Clerkenwell crime syndicate

Police sources believe that the members of the Adams Family knew they were being monitored by the MI5 and had "stage managed" many phone conversations for the benefit of their defence. Terry Adams, for example, was allegedly caught on tape, in 1998, telling his adviser Solly Nahome that he did not want to be involved with a particular illegal deal, which would affect his legitimate jewellery design business. The Inland Revenue was suspicious enough to ask Terry Adams to explain how he had amassed his personal fortune including his £2 million house and his collection of valuable antiques.[29] It was discovered that Adams had worked as jeweller in Hatton Garden and later as a fashion designer. Transcripts of the surveillance by the MI5 and investigations into several front companies Adams set up proved that Adams has operated a string of legitimate businesses including that of a jewellery company, a film production business[28] and a fashion label.[30]

Adams was released from prison on 24 June 2010.

In August 2011 he appeared before City of London Magistrates court charged with 8 breaches of his Financial Reporting Order imposed upon him in 2007.

District Judge Quentin Purdy said he was "shrewd and calculating"...You wilfully and, in my judgment, arrogantly sought to frustrate the effect of a financial reporting order, well knowing that a significant confiscation order remains largely unpaid."[34]

In July 2014 Adams appeared before a High Court judge in London where he claimed that he was penniless and living in a one bedroom apartment. Adams was ordered to pay £650,000 under the Proceeds of Crime Act.[35]

In 2011, after his release from prison, Adams started working in Hatton Garden as a jewellery designer.[36]

In July 2014, having left a £25,000-per-year job designing jewellery in Hatton Garden, Terry Adams started working on a menswear collection[37] for his newly launched fashion label N1 Angel named after the area where he was born.[38] Later that year he made an appearance at the London Fashion Week where his collection was displayed.[39] His fashion label's website states:

Our name is an affectionate homage to Angel, Islington — where head designer, Terrence Adams, was born and raised. It was in Angel that Terrence designed his first bespoke suit at the age of just 14, and it was in Angel that Terrence came to understand the transformative power of style.[30]

In March 2017 Adams lost his appeal against the order to pay £700,000 under the Proceeds of Crime Act.[40] In November 2017 a district judge sitting in Weston-super-Mare ordered Terry Adams to pay the remaining amount within 30 days or return to prison for at least 2.5 years.[41][42] In December 2017 Adams repaid the entire confiscation order (around £725,000) despite his repeated claims of poverty. He also attempted to gag the press to stop people knowing that he had repaid the confiscation rather than return to jail. A source close to the investigation said that he must have found nearly three-quarters of a million pounds "down the back of the sofa".[43]

In February 2019, media reports suggested that Terry Adams and his wife were living in a housing association flat. Later that month Terry Adams paid back an additional £50,000 to Westminster Magistrates Court despite claiming poverty to avoid returning to prison for non payment of court costs.[44]

As a child, Tommy Adams used his Staffordshire bull terrier also named Tommy to commit robberies as in the 70's people were more scared of a dog than a gun.[51]

As a child, Tommy Adams suffered from asthma and was taken to the emergency room at the University College Hospital almost weekly due to him waking up unable to breathe.[52] Born to poor Northern Irish emigrants from the remote rural town of Donegal,[53] he was re-told Donegal's old myths, lore and folk tales by his mother as a child and by the age of seven when he knew over a thousand of those, he started selling them to Irish papers in London for £0.90 a tale, re-telling them so well that the Irish papers bought them by the dozen. Created to give logic to mankind’s darkest fears, those old Irish tales laid the foundation for what later became the horror genre.[54] Despite being brought up as an Irish Catholic, Adams became disillusioned with the faith when he was 12 years old after an incident with his mother. She told him that Irish Catholics are taught to be self-sufficient and that their official doctrine teaches not to engage in robbery, and refused to accept the groceries Adams stole from a high street shop in Islington. Before leaving home, he told his mother he believed himself to be the incarnation of demon Belial.[55]

In 1972, when he was aged just 14, he started robbing people in Islington in a broad daylight[56] with his rescue Pit bull by his side in what became known as the Islington dog robberies of the 70's.[51] Having come from a working-class family of 11 siblings, he turned to robbery as a way to get out of poverty.[57] His first was a wallet theft in Angel, Islington which made him £10 (which equals £197 in 2023) which he used to buy a new leather dog collar for his dog also named Tommy, and a pair of Adidas trainers for himself.[57] By the end of the year, he attended school just to rob people and was robbing on average three people per day until becoming expelled for it.[58]

