'He was not evil, he was kind and caring': Daughter of jailed drugs baron Karl Wilson speaks of his life on run

The 58-year-old fled to the luxury property overlooking the sea at Bulls Bay in Jamaica weeks before police swooped to smash his multi million pound racket running heroin and cocaine from Wolverhampton to Aberdeen.

His daughter Claire, a 34-year-old mother of three and one of his six children by three different partners, said at her home in Loughborough: "People make it sound like he ran off to enjoy himself in the Caribbean sunshine but that is not true.

"I spoke by phone with him while he was there and he was in bits. He left this country because things were closing in around him. He was constantly looking over his shoulder and did not want to go back to jail because he had had a bad experience while serving a prison sentence for living off immoral earnings.

"Now I wish he had stayed in this country to face the music because he might well have got a shorter sentence. He lived a life I do not agree with but he was not some control freak gang boss leading others astray. Everybody who was involved wanted to be involved. He was not an evil, malicious man. He was kind and caring and his family will stand by him and be waiting for him when he is released."

Wilson - jailed on Wednesday for 16 years after admitting conspiracy to supply heroin and cocaine - was convicted of running prostitutes and living off their immoral earnings before concentrating on drug dealing.

Police experts are now trawling through the 58-year-old's finances pin pointing assets bought with cash from crime that can be seized and the most obvious target for confiscation is the massive Caribbean villa where he lived during his unsuccessful five year fight against extradition.

It is believed that the land on which it stands was bought under a different name and work might have started on the substantial building project - now thought to be worth up to £500,000 - in the late 1990's, around the time his major source of income was pimping.

Jamaican-born Wilson, who also had a bungalow in Yew Tree Lane, Tettenhall, has admitted spending seven years at the helm of the gang running drugs from Wolverhampton for sale in Aberdeen where a kilo of heroin bought wholesale for £16,000 could fetch up to ten times that figure in deals on the streets of the oil rich Scottish city.

The operation was smashed by police raids in February 2009, two months after Wilson had fled to his sunshine villa. Nine significant members of his gang were later jailed for a total of 48 years. A tenth committed suicide before she could stand trial.

The big breakthrough in building a case strong enough to convict him came when Mel Clarke - another key figure in the operation - agreed to give evidence against him and others involved in exchange for a shorter sentence following her arrest. She had a home in Vicarage Road, Tettenhall but died 12 months ago, aged 43, in an accidental house fire while working in Newry, Northern Ireland.

Extradition proceedings against Wilson started in 2010 but it was a further four years before Det Con Phil Houghton - who had been on the case since the Organised Serious Crime Squad launched an inquiry into the drug gang in October 2008 - could accompany him back to this country from Jamaica.

The detective said today: "The inquiry took up six years of my life and is the longest I have ever been involved in. It just ran and ran with lots of twists and turns but it was very satisfying to finally get him in front of a British court after thinking he might get away with it for so long."