John Eric Spiby, an 80-year-old who won £2.4 million on the National Lottery in 2010, has been sentenced to 16 years and six months in prison for his role in a drugs conspiracy worth up to £288 million. Bolton Crown Court heard that Spiby helped build a counterfeit drug empire from his rural home near Wigan, producing millions of tablets disguised as diazepam.
Spiby was convicted of conspiracy to produce and supply class C drugs, along with firearms and ammunition offences. The court was told he provided premises, adapted them, and purchased machinery worth thousands of pounds for the operation. Judge Clarke KC remarked that despite his lottery win, Spiby continued a life of crime beyond retirement age.
Spiby was part of an organised crime gang that included his son, John Colin Spiby, 37, Lee Drury, 45, and Callum Dorian, 35. The gang produced drugs on an “industrial scale” and supplied firearms. Prosecutor Emma Clarke noted the operation centred on Spiby’s home, an “ostensibly rural, quiet area”.
During the trial, Spiby denied knowledge of the conspiracy, but the jury convicted him. The judge described the operation as “the largest production of drugs of this nature that has ever been uncovered by the police”. Spiby had boasted in a group chat that “Elon [Musk] and Jeff [Bezos] best watch their backs”.
Defence counsel Adam Kent KC argued that Dorian was the principal organiser, and that Spiby was merely the “guy whose gaff we use”. The revolvers found at Spiby’s home dated to the First World War. Dorian was jailed for 12 years in 2024, Drury for nine years and nine months, and Spiby Jr for nine years.
