25-07-2025
Notorious crime clan boss Big Mags Haney at centre of new documentary investigation
A heroin dealing grandmother once dubbed the neighbour from hell is to feature in a new six part BBC podcast.
The female head of a notorious Scottish crime clan first exposed by the Daily Record is to be probed in a new documentary series.
Mother of eleven Mags Haney - once branded the neighbour from hell - was responsible for a crime wave on the poverty stricken Raploch estate in Stirling which brought misery to local residents.
The chain-smoking granny first attracted public attention for an anti-paedophile crusade. In reality she was peddling large sums of heroin using members of her own family including her children.
Eventually local people stood up to her and she and family members were thrown out of Raploch following mass protests.
A six-part BBC Scotland podcast series - The Ballad of Big Mags - will explore the life and times of a controversial figure who rose to prominence in the 1990's. Haney's own convictions stretched back to 1975 and included assault, contempt of court, breach of the peace and fraud.
In 1995, Sheriff Norrie Stein branded the Haney's the "family from hell" and said they blighted lives in the area. At the time Haney admitted her children had made hundreds of court appearances between them, adding: "My kids have been brought up in the jungle."
Haney had initially put herself forward as a self-styled vigilante against the threat of child abusers, leading a lynch mob after a paedophile was housed in the estate.
She even appeared on the Kilroy TV show to talk about protecting youngsters from sex offenders and revelled in her mini-celebrity status.
In 2000, the Record set up a Shop-A-Dealer hotline asking readers to identify drug pushers in their local area.
As the calls came in, Haney was named as Stirling 's No1 drug dealer, selling up to 600 "tenner bags" of heroin every week while living off benefits of £1200 a month.
She used her council home as a supply base and even sold drugs in front of her grandchildren. Haney used to sit in a big chair which was known to visitors as her "throne".
The Daily Record's team managed to purchase two £10 heroin deals from Haney and passed a dossier of evidence to police.
At her trial in 2003, Haney admitted running a £250,000-a-year drugs operation using a network of delivery runners, including her own children, grandchildren and nieces.
She never returned to Stirling and was instead housed in Alva, Clackmannanshire before dying from cancer in 2013 aged 70.
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Podcast presenter Myles Bonnar said: 'Many people only partially know the story of this controversial figure and this series will give a full account of how she rose to fame and became a source of fascination to the media and public before her criminal life was exposed."
