Copyright Digger Magazine November 2007, got a story call 0141 556 0011

COMMUNITY 'do-gooder' Veronica Rodden was made an MBE by the Queen for her life long service to the people of Glasgow 's north side. She has busied herself for years, joining committees and groups pressing for better conditions for the people of the area.

And her efforts were recognised when she got a letter from Buckingham Palace telling her about the gong she had been awarded. But would Her Majesty have been so keen to confer the honour upon Ms Rodden, known as Ronnie, if she knew what we do about her.

For today, The Digger can reveal a dark family secret which questions nearly everything positive Rodden has tried to do. Her brother is a leading figure in a ruthless gang of thugs. And two of her sons became hopeless drug addicts and alcoholics.

Harmful

As she worked tirelessly to build up her presence in the local community her own family were falling into crime and substance abuse... and harming others in the process.

One younger brother is the 'face' of a gang which has raked in a fortune through lucrative contracts worth over £ 100 million paid for by the government over the last seven years.

And the same year she accepted her gong, two of her sons were arrested and charged with supplying cocaine and handling heroin and speed in the same drug-ridden area where she made her career in community service.

Serious A sheriff said the case was so grave he immediately jailed one of them after he was arrested on a warrant. But so far only The Digger has been brave enough to question links between Rodden, her brother Des Stewart and Ruchill Security, a company very much in the minds of local police.

Ruchill Security Site: Stewart watched it go up in smoke

The company is a partnership between Hodden's brother and Bobby Dempster, one of the most notorious men Glasgow has seen in decades.

Their sites are frequently fire bombed in an ever-lasting fight for contracts in a lucrative government building programme to create homes for low-income tenants. Rodden's brother Stewart has a reputation for hiring unemployed junkies to guard their sites across Glasgow , Stewart was also a partner with a man who was later murdered and dumped in a ditch.

James McArthur, 27, was hired by Ruchill Security but was found dead on a building site they were guarding in 2005. Dempster and Stewart claimed he died of a heroin overdose on one of their sites in Drumchapel. This was just one of many cases where Ruchill Security has been the subject of adverse publicity.

Publicity
Meanwhile Veronica, 63, had become a close confidant of Robert Tamburrini who 14 years later would later become the director of North Glasgow Housing Association.

The two of them would each year attend annual bashes at the Hydro Hotel in Peebles for the housing group. No expense was spared. The most recent one ended up in a punch up between two managers of Hawthorn Windows, a window company NGHA had hired for £ 500,000.

But that wasn't the secret Ronnie - as Veronica is known - wanted kept in the dark. Nor was it the one where she kicked her own son Thomas out of their home in Possil when he was only 16. Thomas claimed he couldn't handle the constant fighting in the house between his mum and dad Arthur. His dad died over 10 years ago.

Thomas would later become a drug addict and alcoholic before eventually turning to drug dealing on Ronnie's doorstep.

Guilty The 39 year old pled guilty to dealing cocaine after he was lifted for being concerned in supplying and possession of cocaine, ecstacy and amphetamines. He was convicted to 300 hours community service for supplying cocaine while on bail from Glasgow Sheriff Court in November 2003. Four weeks before he was caught with the drugs at the Rock Tavern and at his home on Killearn Street in Possil. Just a few houses down from his disabled mum... He told The Digger he has since turned his life around. Ronnie's secret is that NGHA and Queen Cross Housing Association -

Thomas Rodden: Caught drug dealing with his brother Arthur near his mum's home.

the two biggest housing associations in north Glasgow - are watching her brother's firm win contracts worth hundreds of thousands of pounds of tax payers' money. Money, in some cases, that went up in smoke.

They guarded a site for the Lyons crime gang which went up in smoke just a matter of days after one of their clan was murdered in Lambhill in December 2006. The £ 7.7 million new build on Mireton Street in Possil which Stewart and Dempster won the contract from NGHA was deliberately set alight in the summer. No one was ever prosecuted for the arson attack. Ronnie had built up a friendship with Margaret Dillon, a pensioner who sat on the North Glasgow Community Forum in Possil where she was a director. Dillon would later go on to become chairwoman of QXHA.

Veronica Rodden: Awarded MBE the same year her 2 sons were busted for drug dealing.

As Desmond or Des as he prefers being called raked in the cash from those lucrative contracts he had to stop for a moment to write a letter in December 2005.

Typed on Ruchill Security headed note paper Des said that Arthur, Ronnie's other son was an honest and reliable person. Not everybody believed that. In fact it was an out right lie. Sheriff Totten in Glasgow Sheriff Court didn't believe and sent Arthur to prison for drug dealing in December 2005. His mum just turned a blind eye.

