Review: 'Operation Julie' by Lyn Ebenezer

Originally published in Welsh, in 2008, 'Operation Julie' by Lyn Ebenezer looks at what is arguably the most famous UK police drug operation in history. This English edition was published in 2010 and has the novel advantage of being the first book exclusively on Operation Julie not to be written by one of the policeman involved. However, as we shall see, this is still a collection of threads that are primarily woven together by the police operation itself.

In March 1977, after over a year of surveillance and intelligence gathering, the Operation Julie taskforce, which included officers from eleven different police forces, swooped on their targets. What they believed they'd found was a vast LSD manufacturing, packaging and distribution service, but which in fact turned out to be two, still large but different operations co-existing in Britain. Coupled with a furious media frenzy, which lavished praise on the officers and demonised the defendants, Operation Julie became something of a triumph for the police force within the public arena.