In 1980s Tommy Adams started making investments into the music industry[59] after meeting Irish rock-musician Bob Geldof.[60] Geldof was a vocalist of an Irish band The Boomtown Rats and was introduced to Adams at the concert at the Groucho Club in Soho where his band were performing a 1978 song Rat Trap written by Geldof. Having met Geldof in 1979, Adams invested substantial amount of his family's money into Geldof’s band acting as a co-producer or his songs.[61]

Tommy Adams was charged with involvement in the handling of Brink's-MAT gold bullion but in 1985 was cleared of involvement in the laundering of the proceeds during a high-profile Old Bailey trial with co-defendant Kenneth Noye.[62]

In 1998, Tommy Adams was convicted of masterminding an £8 million hashish smuggling operation into Britain for which he was imprisoned for seven years. At trial he was also ordered to pay an unprecedented £6 million criminal assets embargo, or face an additional five years' imprisonment on top of his seven-year term.[63] He was suspected of establishing connections to other international criminal organisations including numerous Yardie gangs as well as gaining an $80 million credit line from Colombian drug cartels.[64] In 2008, when Tommy Adams was released from prison, he decided to get put of crime and have a legitimate business running events at 33 Portland Place which he purchased together with Edward Davenport in 1996 just before being imprisoned for drugs in 1998.[65]

Barnsbury Estate, where Adams was a resident for the most of his life and where he lived at the time when he bought the freehold of 33 Portland Place with Edward Davenport for 3 million pounds.[66]

Despite investing millions in properties and having several children with different women, Tommy Adams continued living on his own in a one bedroom council flat near the family's traditional Islington base, wearing tracksuit and having beans on toast for dinner.[67]

Lord Edward Davenport nicknamed “Fast Eddie” lived in a 24 bedroom mansion bought with the money borrowed from the Adams family and drove a Ferrari whilst Tommy Adams took buses and lived on a council estate.[68]

In 1980s Adams made a lot of money on drug trafficking, robbery and operating a protection racket but lost around £1.5 million in the early 2000s after a string of poor investments, one of those being the purchase of 33 Portland Place, a 24 bedroom Robert Adam mansion located in the West End which was acquired by Adams jointly with Lord Edward Davenport who used it to host celebrity parties and as his personal residence whilst Adams himself lived on a council estate.[69] 33 Portland Place was used as a filming location for the Oscar winning film The King's Speech which tells a story about King George VI's life after learning to manage a stuttering condition he developed during his youth.[68]

33 Portland Place, bought by the Adams family and Davenport in 2005, was used as a set for the Oscar nominee and Academy Awards winner The King's Speech which tells the story of England's Prince Albert who must ascend the throne as King George VI, but he has a speech impediment.[68]

In 1996, Lord Edward Davenport, a prominent nightclub owner, and a high society socialite reached out to Tommy Adams, seeking a loan of 2 million pounds to acquire a freehold of 33 Portland Place. Edward lacked sufficient funds for the purchase, prompting him to approach Tommy for financial assistance with an additional proposition of forming a partnership to run 33 Portland Place as a business, hiring it out for events.[70] Recognizing the potential for a legitimate enterprise and profit by renting out the property for events, photoshoots, and filming, Tommy agreed to the arrangement. Under the agreement with Davenport, Tommy Adams was entitled to a fair share of the venue's earnings. Monthly, he would receive his rightful 50% portion of the profits generated from the events and filming.[68]

Edward Davenport and Billie Piper on a set of Secret Diary of a Call Girl episode, filmed at 33 Portland Place. Despite being the co-owner of the venue, Tommy Adams never attended Davenport's celebrity events.[71]

After securing the building's freehold through financial support from the Adams family, Davenport transformed 33 Portland Place into his personal residence, a filming venue and a nightclub. Meanwhile, despite being a co-owner of the property, Davenport excluded Tommy Adams was from celebrity parties because of his notorious reputation as a gangster, his preference for casual attire like track suits and trainers, and his residence in a council estate.[72]

In 2014 Tommy Adams met businessman Dave Sullivan,[73] the producer of The Rise of the Krays, who offered to buy 33 Portland Place for £25 million.[74] Davenport used the money to pay off the compensation order imposed by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), which left him with £12 million profit.[75]

