SHE was the Scottish grandmother dubbed a local hero after galvanising a group of locals into protesting about re-homing a convicted child sex offender on their housing estate in Stirling.
Straight-talking Margaret Haney, seen by many as a campaigning voice for the common person, shot to fame after appearing on the popular BBC daytime chat show Kilroy in the late 90s.
In her early 50s and known as ‘Big Mags’, she cut an unlikely heroic figure with her short blonde hair, chunky earrings and plain T-shirt and leggings.
But behind her ‘anti-paedophile campaigner’ image was a very different woman.
For Big Mags was also the matriarch of a criminal family, who made hundreds of thousands of pounds from drug dealing.
Dubbed the ‘Family from Hell’, they terrorised the neighbourhood with a string of thefts and violence across Stirling before fed up locals turned on her – ironically driving her out using the mob protest tactics she’d become famous for.
The extraordinary story of this larger-than-life woman is told in a new BBC Sounds podcast Crime Next Door: The Ballad of Big Mags, in which her granddaughter Cassie Donald speaks for the first time.
Cassie – whose mum Diane was described as a “lynch-pin” of the drug dealing operation – believes Mags’s legacy is more complex than was portrayed in the media.
“Two things can be true at one time,” she says.
“You can be a drug dealer who has sold drugs that have potentially killed people, but you can also still be a loving grandmother and a good person.”
During the 1980s Mags had eight children – seven of whom have been in jail or in custody.
Mags too had her own convictions – assault, breach of the peace, contempt of court and fraud.
She and her kids lived on the Raploch housing estate, with various grandchildren, nephews and nieces scattered across the complex.
In late 1996, 12 schools close to the Raploch received a leaked confidential note that a paedophile was living in the area, in accommodation provided by the council.
Furious Mags led a protest, mainly of women, outside the accommodation, demanding he be removed.
When the man, Alan Christie, was taken away for his own safety, the people of Raploch celebrated their victory.
TV news and newspapers were hooked on this down-to-earth grandmother and she revelled in it
Myles Bonnar
“As for Big Mags, this was only the beginning,” says presenter Myles Bonnar.
“The vigilante mob leader was now a woman on a mission.
“TV news and newspapers were hooked on this down-to-earth grandmother and she revelled in it.”
Cassie recalls: “I’m not going to say she didn’t love the attention, because she did.
“They all tell funny stories about that time. If I remember correctly, one of them said she had a child’s karaoke machine with a mic and would use it to rally the local community to get involved in the protest.”
‘Keeping courts in business’
But Mags would soon regret stepping into the limelight.
Many on the estate knew the other side to Big Mags, and were appalled that she was being feted as a campaigning hero.
Angry letters started being sent to newspapers, with one stating: “Only a few months ago I was reading about her criminal family keeping the courts in business.
“Now she’s appearing as a community spokesperson on a chat show.”
Another raged: “The majority of people living in Raploch are disgusted by the publicity given to Big Mags Haney.
“She and her followers are just the minority in our community. Please don’t give her any more publicity.”
Mark McGivern, chief reporter at the Daily Record, recalls: “The amount of crimes committed in Stirling by that family was legion.”
In the podcast Caroline Dunbar tells of her family’s nightmare while living in a flat below Mags.
They came in through the window and stole the television that my dad got me four months before, for my birthday
Caroline Dunbar
“It was just unreal. My mum couldn’t sleep at night with them banging doors and windows and walking up and down the stairs every night,” she says.
“They actually went into my room and stole my television. My window was open a bit and I was in the living room with my mum, my dad and my brother and a couple of my pals.
“They came in through the window and stole the television that my dad got me four months before, for my birthday.”
She also claims she was on the receiving end of threats – including that they would throw eggs at her wedding car.
Things turned even scarier when, in 1994, Mags’ 16-year-old granddaughter Kim stood on a wheelie bin and set light to Caroline’s curtains through an open window.
The fire destroyed one room and covered the rest of the flat in soot.
The council put Caroline and her family into bed and breakfast accommodation and they never returned.
“We were too scared to go back,” she says.
Oddly, Mags turned her own granddaughter in over this incident, taking her to the police station.
‘Family from Hell’
One case in May 1995, on the face of it quite minor, would launch the Haneys from local court reporting to national notoriety.
Mags’s 20-year-old son, Jo Jo Haney, was in court where he received a 60-day prison sentence for planning a theft at a hotel.
The Sherriff that day remarked during the sentencing: “What troubles me is the misery that this particular family has inflicted on the Raploch community over many, many years.
“If I were the presiding Sherriff here, I’d be taking very severe steps to make sure that this particular family are deterred from any further offending.”
To his astonishment, Mags told Mr McGivern outside the court: “I don’t know what he’s complaining about. It’s my family that keeps him in a job.”
The story was widely reported the following day, and the clan was now on the newspapers’ radar as ‘The Family from Hell’.
A petition sprung up demanding that the council remove the Haney family from the estate, attracting hundreds of signatures.
On August 25, 1997, a crowd started to gather outside Mags’ flat, which grew 400-strong.
They began chanting for the Haneys to get out, singing: “Build a bonfire and put the Haneys on the top.”
I don’t know what he’s complaining about. It’s my family that keeps him in a job
Big Mags
Mags was taken away under police escort, giving everyone the finger as she left.
She would never return to the estate. Her reign within the Raploch was over. But she was far from finished.
Settling nearby in Lower Bridge Street, Stirling, Mags’ drug dealing became very lucrative as she moved on to heroin.
Mr McGivern began quietly investigating, posing as a dealer to buy drugs from her family of distributors, and eventually ran a story on his newspaper’s front page with a picture of Big Mags, headlined: “Dealer Number One.”
Sgt Simon McLean of the Serious Crime Squad worked undercover as a local in the community for three weeks, building a case against her.
“We got the lowdown on what was happening from pubs and clubs and all the rest of it,” he says.
£1,000-a-day heroin empire
Bit by bit, people began to open up, and Mags was arrested in 2001.
At her trial the court was told she would often earn up to a thousand pounds a day from her drugs operation – while claiming £1,200 a month in state benefits.
With a week of the trial still to go, the four main family players pleaded guilty to supplying heroin on a large scale over a number of years.
Mags got 12 years, daughter Diane – Cassie’s mother – got nine, cousin Roseanne seven and Mags’ son Hugh five years.
Despite these convictions, local residents and journalists remained puzzled as to why it took so long to dismantle the Haney drug operation, allegedly rampant throughout the 1990s.
Asked why their drug operation wasn’t shut down sooner, Sgt McLean is in no doubt.
There is no doubt that Mags Haney was a criminal informer
Sgt Simon McLean
“It was because of her relationship with the police,” he says.
“I’ve dealt with many very serious criminals and I’ve never known a successful one, who has made a life of it, that hasn’t been talking to and informing the police, at some level.
“There is no doubt that Mags Haney was a criminal informer.”
After a few months in prison Mags was diagnosed with cervical cancer , and later developed lung cancer .
She served six years before being released in 2009. She died in August 2013 aged 70.
The full series of the Crime Next Door: The Ballad of Big Mags podcast is available on BBC Sounds now.
