a body.

“Whether we were looking in the wrong place, whether we had been steered in the wrong direction or whether someone had removed the corpse, I cannot say even now.”

Suddenly the inquiry team got its breakthrough when it discovered Blanco was due at Bristol Airport.

He was arrested coming off the plane, bundled into a car and driven overnight to Clydebank Police Office.

Blanco admitted his part in the killing, saying he was the first to shoot the courier and explained how they had buried him.

Crucially he identified the victim as Paul Leslie Thorne.

They then discovered that thmystery woman who had travelled to Glasgow with Thorne was a Nicola Hughes. She was the girlfriend of Gayle and refused to speak at first.

So Jackson brought Gayle up to Glasgow for questioning and decided to play good cop.

He said: “I asked Gayle if he had any complaints about his treatment by my officers. Gayle told me he had not been fed properly as he was a vegetarian.

“I sent out for an Indian meal, including vegetable pakora. It proved to be a hit and he began to talk.

“I then asked if he’d like something to drink. I happened to have two bottles, one of lemonade and one of whisky. He agreed to share a dram. I poured him a generous measure.”

Gayle then had a quick chat on the phone and crucially gave Scouse permission to give a statement about her trip to Glasgow with Thorne and the subsequent meeting with the five murder suspects.

In another breakthrough they traced the rental firm in Glasgow that had hired out the van to the gang. Crucially a photograph taken of Currie by the manager showed Blanco in the background.

READ MORE: Remembering 10 of the most shocking crimes in Glasgow's history

In October 1989, one year after Thorne’s murder, McFadyen, Blanco, Collins, Currie and Mitchell all stood trial in Glasgow.

Unusually the case was heard at Glasgow Sheriff Court rather than the nearby High Court because the security was better. At 47 days, it would also become the longest murder trial in Scottish legal history.

The case blew the lid off the booming drugs scene in Glasgow and shocked the public.

For the first time a picture emerged of local organised crime figures with connections to Spain, Morocco, Florida and the Caribbean.

One of the accused, Mitchell, turned informer. Charges were dropped and he testified against his associates.

He provided graphic detail of the murders revealing that Blanco and McFadyen had both laughed as they shot Thorne. Though he had avoided his opportunity to shoot Thorne, he had found the mattress used to cover his body.

McFadyen, Blanco and Collins were convicted of murder. All received life sentences. Currie got a not proven after Donald Findlay QC argued that Thorne was dead by the time that he fired the fourth shot.

McFadyen, as the ringleader, was ordered to serve a minimum of 20 years while Blanco was given a life term of 15 years.

To this date the body of Thorne has never been found.

Blanco was released after serving 18 years and was deported back to Spain in 2006.

McFadyen escaped in 1992 from prison and spent five months on the run before being arrested in London. He was freed in December 2018 but was later sent back to jail after breaching his parole conditions.

Nothing is known of Collins since his release from prison or the other two accused.

Jackson, who retired in 1992 after a distinguished 32-year career, said: “This was an evil, callous crime and though the victim was a drugs courier, he did not deserve to die the way he did. Most importantly justice was served, and some very dangerous people were taken off the streets.”