Lord Edward Davenport wore Patrick Cox shoes and Tommy Adams wore sneakers from Sports Direct.[76]

In 2008, Tommy Adams lent £2.5 million of his family's money kept by him under the floorboards to Lord Edward Davenport to invest it in the purchase of the fashion label of Irish celebrity shoe designer Patrick Cox. This was again not sanctioned by his brothers and kept secret from the rest of his family. Patrick Cox was deceived by Davenport who offered a substantial amount of money to purchase the rights to his brand but after signing off the rights to Davenport never received the funds.[77] After acquiring the rights to Patrick Cox brand, Lord Davenport kept the £2.5 million and moved the stock from Cox's Chelsea studio to 33 Portland Place, keeping the designer shoes for himself.[78] He never gave Adams a pair nor paid back the funds Adams lent him to acquire the brand.[79] Davenport enjoyed wearing expensive Patrick Cox shoes, however Adams never wore them as they did not match up with his tracksuit.[45] [80] Having acquired the rights and the stock, Davenport tried to make licensing deals abroad using the Patrick Cox name without Patrick Cox's approval.[78]

25 Claremont Square, the home of Shaun Adams bought for him by his father, which was used as the filming location for 35 Portland Row in the Netflix adaption of Lockwood & Co.

On 2 November 2017 Tommy Adams' son of a Jewish-Cypriot origin, Shaun George Adams (born February 1985)[81] of Claremont Square, Islington, pleaded guilty to money laundering admitting using a forged pay slip to get a £231,000 mortgage to buy the lease on a pub in Marylebone.[82] He received a six months sentence, suspended for a year.[83] Before the 2017 arrest shaun Adams worked in a night club in Soho as a manager until February 2022 when he opened a property consultancy business SGA Consulting[81] he runs from his Islington flat in Claremont Square which was used as the filming location for 35 Portland Row in the Netflix adaption of Lockwood & Co.[84]

In 2009 Tommy Adams met an Irish solicitor Anne-Marie Hutchinson OBE of Dawson Cornwall Solicitors in Hatton Garden, Holborn who until her death in October 2020, was instructed to advice him in matrimonial matters, specifically in contact arrangements with his son Sean Patrick who was born in 2011 and lived at 33 Portland Place where he was being raised by a nanny until 2014.[85] Adams kept the matter secret from his family as it was highly embarrassing for him because the mother of the child was 30 years younger than him, and of the same age as his youngest son Shaun.[86]

Tommy Adams was further convicted of money laundering and sentenced to 7 years in 2017 after a number of significant cash seizures of criminal money were linked to him. Money from crime in Manchester was collected and sent to Tommy via trusted associates.[87] In 2022 Adams was released from prison after settling the confiscation order of over a million pounds. In a confiscation hearing on 27 February 2020, Adams had his available assets determined by the Judge to be £1,243,270.75 and a Confiscation Order was made against him for that sum. He was convicted for running a money laundering operation with his associates, which was foiled in 2014 when undercover police heard him discussing the illicit activity at a central London café in Hatton Garden. He was defended by Dominic Dsouza.[88]

George Adams worked as a lorry driver in the 1960s and later as a car mechanic in a Ford-Jaguar dealership in North West London.

Adams was brought up the Sixties in the Barnsbury area of Islington, North London.[92] He comes from a very poor working-class family from Northern Ireland and is one of 11 children. As a child, growing up in poverty he used to steal food from the school buffet and from the market stalls in Islington.[92] His father George Adams worked as a lorry driver in 1960s and later as a mechanic at a Jaguar dealership in North West London.[93] Adams' mother Florence was a housewife who devoted herself to family and to Irish Catholicism.[94][27] In the Sixties Islington where Adams was brought up was a rough area. In 1964 when Adams was aged 8 he had to start carrying a knife to school for self-defence.[95][96] His first convictions at the age of 10 included stealing a Christmas Turkey from a carvery in Islington[97] on Christmas Day and robbing a festive gift shop on New Year's Eve in order to get a Christmas gift for his mother.[98]

Following his conviction for possession of firearm and ammunition in 1968 when he was just 12, Adams left school and graduated to armed robbery.[99]

