Latest news with #MacaulayDodd
Daily Mail
4 days ago
- Daily Mail
My dad and I were jailed for running an illegal steroid lab together and brawled in the courtroom - I can't believe how he betrayed me, but being locked up came with a surprising upside
A father and son from Wales who were jailed together for running an illegal steroid lab were brought closer together - despite brawling in the courtroom. Macaulay Dodd and his father Andrew were sent down for running the operation, which was disguised as a dog grooming business to launder the cash they were making. Their story is told in brand new BBC documentary Confessions Of A Steroid Gang as Macaulay reveals how he was first introduced to steroids when he was just 15. After a bitter divorce, Andrew was raising two sons on his own, with his relationship with Macaulay significantly strained and the pair argued a lot. However, with little money, Andrew - originally a cockle fisher on the Dee estuary - met a man one night in the pub who wore nice clothes and flashed money, revealing he was in the steroid business. The BBC doc, which starts on Tuesday night, recreates how Macaulay and his father set up a manufacturing lab for the Class C drug, while the drug duo recounted their every move. The BBC doc, which starts on Tuesday night, recreates how Macaulay and his father set up a manufacturing lab for the Class C drug, while the drug duo recounted their every move Speaking to the Daily Mail, Macaulay said: 'We were always at each other, previous to getting into work together making the steroids. 'I think before that there'd be the odd time where we got on and that, and then when we started working [on the steroids] and sort of like becoming a team and and spending quality time together.' He added that before that, the last time they spent time like that was at football matches when Macaulay was a child. After moving out of their hometown of Deeside, they set up their lab in a remote farmhouse where they operated under the guise of the countryside. During the three-part series, as the money rolls in fast, the police are onto the Dodds and start tracing and intercepting synthetic testosterone being imported into the UK. To keep the trail as cold as possible, they enlisted the help of unassuming individuals to take in the shipments for 'easy money', however, increasingly they noticed how packages never made it, having been caught by the police. They called their 'company' Renvex, with it quickly becoming a highly-sought and praised product among users and demand only increased. Andrew said: 'You've got to realise that it was a norm for us when we were doing it, but you, you know, you have the Joe public who might think, oh, Jesus Christ, f**king hell, look, it's Breaking Bad, but I mean, for me, no, it was just a normal job.' The net was closing for them as police raided Terence Murrell's flat in London, who was an online dealer, suppling Renvex. For Macaulay, in hindsight he can see signs time was running out, explaining: 'I just I had this feeling and I spotted a couple of things and things were happening and I think at the time, I was very paranoid anyway, and very like alert of of certain things, because what I was up to.' In a dramatic police raid at the farmhouse, both Andrew and Macaulay were arrested and subsequently charged, with the operation valued at £1.2million. For Andrew, it was almost a relief for everything to be over, admitting: 'I was sick to death of it, f**king lying to people and I wasn't me, let's put it that way, you know what I mean?' Three years later, they were each sentenced to five years in prison each, with Macaulay furiously lunging at his father in the courtroom after their sentences were handed down. He had blamed his dad for not 'protecting' him more than he believes he could have during the process, which Andrew disagrees with. In a twist, they were initially incarcerated together, forcing them to address their problems thanks to their abundance of free time and the pair have now built up a close relationship. For Andrew, it was almost a relief for everything to be over, admitting: 'I was sick to death of it, f**king lying to people and I wasn't me, let's put it that way, you know what I mean?' Reflecting on his prison stint, Macaulay added to Daily Mail: Prison saved me as a person, changed me into a different person and I I feel like when I went to prison, I grew into a man. 'I feel like I went to prison as a as a weak-minded boy and an angry little boy, and I feel like I've come out of prison as a grown man.' While Andrew now works for the National Grid, Macaulay is hoping their story can raise awareness and is looking to go into youth work. He concluded: 'I want to go into maybe helping, helping people and youth, going into youth work. I think there's a big place you can help people in like loads of ways.'
