Criminal boss loses libel case against journalist who exposed him The high court found in favour of Michael Gillard, the journalist who exposed David Hunt in the Sunday Times. David Charles Hunt appeared mild-mannered and courteous giving evidence at the high court. He felt crucified, he said, by the accusation that he was the head of a criminal gang whose associates included Terry Adams and Reggie Kray. But after weeks of evidence during a libel trial in which the life and career of the 52-year-old Hunt were examined in minute detail, Mr Justice Simon, in a few succinct paragraphs of his judgment, pulled away any mask of respectability, and found in favour of the journalist who exposed Hunt as a criminal. In the absence of any criminal court hearing on his career, Thursday's ruling passes judgment for the first time on Hunt's activities, which spread across the East End of London and reached into the home counties, according to evidence heard. The five-week trial, which has cost millions of pounds, shone a light on the alleged criminal career of a man who has been dubbed - it was heard in evidence - too big for the Metropolitan police to tackle. Simon said in his judgment he had little difficulty in accepting that Hunt was the head of "an organised crime network implicated in extreme violence and fraud" but ruled that the newspaper had not established Hunt's involvement in murder or drug trafficking. Finding in favour of Michael Gillard, the journalist who exposed Hunt in the Sunday Times as a criminal who was profiting from the compulsory purchase of land for the Olympic Park paid for by a £20m government fund, Simon ruled that the criminal boss was "capable of sudden violence when his interests were directly threatened." Over nearly 30 years, Hunt - who was described as a close friend by Kray, and who arrived at court flanked by two heavy-set minders - has been targeted by numerous police investigations, surveillance operations and specialist teams and been the subject of operations by the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca). But he has no convictions for serious offences and just one minor conviction to his name. The court heard in evidence that he was known in gangland circles as the Long Fella, and that he engaged in violence, intimidation and money laundering and benefited from the proceeds of prostitution. His modus operandi was evident in violent attacks on three individuals, and his intimidation of anyone who dared to speak to the police. In one attack, in 1997, Simon found that Hunt had slashed a man's face with a knife in a fit of anger, leaving him with a 15cm laceration from his ear to his chin that required life-saving medical treatment. "Despite the time that has passed since the event, the nature of the evidence and the claimant's [Hunt's] denial, I am satisfied that the claimant committed a violent assault on Mr Cavanagh on 13 November 1997," the judge said. I am also satisfied that the claimant intimidated, or arranged for the intimidation, of Mr Cavanagh; and 'persuaded' him not to give evidence for the prosecution. The judge went on: "There is other evidence ... which demonstrates the claimant's willingness to intimidate witnesses and put witnesses in fear." In another attack, in 2006, Hunt and his heavies "orchestrated a brazen and violent attempt to pervert the course of justice by ... threats of violence" within a courthouse in central London. The attack on a rival in the Olympic property deal, Billy Allen, showed Hunt "was in a position to deploy a group of large and violent men at a court hearing ... and direct them to carry out an attack in a public area for a reason related to his business interests. It was the sort of power and authority that might be expected from the head of a criminal network. By the time police arrived, blood was smeared over the walls and floor of the court lobby, the court heard in evidence. Hunt's activities over many decades have proved lucrative. His home is a mansion near Bishop's Stortford in Hertfordshire and the judge upheld evidence that his company, GRL, was a front for money laundering to process the income from his criminal activities. A property purchased by GRL in Soho was used as a clip joint, a sex shop and a base for prostitution from 1995 to 2001, the judge found. He said: "I am left with the clear impression that this was a money-laundering exercise engineered by the claimant [Hunt]." The judge said Hunt's claims that he knew nothing about the prostitution going on in the building were "unlikely to a high degree." While the police and Soca knew of Hunt's criminal activities, the court heard that over nearly 30 years he had escaped prosecution largely because victims withdrew from the cases as a result of fear and intimidation. His only criminal conviction came at the age of 26 when he was arrested and charged with conspiracy to handle and possession of a shotgun. He was given a nine-month jail term suspended for two years for conspiracy to handle. A series of police investigations, surveillance operations and intelligence reports on Hunt were referred to in evidence during the libel case. One such intelligence report - Operation Houdini, dated 7 August 2006 - into Hunt, Terry Adams, the head of the Adams family, and two others, laid bare the alleged scale of Hunt's activities. Following on from the acid house scene in the 1980s, when the UK was targeted by cocaine cartels, the report said: "It is strongly believed ... that David Hunt went from strength to strength making large amounts of money from these activities in the process of gaining a reputation of a hard man who would stop at nothing to get results even resulting to [sic] murder if required."