In 1983 Adams went to 10 Soho Square to instruct reputation lawyers Wright Webb Syrett to file a suit for libel against the tabloids who called him one of the most violent figures of London’s underworld after the rumors that he cut off Frankie Fraser son’s ear.[100]

After his release from prison in 1975, having spent seven years for armed robbery offences, Pat Adams decided to leave crime and opened several legitimate businesses in Soho.[101] One of these was a divan bed delivery company. By late 70s he began selling waterbeds when he realised that those started becoming popular in England and by 1976 were in high demand.[102] In 1978, when Adams was 22 years old, he sold his waterbed business and opened one of the first Pinball arcades in Picadilly Square, central London.[103] In 1980s when still in his youth, Adams instructed reputation lawyer Oscar Beuselink from a law firm Wright Webb Syrett based at 10 Soho Square to sue the tabloid press who published defamatory articles calling him one of the most violent figures of London's underworld[27] after he cut off part of Frankie Fraser son's ear during a fallout over money, which really angered the Krays.[100]

During his 1984 imprisonment Pat Adams took acting classes and performed in several prison theatre plays.[100]

Pat Adams was arrested again in 1984.[104] His conviction for carrying firearms and wearing a full body armour in a public place ended in a 3-year prison sentence.[14]During his 1984 imprisonment at HMP Wandsworth Adams met Paul Teirnan who was doing time at the same prison for stabbings at a pub in Islington. Adams heard Teirnan shouting out of the window of his cell at another inmate and they became friends.[105] In the prison Adams got into fitness, used the gym regularly and developed a good physique.[106] Being a sports enthusiast he played tennis, chess,[107] badminton and took acting classes, performing in many amateur prison theatre plays.[108]

In 1990s Patsy Adams was investigated in connection with theft of the infamous 377-horsepower Lotus Carlton 40RA and using it to raid petrol stations and jewelry stores.[109]

In January 1994 Adams was investigated in connection with theft of Lotus Carlton 40 RA,[110] a 377-horsepower high performance saloon car with a top speed of 176 mph which was used to raid petrol stations and jewelry shops and was last seen when chased by the police driving at the speed of 150 mph northbound, up the M6 towards Scotland. On 26 November 1993 a Lotus Carlton registered "40 RA" was reported stolen from a home in the West Midlands. In the following months, a gang of thieves used the car to conduct ram raids on petrol stations and jewelry shops, stealing around £20,000 worth of jewelry. The car was never recovered and no charges were brought against him.[111]

In 1990s Patsy Adams was nicknamed the Bullfighter by the Spanish mob.[112]

In 1990s, when Adams was still in his 30s, upon his release from prison for possession of firearms and ammunition, Adams abandoned crime and relocated to Spain where he bought several properties and formed a legitimate property business.[113] He earned himself a reputation of a macho among Spanish gangsters, being the muscle man for his family in London.[112]

His last imprisonment in 1984 devastated his wife who begged him to leave crime and move abroad as she did not want him to get dragged into another conspiracy by his friends in London and go to prison again.[114] Adams left crime and went straight for 30 years, until his arrest in 2013 in connection with wounding Paul Teirnan who Pat Adams accused of being a police agent[115] outside his flat in Islington.[113]

When Adams was on a run, he and his wife lived in a two bedroom boathouse docked in Amsterdam Channel, Netherlands.[116]

After being circulated as wanted by the Metropolitan Police and the Interpol, Adams lived in a two bedroom boathouse docked in a canal in Amsterdam with his wife Constance.[117] In 2013 Police launched a covert operation to find Adams after circulating him as wanted in connection with wounding a British security services informer Paul Teirnan in Islington, North London, and fleeing the country.[118]

In January 2014, fearing for his life, Adams moved into a camper van where he stayed with his wife up until their arrest in August 2015.[118][119]

From January 2014 until his arrest and extradition in August 2015 Pat Adams lived in a motorhome in the Netherlands with his wife.[119]

Adams was arrested in Amsterdam on 7 August 2015 during a complex joint surveillance operation by the MI5 and the Interpol, involving face recognition technology and satellites.[120] Spanish extradition lawyer Adrian Macho from Tuckers Solicitors represented Adams at the extradition hearing in the Netherlands.[121]

Having been arrested and handcuffed, Adams was recovering from the trauma of the arrest in the police custody suite when two policeman walked in and without Adams’ consent, took photographs of him handcuffed, and circulated it with the press.[122] Adams instructed privacy lawyers Schillings to obtain an injunction to restrict publication of those photographs as he could not object to being photographed. But the court refused to grant an injunction prohibiting the publication.[123]