Arthur Thomas Dominick Rodden was born on June 6th at Sandbank Street in 1964. He was one of seven children born out of the marriage of Veronica Stewart and builders labourer Arthur Rodden at a registrar's office in Bothwell on the 13 Aug1960.

Thomas said he doesn't speak to his brother Arthur anymore. Arthur's own wife and family abandoned him and he turned to drug dealing to feed his habit. He was caught at the same time in the Rock Tavern as Thomas. They were convicted of drug dealing between 2003 and 2004. But they were split up by the police and charged on separate indictments.

Arthur was charged with selling heroin from his home on Fernbank Street in Springburn. Just before he was caged for coke dealing his uncle Stewart wrote to the sheriff and asked for leniency.

He even told Sheriff Totten that he was so confident in Arthur he would employ him with Ruchill Security as a guard. This was just months after one of their employees James McArthur died on their site in Drumchapel. Stewart didn't tell the Sheriff that Arthur was his nephew. He just said he was a family friend.

Married
Ronnie got married at 16. She was brought up by John and Elizabeth Stewart at 2 Cottar Street in Glasgow . She has several brothers and sisters including Des who was born in Cottar Street on 15 May 1954 .

Des got involved in the taxi business in Firhill with a man called Brian Diver before moving into Ruchill Security. Diver was brutally murdered and the police are still looking for his killer. This magazine reported on the relationship between Diver and Stewart two years ago in October 2005.

The report said Brian Diver who went missing in January 2005 had been held hostage and tortured by thugs looking for information and money. It is was thought that Diver, 50, was killed after he stole £ 2 million from a major drug dealing family who wanted it back.

The Diver family admitted he was a former drug dealer who took over Queens Cross Cars. He is alleged to have formed the company with Stewart. Diver's body was later found in a wooden area known as Midgy Woods. It is thought that there are two other bodies which have not yet been found that were dumped in those woods. All were allegedly associated with drugs. One of the bodies is related to Frank McPhee who was later shot and killed outside Maryhill police station. That killing and the Diver murder are thought to be similar. Both have not been solved and both have had almost no publicity.

Stewart moved Queen Cross Cabs further into Fossil from Firhill Road . The car company changed its name to Quick Cabs about nine years ago and set up in Stoneyhurst Street . Stewart and Diver managed to get a full front page ad. in the Evening Times which

was given away free that day in the Maryhill and Fossil areas. "Oh yes, Des was involved in the cab company", said a source at the weekend. But it wasn't long before that cab company merged into another firm Balmore Cars. At the time it was the second biggest cab company in North Glasgow .

Today Balmore Cars is now Network Cars, one of the biggest taxi companies in Scotland . It also has a reputation for being a front for the McGovern crime family. In June this year the Civil Recovery Unit in Edinburgh seized £ 120,00 of Diver's assets and declared them proceeds of organised crime. Our source said of Stewart: "By the time he set up Quick Cabs in Stoneyhust Street he was getting involved with Ruchill Security. Bobby Dempster is behind all this".

Community Groups
While Stewart was building up his contacts in the taxi business and then in the security business his sister was moving into more and more community groups. She founded the Fossil Park and Milton Disability Forum. This gets tax payers' funding and organises trips for the disabled.

She became a director of North Glasgow Community Forum This also gets funding from the government. Her involvement grew into other quangos funded by the public: Fossil Community Business Ltd, Glasgow North Properties, Fossil and Milton Renewal Ltd, St Rollox Industrial Development Enterprise Ltd and Glasgow North Developments Ltd. Many of these groups found themselves hiring Ruchill Security either directly or indirectly or by word of mouth. Any new property in the north Glasgow area would get a visit from strangers who said they were from Ruchill Security.

But the biggest contracts that come their way are from North Glasgow 's two biggest housing associations. Two of her best pals are the chair of QXHA Margaret Dillion and the director of NGHA Robert Tamburrini. Since 2000 Ronnie has sat on the management committee of NGHA who have awarded £45 million in building contracts. Some of this tax payers' cash filtered into her brother's pocket. No politician or councillor raised as much as an eye brow. But one tenant did. John Quinn started writing to Tamburrini complaining that though all this money was being spent the streets were not a safe place to be at night. And drug dealing was being done openly from their properties.

Housing Boss: Tamburrini never raised any concerns about criminals receiving public money to guard NGHA properties

His complaints were ignored and until one evening a thug smashed down his door in St Monance Street threatening to kill him if he continued to report crimes to the local police station.

John desperately called for help. Ronnie, who was in the process of getting her MBE from Buckingham Palace , heard his calls for help. She tabled a motion at a management committee of NGHA moving to have Quinn evicted. The motion was seconded by acting chairman John Fury.

There is no suggestion that Veronica Rodden uses her position on committees to get work for her brother's firm. But from an ethical stand point in public life people like Rodden should not just be above suspicion but seen to be.