BBC Podcast Reopens Case of Scotland’s Big Mags

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A new BBC podcast has reignited public interest in one of Scotland’s most controversial criminal figures, Mags Haney, amid claims she may have been a long-term police informant. The six-part series, The Ballad of Big Mags, launched today, revisits the life of Haney, who rose from local vigilante to convicted heroin dealer before she died in 2013.

Haney, known locally in Stirling as “Big Mags”, was once viewed as a community protector against child abuse. However, a 2000 investigation by the Daily Record revealed she was the head of a drug operation worth an estimated £250,000 per year, ultimately resulting in a 12-year prison sentence.

Former undercover detective Simon McLean, who features in the BBC podcast, alleges that Haney was protected by police due to her status as an informant. Speaking to presenter Myles Bonnar, McLean claims: “There’s absolutely no doubt in my mind she was informing. Everyone in Stirling knew she was dealing heroin, and yet she operated without interference for years.”

McLean describes Haney’s relationship with law enforcement as one typical of the criminal underworld, in which high-level dealers provide intelligence to police in exchange for leniency. “If I’m running a drug empire and the police are on my case, the only way to survive is to work with them. It’s about self-preservation. It happens more often than people think,” he said.

According to McLean, informants often target rival dealers to eliminate competition. “It’s dog-eat-dog,” he adds. “They’ll turn each other in if it benefits them. I’ve seen it time and time again.”

The podcast traces Haney’s public transformation, from an outspoken opponent of child abuse, including an appearance on the Kilroy television programme, to the leader of a criminal network involving her children and grandchildren. After the Daily Record investigation, she admitted to running a widespread drug operation and was sentenced to 12 years in prison. She served half her sentence at Cornton Vale women’s prison before being released in 2009.

Haney died in 2013, aged 70, having battled multiple health conditions, including cancer. Her notoriety continues to divide opinion in Stirling, where some still recall her efforts to act as a neighbourhood enforcer, while others remember the damage her drug trade inflicted on the local community.

The BBC series, which includes interviews with former detectives, journalists, and residents, raises difficult questions about the balance between policing strategy and community harm. The suggestion that law enforcement may have tolerated Haney’s operation for intelligence-gathering purposes is likely to fuel public debate.

McLean concludes in the podcast: “The Haneys were a small change in the grand scheme, but a major problem in their local area. And that’s what matters. It needed to be stopped, and it was.”