On a separate occasion Adams instructed Schillings solicitors to sue two police officers each of whom posted selfies on Instagram with Adams handcuffed in a police custody suite,[123] when he was not in a position to object to being photographed.[122]

In court the CPS served the defence with 30 days-worth of phone-call recordings which were recorded by the Security Services who listened to Adams' telephone conversations in Spain.[2] Adams was sentenced to nine years imprisonment having admitted shooting Paul Tiernan with a .45 calibre pistol in December 2013.[124] Adams, together with his wife was charged in October 2015 with attempted murder and possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life.[125] The murder charge was dropped after Teirnan refused to cooperate with police.[126]

On 3 December 2016 Adams started a nine-year jail sentence as the only Category AA prisoner in notorious maximum security HMP Belmarsh where he was on the same wing with Julian Assange who he met during a daily jog in the exercise yard.[127] After becoming friends with Assange, Adams became a supporter of the Anonymous movement and campaigned for freedom of speech.[128]

In 2017, a year after having been convicted of wounding Paul Teirnan, Patrick Adams was moved to HMP Frankland where he became the only category AAA prisoner[129] due to being deemed a high flight risk. He was placed on the same wing as a friend of Lord Edward Davenport. His wife became concerned about Adams as she considered Davenport a bad influence because Davenport was friends with the blonde woman who Adams became interested in and later requested to be put in touch with her after seeing her picture in Davenport friends' cell. Due to being category AAA prisoner Adams was not allowed to have a phone in his cell and could not call her. Instead, they exchanged love letters.[130] She later came to visit him but it did not go any further.[131]

Lord Edward Davenport also known as Fast Eddie bought himself a Ferrari and a 24 bedroom mansion in central London with the money he borrowed from the Adams family whilst Patsy Adams lived in a motorhome with his wife.[132]

Lord Davenport owed 8.5 million pounds to the Adams family after a sale of 33 Portland Place which was part-owned by them.[133][131] In 2018, when Patsy Adams got in touch with Davenport from HMP Frankland trying to recover the money that was owed to his family, Davenport tried to knock Patsy Adams and his family.[134] In 2019, still owing millions of pounds to the Adams family, Davenport left the country and fled to Thailand after a stabbing at one of his parties in central London.[132]

In November 2010 George Adams was arrested stealing £2,000 of stock from Zee & Co boutique in Upper Street, Islington. He later admitted a charge of burglary at Blackfriars Crown Court. It was his first criminal offence. Adams cut through metal security bars and forced open a rear window in order to break into the shop. He was handed a six-month sentence suspended for two years and was also given a one-year supervision order and told to pay compensation.[137]

In October 2015 George Adams, then aged 25, was involved in an Upper Street bar fight not far from his house, in which a man was stabbed in the face and two others were slashed in the face with a knife.[135] A fight broke out between Adams and a group of men who were later taken to the A&E where they received stitches for their injuries. Adams pled guilty and was given a nine-month sentence, suspended for 12 months.[135]

In June 2017 George Adams was involved in a shooting at his flat in Islington where Danis Salih who owed him £200,000 was wounded during a shooting.[138]

8mm bullets were found at Danis Salih's home after his house was searched following the shooting at George Adams house in Islington.

Danis Salih, 44, armed with a gun, came to George Adams place in Islington to settle the £200.000 debt but could not pay in full. A gunfight between Danis and George ensued and Danis was shot and wounded. Having searched Danis' home the police found 8mm bullets and drugs. Danis was later arrested for possession of ammunition without a firearms certificate and possession of cocaine and other drugs recovered by police from his home. Danis admitted possession of ammunition without a firearms certificate and possession of 27 tablets of Alprazolam, 26.9 grams of cannabis, 3.02 grams of cocaine and 1.83 grams of opium. He was sentenced to nine months on the ammunition and one month concurrent on each of the drugs offences suspended for 21 months.[135]

Teirnan's Israeli passport was annulled in 1971 when he was convicted of robbing five shops in Tel Aviv and fleeing Israel.[147] In 1972 Teirnan started his four year sentence at HMP Wandsworth where he met Pat Adams who in 2013 begun suspecting him of being an agent of Mossad.[145]

