Dr Rebecca Tidy

VICE • 13th October 2025

The UK Dealer With Prosthetic Hands Brought Down by the World’s Biggest Dark Web Bust

The shutdown of DarkMarket in January 2021 was billed by triumphant investigators as the world’s largest illegal marketplace bust. More than 2,400 drug dealers and half a million customers used the dark web site to do business, pushing 4,600 Bitcoin and 12,800 Monero through the marketplace’s servers, amounts of crypto then worth in excess of €140 million.

The Sun • 30th June 2025

Family of murdered university lecturer furious as killer ex moved to ‘soft’ jail

THE family of a university lecturer murdered by her estranged husband are furious he has been moved to a “soft” jail.

Computer Weekly • 26th June 2025

Sky ECC distributor released from French custody pending trial | Computer Weekly

Thomas Herdman, a Canadian businessman facing trial for his alleged role in distributing Sky ECC cryptophones, was granted release by a Paris court on 26 June 2025, after entering his fifth year in pre-trial detention. French, Belgian and Dutch police infiltrated servers belonging to Sky ECC, the world’s largest cryptophone network, and acquired an estimated 1.7 billion messages between June 2019 and March 2021, leading to the arrests of hundreds of alleged drug traffickers in France, Belgium and across Europe.

ComputerWeekly.com • 26th June 2025

Sky ECC distributor released from French custody pending trial | Computer Weekly

Thomas Herdman, a Canadian businessman facing trial for his alleged role in distributing Sky ECC cryptophones, was granted release by a Paris court on 26 June 2025, after entering his fifth year in pre-trial detention.

The Sun • 22nd May 2025

Popular sea shanty band who play Glastonbury are at centre of SLAVERY probe

A SEA-SHANTY band is at the centre of a major modern slavery probe which was uncovered after their minibus was involved in a crash.

ComputerWeekly.com • 1st May 2025

Thomas Herdman’s legal battle over Sky ECC encrypted phone distribution set to enter fifth year | Computer Weekly

Canadian businessman Thomas Herdman is awaiting trial in France for his alleged role in the distribution of modified smartphones installed with the Sky ECC app. The 63-year-old was arrested in June 2021, despite cooperating with US investigators over his involvement with the encrypted communications firm Sky ECC. He has spent 45 months in pre-trial detention since.

The Sun • 29th April 2025

Glam mum, 34, 'teamed up with crime gang in acid plot to kidnap & kill ex'

A FORMER criminal justice worker who taught lags to read behind bars has been charged in an acid murder plot.  Mum-of-two Paris Wilson, 34, is accused of teaming up with a crime gang to kidnap and kill her ex-boyfriend.  Sulphuric acid was thrown in the face of personal trainer Danny Cahalane, 38, at his home in Plymouth, Devon, while his daughter was sleeping.

The Sun • 3rd December 2024

Three years on run was like a movie - but I'm glad I was caught, says kingpin

FOR years, drugs kingpin Alex Male was one of Britain’s most wanted criminals and led authorities a merry dance across the world. The heavily-tattooed bodybuilder, nicknamed Viking Don, posted social media snaps with beautiful women at exotic ­locations as he dodged justice over a £4.7million cocaine empire.

The Scottish Sun • 5th October 2024

Jamie 'Iceman' Stevenson claimed he was like victims of Post Office scandal

CRIME boss Jamie ‘Iceman’ Stevenson tried to escape justice by comparing his drugs plots case to victims of the Post Office scandal, we can reveal today. Lawyers for the cartel chief, 59, claimed damning evidence from hacked EncroChat phone messages was as unreliable as faulty Horizon software that led to the wrongful convictions of hundreds of subpostmasters.

leafie • 14th June 2024

Afghan farmers are benefiting from the Taliban’s drug ban - leafie

“With the banning of opium, the price went up to the sky: my life is better with this order of Shaikh Sahib” Afghanistan has a long and colourful relationship with psychoactive plants. It was a popular destination on the Hippie Trail in the 1950s and 60s, thanks to its famous cannabis culture. Rural dwellers discovered that a shrub covering the country’s mountains, ephedra, is easily converted into crystal meth and a potent weight-loss drug named ephedrine. But the opium poppy is – arguably –...

Leafie • 21st March 2024

Incognito: The darknet market that stole everyone’s money, then started blackmailing dealers Exit

Byline Times • 21st February 2024

'The National Crime Agency’s Investigations Boss Was Sacked Over Leaks – Casting Doubt on Hundreds of Convictions'

The dismissal of one of Britain’s former top crime fighters could bring the safety of convictions relating to police-infiltrated encrypted phone network Encrochat into question, argues Dr Rebecca Tidy.

Byline Times • 5th January 2024

Prince William is Radiation Prison Landlord – Parts of UK’s Oldest Jail Evacuated

Free from fear or favour No tracking. No cookiesInmates at HMP Dartmoor are being moved to other prisons due to potentially dangerous levels of cancer-causing radon detected in some cells. The Duke of Cornwall is their landlord Ninety-six inmates of Britain’s oldest prison – owned by Prince William – are being evacuated over fears of radon poisoning, Byline Times can reveal. Cells in two of the six wings at 215-year-old HMP Dartmoor, which the Government rents from the Prince’s £1bn Duchy...

Leafie • 19th April 2023

An ode to the Hippie Trail: A cannabis-steeped pilgrimage

Huck • 19th August 2022

Harsh drug policing at festivals is endangering lives

Think of a stereotypical British festival, and a number of images might enter your head. Typically, they revolve around a messy weekend of drugs, warm cider, overpriced food stalls, hanging out with a load of mates, muddy fields, and grim loos. But if all this is synonymous with the British festival scene, then so, too, are the security guards and drug detection dogs.

Huck • 1st August 2022

The deadly rise of Tasers in British policing

On 7 June 2022, a 41-year-old Black man was tasered repeatedly by a Metropolitan Police officer on Chelsea Bridge. Oladeji Adeyemi Omishore, from Pimlico, fell to the ground and appeared to drop something, after receiving the five-second electric shock, a video shows.

Huck • 22nd July 2022

‘Tortured in sweatboxes’: Inside Britain’s prisons during the heatwave

Last Sunday (17 July), a young man in his 20s went into cardiac arrest in HMP Birmingham at 1 am. According to his 27-year-old girlfriend, Kay, he’d originally had a fairly simple throat infection, but the extreme heat caused his airway to become dry and constricted.

Green Queen Magazine • 6th May 2022

Inside the first cannabis ceremony in Guernsey

This year, plant medicine practitioner Lucia Pagliarone led Guernsey’s first cannabis ceremony. The event took place on 20th April, in celebration of the annual – increasingly commercialised – cannabis celebration, 4/20.

Vice News • 4th May 2022

The Wildest Excuses People Gave After Getting Busted with Drugs

“We once found heroin stashed inside a shopping bag of Cornish pasties – a granny from Bodmin told us she’d picked up the wrong bag."

Volteface • 23rd March 2022

Europe's Most Lucrative Drug Market Isn't Where You Think It Is...

This British tax haven has proven to be a lucrative destination for criminals over the years.