‘Betrayed’ by a friend, how Olympic sprinter’s career unravelled after shock arrest in drugs crackdown

Published

2 years ago

May 21, 2023

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Born to addict parents, surrounded by heroin and crack cocaine, Leon Reid says all he ever wanted was to escape drugs.

Instead, the sprinter ended up feeling deceived and betrayed by a friend, leading to a conviction for allowing his home to be used to produce crack cocaine.

It was the unravelling of an athletics career that saw him compete at the Olympics for Ireland.

The 28-year-old sees himself as a victim of naivety and breach of trust. And it’s a story he hopes others – particularly in sport – can learn from to avoid making the same mistakes.

“I put my trust in someone and an old training partner, an old friend,” Reid tells Sky News in his first TV interview on the case. “I feel like I’ve got really taken advantage of, especially when I was at the height of my career.”

After moving between 14 foster homes, Reid found stability and speed on the athletics track.

Running put his life on a new track after a disrupted childhood, with the encouragement of foster parents and a coach. It gave him an unexpected career.

Running for Northern Ireland, his major event debut came in 2018. Bronze in the 200m was taken home from the Commonwealth Games in Australia.

By 2020 he was preparing for the Olympics, delayed by the pandemic, and changed his routine.

Friend ‘used his flat’ to produce crack cocaine

The first lockdown prevented him from continuing training in South Africa. So he was back in England, returning to a flat in Bristol that he was subletting to a friend.

Reid maintains while he was out training, Romaine Hyman was using the flat to produce crack cocaine.

The first he knew about it was when the police arrived, he insists.

In May 2020, he was arrested as part of an operation led by the South West Regional Organised Crime Unit, taking down an encrypted communications service.

“It’s obviously really upsetting,” Reid says by the beach in Worthing. “It’s been everything I’ve tried to get away from my whole life (drugs) and getting put back into that sort of that circle, it was just nothing that I had ever dreamed that I’d ever be involved in, ever.”

Ordered to carry out community sentence

While awaiting trial, he was still able to go to the Olympics – after appealing against an Irish deselection decision – and made the 200m semi-finals in Tokyo in 2021.

Then came his trial last year and a conviction for allowing his flat to be used for the production of cocaine and receiving payment, which text messages showed to be £500.

Reid was ordered to carry out community service. Hyman was jailed for 26 years after being found guilty of 18 offences in the crackdown on his attempt to build a drugs empire.

“I was there training for the Olympics. I was at the peak of my career,” Reid recalled. “I wasn’t really focused on my friend. He was doing his work-out in the apartment, which obviously he said it was forex trading and things like that, which I’ve got no interest in.”

How could Reid not notice the apartment was being used to produce cocaine?

“He was making sure that I was out of the apartment,” he responded. “I was on a WADA drug list, so even if I touched a door handle that did have traces of drugs on, I would get a positive drug test and I would fail that, and I would lose my career. So I was in no position to risk that on any scale.”

‘It destroyed my career and also my reputation’

Reid maintains he was “too nonchalant about the whole situation” while doing a favour for a friend, insisting: “I didn’t need the money.”

He had gained status, sponsors and success. But they abandoned him after the conviction.

A return to the Commonwealth Games was also blocked last year when he was deemed a security risk by Birmingham organisers.

“It destroyed my career,” he says. “And also my reputation.”

Earnings were lost, debt grew. With his first child born a month ago, Reid realised a career harmed by a criminal conviction had to end.

But throughout our hour together, he does not seem angry. Not even over the betrayal.

“Controlling emotions is obviously super important in sport, and you obviously have to take that into life,” Reid says. “I can’t get angry over every little thing.

“And for the past two years I’ve been sort of like living this nightmare. So for me to be able to clear the air and actually get some fresh start, then that’s more important than me getting angry about someone … in prison.”

Instead, he hopes to use his misfortune to help those still in professional sport. A mentoring business is being formed, so he can leave his temporary telesales job.

“I fought my demons of the past two years,” Reid says. “I’ve had the no sleep nights and the cry myself to sleep. But now I’m looking forward to the future.”

World

Donald Trump weighing up many risks before possible US strike on Iran

Published

3 hours ago

June 20, 2025

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Donald Trump weighing up many risks before possible US strike on Iran

This is the most significant statement from the US president in days, though it still keeps everyone guessing.

