A ‘gangster granny’ who flooded the UK with a tonne of cocaine and put her cat in Gucci has been hit with 20 years. Deborah Mason, AKA ‘Queen Bee’, 65, of Crayford Road, Tufnell Park, headed a family syndicate of seven who creamed £1,000 a day by collecting parcels of the white powder and dropping them off all over London, Bradford, Leicester, Birmingham, Bristol, and Cardiff, between April and November 2023.
Cops found that a hired car driven by Mason left her North London house at 4.30am on April 20 2023 and arrived at Harwich Port at about 6.20am. After just 20 minutes at the Essex port the car headed back.
Trips were also made to Harwich Port regularly, as well as South London, Rotherham, Southend, Leicester, and Walsall, with the group using encrypted messaging site Signal to communicate.
Correspondence also showed that Mason was living a lavish life and bought a Gucci collar and lead worth £400 for her cat as well as a huge amount of luxury outdoor garden goods.
The gang also went abroad and bought other luxury goods with their ill-gotten gains, such as hire cars and hotels. All but one of the group was arrested in May 2024. Anita Slaughter was later arrested in November 2024.
Roseanne Mason, Chloe Hodgkin, Lillie Bright, Demi Bright and Anita Slaughter were all found guilty of conspiracy to supply Class A drugs on Monday, April 28.
Before her trial, Lillie Bright pleaded guilty to a separate offence of offering to supply Class A drugs, identified following a review of her mobile device.
Tina Golding, Reggie Bright and Demi Kendall all pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply Class A drugs at Woolwich Crown Court, prior to trial.
Demi Kendall and Reggie Bright also pleaded guilty to a separate offence of possession with Intent to supply Class A drugs and possession of criminal property following seizures of cocaine and more than £15,000 cash during a search of their home address.
Investigation lead Constable Jack Kraushaar said: “This was a sophisticated operation which was extremely profitable for those involved.
“Following months of work by the Met Police to relentlessly pursue these perpetrators, we were able to arrest and eventually convict them, preventing more drugs flooding streets across the UK which leads to violence, antisocial behaviour and misery for communities.
“The group were sucked into criminality, selfishly attracted by the financial benefits of the drug-dealing to fund lavish lifestyles. They were unaware we were coming for them and this sentencing should act as a deterrent to those who think about committing this type of crime.”
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‘This was no ordinary family’
CPS specialist Robert Hutchinson said: “This was no ordinary family. Instead of nurturing and caring for her relatives, Deborah Mason recruited them to establish an extraordinarily profitable criminal enterprise that would ultimately put them all behind bars.
“The CPS worked closely with the police from the earliest opportunity to make sure we had ample evidence to prosecute them for the full extent of their actions.
“We reviewed thousands of messages and other digital evidence that not only revealed incriminating messages sent between them, but also a significant pattern of deleting messages, helping to prove that they all knew exactly what they were doing.”
The sentences
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Roseanne Mason, 29, of Grosvenor Avenue, Canonbury was sentenced to 11 years’ imprisonment.
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Demi Bright, 30, of Samuel Peto Way, Ashford, Kent was also hit with 11 years.
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Lillie Bright, 26, of Evergreen Way, Ashford, Kent was sentenced to 13 years behind bars
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Reggie Bright, 24, of Frittenden Road, Staplehurst, Kent was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
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Demi Kendall, 31, of Frittenden Road, Staplehurst, Kent was sentenced to 13 years and six months’ imprisonment.
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Tina Golding, 66, of Beecholme Drive, Ashford, Kent was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
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Anita Slaughter, 44, of Pearmain Way, Ashford, Kent was sentenced to 13 years’ imprisonment.
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Chloe Hodgkin, 23, of Abbots Walk, Wye, Kent will be sentenced at a a later date.
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