LIVERPOOL drug baron John Haase has admitted using his own money to buy weapons so police could seize them.

But he told a court that it happened with only a few of the stashes he helped the authorities recover, insisting those in power were anxious for his help to find them.

And he claimed he was in fear for his life after being branded a "grass."

Haase, 59, is on trial at Southwark crown court accused of plotting to pervert the course of justice by arranging for the weapons to be planted so he could blow the whistle on them in an attempt to win favour with the courts.

He and his nephew Paul Bennett, 44, won a rare Royal pardon in 1996, 11 months into an 18-year sentence for heroin smuggling.

Haase denies the charge and told the court that the information he passed on while on remand between 1993-95 was “genuine”, and “bona fide”.

He said having been registered as an informant, no-one ever “raised a question mark” about what he was doing, never told him to stop and not once advised “there was a risk of prosecution”.

Neither was there any criticism of the quality of the information he provided, or, indeed, any unhappiness expressed about the lack of arrests during the seizures.

Haase told the court a complex story of informants, gun and drugs stashes and attempted prison escapes, information which he said he passed on "in good faith".

Haase spelt out how he had learnt of weapons stores across Merseyside and elsewhere, and claimed that he had used an intermediary to pay for the information out of his own crime funds.

But he also told the court that as a result of the encouragement he received, drugs cash he had “on the outside” was used, for example, to purchase 80 Italian shotguns stolen in a Bournemouth raid.

He said when his Customs and Excise “handler” was first told about the weapons “he came back to me and said get them. The police were going mad for these, to get them”.

Haase said he then phoned one of his underworld contacts and once the robbers had been paid £50 for each weapon, the entire haul was driven to Bootle in a van.

The police were then informed and seized the lot.

Haase was asked if it was ever his intention to dishonestly mislead the authorities and to station the stashes himself.

He replied: “No.”

Haase said that he concocted a cover story to avoid gangland retribution during his two years of meeting with customs officers while in prison.

He said: “The cover story was that I was getting guns off the streets, no-one was being arrested, so who cares?”

But he said that changed when, after his release, the media exposed the deal.

In 1999 he was arrested again and two years later convicted and jailed for selling automatic firearms and receiving the proceeds of drug trafficking.

For most of the next seven years he was kept away from other prisoners, largely at his own request, because "grasses" are always under threat in the prison system.

He said: “All of the time I was in solitary I was in fear for my life. From day one. Being a grass ... I had threats, yeah.”

Haase, 59, and Bennett, 44, both of no fixed address, Haase’s wife Deborah, 37, of Teynham Avenue, Knowsley Village, and Sharon Knowles, of Wadeson Road, Walton, all deny conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

Haase’s wife also denies one charge of possessing illegal firearms and one of possessing illegal ammunition.