BBC News
6 days ago
- BBC News
Dad and son's St Asaph steroid lab undone by dog grooming shop
"The first time I took steroids, I was with my brother. It was in my bedroom. I must have been 14, maybe just turning 15."Macaulay Dodd was an angry, mixed-up teenage boy reeling from the break-up of his parents' marriage and desperately looking to his gym-going older brother and friends for guidance on how to weather the path to he plunged that needle into his buttock for the first time, he could not have known that within a few short years he would be at the heart of one of the UK's biggest illegal steroid gangs and would be the one cooking up drugs to the tune of £ story is revealed in BBC series Confessions of a Steroid Gang, which documents the rise and fall of a drugs operation run by Macaulay and his dad, Andrew Dodd, and undone, in part, by a dog grooming shop they set up to launder all the cash they were says, at the time, he did not class himself as a criminal. Yet the pair took significant steps to cover up their activities from police and those who knew on the enterprise a decade on from his arrest, he acknowledged it "wasn't right" and he would "never do it again". Andrew Dodd was a cockle fisher on the Dee estuary - a hard, physical job he had seen "break men".He was now raising his two sons on his own after a divorce and his relationship with his son Macaulay left a lot to be desired, whom he felt was "angry, rebellious, hard to live with". Looking to "try and make up" for what his children didn't have, he took an interest in a man down the pub who seemed to have it all - nice clothes and money to flash wanted to know how he did it: "I'm in the steroid business." These words changed his had no idea how many people – up to 1.5 million in the UK – were using steroids. Macaulay, now 18, had just left the family home in Deeside and was living out of his was worried about him so called him and said he had some explained: "Who do you trust more than your son?"When Macaulay was told he would be setting up a steroid manufacturing lab, he was taken aback."He's never really been in trouble before," he said. The law around anabolic steroids is not are a Class C drug, but there is an exemption that makes it legal to have them for personal maximum penalty for supplying or producing them is 14 years in prison or an unlimited father and son could not operate out of Deeside where "everybody sort of knows each other".So they moved 20 miles to the cathedral city of St Asaph and found a remote farmhouse, transforming the outhouse into a steroid lab. Next came importing the raw ingredients, mainly synthetic testosterone, which is nearly all produced legally formed a network of members of the public who would accept parcels without asking is brutally honest: "People need easy money.... As bad as it sounds, people in need, you use them don't you?"The pair followed instructions from their contact in the pub but there were dangers in the process of making them."You're basically inhaling drugs," said Andrew."Looking back I was getting a bit angry. Maybe I was taking more steroids than a lot more of my customers." Now they had to sell contact through their pub fixer, now Andrew's business partner, they began selling their product, named Renvex, to online Honor Doro Townshend, steroid researcher and criminologist, said: "Buying steroids online is pretty much as easy as buying clothes online... you choose your product and your quantity of product and it's sent to your house."You can still read glowing 12-year-old reviews of Renvex on a popular steroid forum. What started out as a sideline became "a full-time job".But with more orders came more need for ingredients - that meant an increase in parcels coming through launder the increasing amounts of money pouring in, Andrew set up a dog grooming service named Posh Paws in Ruthin, but time was running out for the pair. Supt Lee Boycott was the senior investigating officer on Operation Fasti, set up after the Border Agency intercepted some of the parcels."Because a lot were heading to residential addresses in the north Wales area, they picked up the phone and referred the case to us," he said.A police analyst spotted a pattern of deliveries to homes across north said: "I didn't really class myself as a criminal. I'd just seen myself as a business owner."A visit by police to one of those accepting parcels meant Andrew had to come clean, but asked him to stay quiet if the authorities came calling."There was a point where I realised I wasn't liking myself and who I'd become," he said. Orders were increasingly getting intercepted and online feedback from customers turned negative as orders weren't London, police uncovered a large quantity of steroids in a flat belonging to online dealer Terence of his main suppliers? Andrew and Macaulay found an overseas supplier who agreed to disguise the steroids in sweet packaging, with Andrew even opening a sweetshop as courtesy of documents found at Murrell's home, police found a payment to a dog grooming business in Ruthin. Other pieces started falling into people receiving the parcels communicated with Andrew on their own phones, rather than "burner" phones – unregistered disposable phones which are harder to trace – favoured by name was on all their found an address and filmed Andrew taking bags of rubbish filled with drug-making waste to the was time to and Macaulay were arrested in a dawn raid and police finally uncovered the lab at the centre of the million-pound operation."This might sound strange to hear but it was almost like a relief at the time," remembers Andrew. ""You're not lying, you're not deceiving your family, your friends. It just feels like it's over, it's done. It emerged that their original contact in the pub, who became Andrew's business partner, was already on bail for another failed steroids operation. Three years after their arrests, in 2018, they were both sentenced to five years in prison for running the estimated £1.2m was to prove transformative for their relationship - Andrew asked if he and Macaulay, now 23, could be housed in a cell together."I feel like the minute we got into the cell it was just this bond of sticking together and we're a team and we've got each other," he said."Jail definitely saved our relationship," added saw an enforced, but permanent, withdrawal from steroids for Macaulay and changed his father's said: "I've paid for what I've done. It wasn't right, I know that and I'd never do it again." What are steroids? Anabolic steroids are prescription-only medicines that are sometimes taken without medical advice to increase muscle mass and improve athletic performance, which can cause serious side effects and mimic the effects of the hormone testosterone and are not the same as corticosteroids, a different type of steroid drug more commonly use of the Class C drug is legal, and they can be issued by pharmacists with a prescription. But it is illegal to possess, import or export anabolic steroids if it is believed you're supplying or selling them - as in the case of Macaulay and Andrew or delivering the drugs by a courier or freight service is also steroids are usually injected into a muscle or taken by mouth as tablets, but they also come as creams or effects of their use by men can include, but are not limited to: reduced sperm count; erectile dysfunction; hair loss; and increased risk of prostate men and women taking the drugs can experience side effects including: heart attack; stroke; severe acne; liver or kidney problems or failure; high blood pressure; and blood addition, there are several psychological and emotional effects linked to the drugs, including aggressive behaviour; mood swings; paranoia; manic behaviour; and hallucinations and NHS Confessions of a Steroid Gang, BBC One Wales at 21:00 BST on 12 August, then on iPlayer