In a message conveyed through his press secretary, he is giving diplomacy up to two weeks to work.

“Based on the fact that there’s a substantial chance of negotiations that may or may not take place with Iran in the near future, I will make my decision whether or not to go within the next two weeks,” Karoline Leavitt quoted him as saying.

It is not clear what “whether or not to go” entails.

Israel-Iran conflict: Latest updates

We know that he has been given a spectrum of different military options by his generals and we know that the Israelis are pressuring him to use American B2 bombers with their bunker-busting bombs to destroy Iran’s nuclear facility at Fodow.

The Israelis are encouraging no delay. But against that, he is weighing up many risks, both military and political.

Militarily, it is not clear how successful a bunker-busting strike on Fordow would be.

Experts have suggested it would require several of the massive bombs, which have never been used in combat before, to be dropped on the site.

It is not as simple as one clean strike and job done.

Politically, the president is under significant pressure domestically not to get involved in Iran.

Within his own MAGA coalition – influencers, politicians and media personalities are lining up in criticism of involvement in the conflict.

One of those leading the criticism, his former chief strategist Steve Bannon, who maintains huge influence, was seen entering the White House on Thursday.

His press secretary reiterated to us that the president always wants to give diplomacy a chance and she confirmed that his Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff has spoken to the Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi.

European leaders, including the UK foreign secretary David Lammy, who is in Washington, are meeting Mr Araghchi in Geneva on Friday.

The two-week window – assuming it lasts that long – also gives space to better prepare for any strike and mitigate against some of the other risks of US involvement.

There are 40,000 troops in bases across the Middle East. It takes time to increase security at these bases or to move non-essential personnel out. It also takes time to move strategic military assets into the region.

The USS Nimitz aircraft carrier and its support vessels were redeployed from the Indo-Pacific on Monday. Their last known position was the Strait of Malacca two days ago.

The Nimitz Carrier Group will overlap with the USS Carl Vinson group which was deployed to the Middle East in March.

The potential two-week window also allows for more time for a ‘day after’ plan, given that the Israeli strategy appears to be regime change from within.

Since the Israeli action in Iran began last week, the worst-case scenario of mass casualties in Israel from Iranian attacks has not materialised.

The president is said to be surprised and encouraged by this. “Israel has exceeded a lot of people’s expectations in their abilities,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.

The Israeli success, the absence of a mass casualty event in Israel, and the lack of any sustained counterattack by Iranian proxies in the region remove reservations that previous presidents have had about taking on Iran.

That said, sources have told Sky News that the president is determined that the diplomatic solution should be given a chance despite current pessimism over the chances of success.

A critical two weeks ahead.

World

Regime change in Iran is ‘unacceptable’, says the Kremlin

Published

3 hours ago

June 20, 2025

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Regime change in Iran is 'unacceptable', says the Kremlin

Regime change in Iran is “unacceptable” and the assassination of the country’s supreme leader would “open the Pandora’s box”, the Kremlin has said.

In a rare interview with a foreign media organisation, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Sky News that Russia would react “very negatively” if Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed.

The comments came as US President Donald Trump said he will decide within two weeks whether America will join Israel’s military campaign against Tehran, after earlier speculating on social media about killing the Iranian leader.

“The situation is extremely tense and is dangerous not only for the region but globally,” Mr Peskov said in an interview at the Constantine Palace in Saint Petersburg.

“An enlargement of the composition of the participants of the conflict is potentially even more dangerous.

“It will lead only to another circle of confrontation and escalation of tension in the region.”

They are the Kremlin’s strongest comments yet regarding the Israel-Iran conflict, which has stoked fears in Moscow that it could be on the verge of losing its closest ally in the Middle East.

Russia has deepened its ties with Iran since invading Ukraine, and the two countries signed a strategic partnership in January.

“[Regime change in Iran] is unimaginable. It should be unacceptable, even talking about that should be unacceptable for everyone,” Mr Peskov said, in a thinly veiled reference to Washington.

But Mr Peskov refused to be drawn on what action Russia would take if Khamenei was killed, saying instead it would trigger action “from inside Iran”.

“It would lead to the birth of extremist moods inside Iran and those who are speaking about [killing Khamenei], they should keep it in mind. They will open the Pandora’s box.”

