'Gangsta Debbs' - the granny who used her family to run an £80m drug empire

In the early hours of an April morning in 2023 undercover officers watched as a woman loaded boxes into a hire car at a retail park near the port of Harwich in Essex.

They'd received a tip-off about the car which had travelled from Islington that night.

The car was driven on towards Ipswich, where the woman handed over a heavy laundry bag to an unknown man. She did not look like someone you'd expect to be carrying out a drug deal - her defence barrister said she "was undoubtedly singled out as someone who would not catch the eye".

That woman was Deborah Mason, known to family as Gangsta Debbs or Queen Bee: a grandmother and the matriarch of a crime family that operated across south east England.

Mason had recruited her four children, her sister and others close to the family to help supply cocaine around the country - funding a lavish lifestyle which included Gucci designer goods bought for her cat and a £192 Bugatti kettle.

On Friday, the 65-year-old was sentenced to 20 years in prison for conspiracy to supply Class A drugs at Woolwich Crown Court.

The rest of the gang received sentences of between 10 and 15 years for the same charge.

The Metropolitan Police watched Mason for seven months after that morning in Harwich, as she and her family-run gang completed cocaine and class A drug pick-ups at ports - mainly Harwich - but also Folkstone and Dover.

The pattern was often the same. Tightly-wrapped packages of cocaine would be collected, divided between supermarket bags for life and then delivered to the next person in the chain.

Police watched the gang complete drop-offs in south London, Cardiff, Bristol, Sheffield, Rotherham, Manchester, Bradford, Southend, Leicester and Walsall.

One man arrested by police in Leicester shortly after a handover was found with 10kg (22lbs) of cocaine. Other trips would be to collect their "wages" as they described it.

In total the drugs the gang handled were worth £25m-£30m at wholesale, with a street value of up to £80m, the prosecution said during Friday's sentencing hearing.

The court heard the gang had used aliases to communicate with each other and with their supplier - a man known only as "Bugsy" - on the encrypted messaging app, Signal.

Mason enjoyed a close relationship with "Bugsy" and even went on holiday with him to Dubai and Bahrain in October 2023.

Over a seven-month period, Mason carried out 20 trips transporting at least 356kg cocaine, as well as delivering and collecting cash.

Judge Philip Shorrock said Mason had a "leading role", and described her as "the site foreman working under a project manager".

"As a mother you should have been setting an example to your children, not corrupting them," he said.

The court heard Mason did not buy drugs herself, but was part of the direction of multi-kilo transactions.

Prosecutor Charlotte Hole said: "She also organised those who drove for her – staying in phone contact from the early hours to make sure they were up, and checking in on them during the day."

Financial gain was the motivation and police said Mason had spent extravagantly -including on designer clothing, bags and accessories.

Among these were a £390 Gucci collar and lead, and a nine-carat gold engraved name tag for Mason's Bengal cat, Ghost.

When she was arrested, footage showed her being handcuffed in her bathroom next to a designer DKNY towel.

At the same time the conspiracy was taking place Mason received £50,000 in benefits, Ms Hole told the court.

Mason "expressed a desire to go to Turkey for cosmetic procedures" and took a "cut of the wages of others", Ms Hole said.

She booked holidays with her sister to Cornwall, Malta, Prague and Poland, and took her daughters to Dubai where they continued to direct operations in the UK via Facetime.

Mason, whose number was saved in one of her children's phones under the name Queen Bee, involved her three daughters, her son, and two of their partners in the conspiracy. They are all now starting lengthy prison sentences behind bars. A friend, Anita Slaughter, 44, has also been jailed.

Mason's son, Reggie Bright, 24, delivered at least 90kg of cocaine over 12 trips, often travelling alongside his partner, Demi Kendall, 31, or his sister Lillie Bright, 27, as well as his mother.

"He used the Signal alias 'Frank' and was clearly known to and in direct contact with the upstream supplier," Ms Hole said, adding the gang were paid about £1,000 per trip by Mason.

She added that Reggie Bright and Demi Kendall were also caught running their own separate drugs line from their caravans in Kent - in breach of a previous suspended sentence order imposed on them for drug-related offences.

The prosecution argued Mason's eldest daughter Demi Bright had a significant role in operations, delivering about 60kg of cocaine, although she was not as active as other family members as she had other sources of income.

Mason's other daughters, Roseanne Mason and Lillie Bright, were also found guilty. Rosanne Mason, 30, took part in seven identified trips - including to Bradford and Manchester. Lillie Bright made 20 identified trips and the court heard she had a "clear expectation of significant financial advantage".

Lillie Bright involved her partner Chloe Hodgkin - who the court heard will be sentenced at a later date once she has given birth.

In mitigation, each defence lawyer argued that all involved were "expendable" compared with the wider drug enterprise, and that most of the children were "couriers" making trips across the UK.

This was "no ordinary family", as specialist prosecutor Robert Hutchinson said. "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."

Ms Hole said there was no suggestion of pressure or coercion for any of them to be part of the conspiracy, and all had been motivated by financial benefit.

They were given the following sentences:

• Reggie Bright, 24, of Staplehurst, Kent, 15 years
• Demi Kendall, 31, of Staplehurst, 13-and-a-half years
• Lillie Bright, 26, of Ashford, Kent, 13 years
• Anita Slaughter, 44, Ashford, 13 years
• Demi Bright, 30, of Ashford, 11 years
• Roseanne Mason, 29, of Canonbury, north London, 11 years
• Tina Golding, 66, Ashford, 10 years
• Chloe Hodgkin, 23, of Wye, Kent, to be sentenced at a later date.

Met Police's Det Con Jack Kraushaar, who led the investigation, described Mason's operation as "sophisticated" and said it was "extremely profitable for those involved".

"The group were sucked into criminality," he said, "selfishly attracted by the financial benefits of the drug-dealing to fund lavish lifestyles."