Drugs granny and family jailed

Drugs granny and family jailed

Mags Haney controlled the operation

Four members of the notorious Haney family have been given jail sentences totalling 33 years for large scale heroin dealing.

Margaret "Big Mags" Haney, 60, was identified as the controller of the operation and jailed for 12 years.

Her daughter Diane, 35, was sentenced to nine years, niece Roseann, 40, to seven years and son Hugh, 31, to five years at the High Court in Edinburgh.

Trial judge Lady Smith said all had been involved in the supply of vast quantities of heroin to numerous users where substantial amounts of money were being made.

Damaged young people

The court had heard that Mags Haney was the controller of a thriving drugs operation supplying heroin from council flats in Lower Bridge Street, Stirling.

Haney was making up to £1,000 a day from the operation in addition to getting paid £1,200 a month in state benefits.

The judge described the grandmother as the person who masterminded the operation profiting from inadequate and damaged young people.

She said that victims of the heroin trade appeared in court like "ghosts" to give evidence at the trial of the Haneys.

Haney launched an anti-paedophile campaign

Haney, of Mill Street, Alloa, in Clackmannanshire, earlier admitted being concerned in the supply of heroin between January 2000 and June 2001.

The trading in the Class A drug took place mainly from council flats at Lower Bridge Street dubbed "Haney's Hotel" by locals.

One of her runners told police that she was selling up to 100 bags of heroin a day.

Haney, who has previous convictions stretching back to 1975 for offences including assault, breach of the peace, fraud and contempt of court, has never previously been convicted of a drugs offence.

Prosecution witness

She previously hit the headlines after setting herself up as a campaigner against paedophiles on the Raploch estate in Stirling.

Her daughter Diane, of Mill Street, Alloa, her son Hugh, of Erskine Place, Clackmannan, and niece Roseann Haney, of Tarragon House, Alloa, also admitted being concerned in the supply of heroin in Stirling.

Haney's former husband, John, was earlier acquitted of dealing in heroin after his not guilty plea was accepted.

Haney's granddaughter, Kim, 24, of Argyll Street, Alloa, was jailed for two years for contempt after being called as a prosecution witness in the trial against the clan.