Vladimir Putin’s offers to mediate an end to the conflict have so far been rejected by Mr Trump, who said on Wednesday that he told the Russian president to “mediate your own [conflict]”, in reference to Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Mr Peskov denied the American president’s words were insulting, adding: “Everyone has a different language.

“President Trump has his own unique way of speaking and his unique language. We are quite tolerant and expect everyone to be tolerant of us.”

The Trump administration’s own mediation efforts to end the war in Ukraine have failed to yield any major breakthroughs, despite two rounds of direct talks between Moscow and Kyiv.

Moscow has stepped up its aerial bombardment of Ukraine in recent weeks and continues to reject Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s calls for a 30-day ceasefire.

“Now we have a strategic advantage. Why should we lose it? We are not going to lose it. We are going further. We’re advancing and we’ll continue to advance,” Mr Peskov said.

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Russia has previously said it would only commit to a ceasefire if Kyiv stops receiving foreign military support, fearing that a pause in the fighting would offer Ukraine a chance to rearm and regroup its forces.

Asked if Moscow could commit to not using a ceasefire in the same way, Mr Peskov said: “A ceasefire is a ceasefire, and you stop.

“But America is not saying that ‘we’ll quit any supplies’. Britain is not saying that as well. France is not saying that as well. This is the problem.”

World

I felt I had to go back to help Gaza’s hospitals, says British plastic surgeon

Published

15 hours ago

June 19, 2025

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I felt I had to go back to help Gaza's hospitals, says British plastic surgeon

Dr Victoria Rose is a consultant plastic surgeon who worked in Gaza hospitals for two separate periods last year. This is her first-hand story of the war in Gaza.

The word “dire” does not adequately describe the situation in Gaza’s hospitals.

On a daily basis when I was working there, I had a list of at least 10 patients, and 60% of them were under the age of 15.

These were tiny children with life-threatening burns and limbs blown off, often losing significant family members in the attacks and left to cope with their life-changing injuries alone.

I first joined the charity IDEALS, which helps medical professionals during crises, in Gaza in 2019. I returned last year, working with orthopaedic surgeons.

I felt compelled to go back after becoming aware that a plastic surgeon from Gaza who trained with me in London had been inundated with complex trauma cases since the war broke out in October 2023.

Our aim was to deliver essential surgical equipment and assist our colleagues with the increasing trauma workload they faced. But as the war progressed, it became apparent that we had a third objective: to bear witness.

I worked at the European Gaza Hospital in March 2024 and then returned in August of that year for a month, working at Nasser Hospital.

The transformation of the landscape during these two visits was staggering. The streets were unrecognisable, just pile after pile of dust and rubble. Such a scale of destruction could only be justified if every single building in Gaza was part of Hamas’s infrastructure.

In February 2024, we were denied entry by COGAT – part of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) controlling activities in the occupied territories – which, regrettably, has become a standard outcome for 50% of foreign doctors attempting to gain access. However, we managed to regain access in May.

This mission was intended to last four weeks at the European Gaza Hospital. However, due to its bombing on the day we arrived and its subsequent decommissioning by the IDF, we were redirected to Nasser for three and a half weeks.

The population had now been relentlessly displaced, bombed in their tents, deprived of water and sanitation, and ultimately starved. I remember thinking it couldn’t get any worse – and then they cut the internet.

We ploughed on without essential equipment such as painkillers and antibiotics, patching the patients up, knowing that they were likely to be bombed again.

When we left the hospital we went into the red zone – an area of active fighting that needed to be evacuated.

This meant that nothing could enter without the journey being “deconflicted” by the IDF. Minimal journeys have thus far been deconflicted. Patients struggle to gain entry, and staff cannot leave, as equipment continues to be depleted.

Nasser is the only hospital in the south equipped with a CT scanner, a blood bank, ICU capabilities and an oxygen generator.

I work with two orthopaedic surgeons who run the IDEALS charity. They have been travelling to Gaza since 2009.

IDEALS started the lower limb reconstruction programme in 2013, visiting Gaza every other month and bringing four orthopaedic surgeons back to the UK for short periods of training.

In 2021, I arranged for a plastic surgeon from Gaza to come to London to train with me. He was an incredible trainee and returned to Gaza in February 2023 to take up the post of chief of plastic surgery at Shifa Hospital.