Pat Adams initially did not trust Teirnan as given that Teirnan was an Israeli national, he thought that Teirnan was “planted” in HMP Wandsworth by Mossad under the guise of a convicted criminal.[148][2] Adams suspected Teirnan of being tasked by Shin Bet and Mossad to obtain security-related information from him at HMP Wandsworth posing as one of the inmates.[149][150] Adams told Teirnan he kept quiet about him being a secret agent as he did not want to blow Teirnan's cover and never openly accused him of it until 2013 when Teirnan asked to see him but Adams objected stating that he was not in a good mood, however Teirnan kept pursuing him insisting that Adams sees him, but Adams kept ignoring Teirnan’s requests to meet up. After Adams refused for the 10th time, Teirnan telephoned again asking to meet. Adams got annoyed by his requests and told Teirnan that Mossad must have been putting him up for trying to meet him.[149] When in December 2023 Adams finally agreed to meet Teirnan during his short visit to London, Teirnan begun accusing Adams and his wife of spreading rumors about him being a secret Mossad agent, and threatened to shoot them with his 45 calibre pistol which Adams managed to wrestle from Teirnan, accidentally wounding him.[125]

In December 2013 Teirnan requested to see Adams in Islington when Adams was briefly visiting his family in London.[124] Prior to his meeting with Adams, Teirnan spent 3 months target shooting at a shooting range near his home in Essex.[151]

Prior to his meeting with Patsy Adams in Islington in December 2013, Teirnan spent 3 months target shooting at a shooting range near his home in Essex and was on a steroid cycle.[120]

After “pinning” Deca Durabolin and Testosterone and taking 25mg of YK-11, [152] Teirnan armed himself with a loaded 45 calibre gun and drove for over two hours to North London from his house in Essex hoping to “take out” Patsy Adams and the members of his family who accused him of working as an undercover agent for Shin Bet and Mossad.[76] Arriving in Islington at 10am, he waited for Adams at the junction of St John Street and Wyclif Street, in Clerkenwell in a blue BMW X5 with a loaded gun.[153] Fearing that Teirnan was sent to him by Mossad or the Shabak Adams tried to distance himself from Teirnan for two months and avoided direct contact leading up to their meeting in December 2013.[154] Upset at Adams for being called a spy, Teirnan pointed a gun at him and begun threatening to shoot him and “take out” other members of his family one by one,[153] if Adams does not stop spreading rumours about him being a secret agent.[120] Adams ran up to Teirnan’s car and managed to grab the weapon.[155] They wrestled and Adams accidentally shot Tiernan in the stomach.[124]

In 2019 Teirnan was arrested outside HMP Wormwood Scrubs for protesting the death of his friend Wayne Hurren who in 1988 was jailed for a total of 20 years for shooting three police officers and stealing an estimated £1.7 million in four armed raids.[156] Teirnan pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 56 days in prison, suspended for a year, and ordered to pay £2,000 to the court.[157]

Several major British TV programmes and documentaries about the Adams family, including Gangs of London (2023) and Real Narcos UK, The London's Bloodiest (2018) as well as the movie The Irish Connection (2022)[158] were aired in the UK between 2008 and 2023 respectively.[159]

• Episode 3 of The Real Narcos UK: Blood and Fear[159] features the Adams family who ran their multi-million drugs empire and became so powerful that MI5 were tasked with bringing them down.[6]
• The Adams crime family have inspired the 2022 TV series Gangs of London[160]

• Clerkenwell crime syndicate was the inspiration for The Irish Connection directed by Danny Patrick (director) and released in 2022.[158]
• In 2020 wife of Terry Adams actress Alfie Adams[161] starred in a Southampton University student horror film entitled Sinking Souls which was filmed in Southampton and later premiered at the University of Southampton[162] where Alfie Adams gave a lecture about acting and filmmaking.[163] The film was produced by Kieran Black[164] and directed by Daniel Ellerby who was studying film productionp at the Southampton Solent University to widen his understanding of film making and script writing.[163] Sinking Souls (2022) became Ellerby's directorial debut.[165] The story follows a boy who recently lost his mother and decides to make a pact with a demonic spirit in order to talk with her again. Whilst the pact works and his mother materializes he learns that in order to continue being able to talk with her he has to fulfill the terms of the pact set out by the malevolent spirit he invoked.[166]