Bonded by Blood

by Bernard O'Mahoney

  Before I’d arrived at the club, people had taken liberties all the time. I decided to use excessive violence to combat violence, and by doing so I had reduced the amount of trouble. People were thinking twice about starting anything in the club. It’s easy to say with hindsight now but I should have realised that excess would eventually be met with excess.

  Chapter 3

  The Raquels door team was still made up of local men and they were still afraid of the local louts who had earned their reputations in the playground and were intent on taking them to their graves. The only way I was going to regain control of the club was if I brought in people from elsewhere who wouldn’t be scared of taking them on. But for now, the local doormen were all I had and I would have to make do.

  I was nervous about my position, but controlling the door of a nightclub is all about front. I couldn’t show my fear or walk away after criticising Venables: I was going to have to stand my ground.

  The legacy of the last door firm was over and I was determined not to make the same mistakes as my former boss. More and more people began to get seriously hurt; knives and other weapons were regularly used. On the surface, revellers were beginning to see a decrease in violence but behind the scenes those who wished to cause trouble were paying dearly.

  In one incident, a local man came to the front door and became abusive because I insisted that he be searched before he entered the club. He went away and returned with a rounders bat. Maurice Golding, a doorman from Bristol who worked for me, was hit across the head and the man ran away. We all chased him and the manager followed, trying to reason with me to calm down. We caught the man 500 yards away from Raquels outside the local bingo hall. The doorman who caught him began to hit him, but I told him to stop. I kneeled on the man’s chest and cut him twice with a sheath knife: once on the face, once on his upper thigh. The manager was outraged. I posed the question: if he had chased Maurice with the bat and Maurice had fallen over, what would he have done with the rounders bat? It was only right that he got a bit of his own medicine.

  Another night, a man from Leeds was refused entry because he was drunk. He produced a knife and began waving it and shouting obscenities. I told him to put the knife down, but he kept shouting, ‘Do you want some? Do you want some?’

  ‘It’s up to you which way this goes,’ I said. ‘Put the knife down.’

  He refused. He was slashed and left with a deep, open wound to the left-hand side of this face. Again, I justified this by asking what would have happened if I had walked towards him without a knife and he was still brandishing his? I’ve always said the aggressor dictates the way things go. If they put their hands up, I’ll put my hands up. If they pull out a weapon, I’ll pull out a weapon. It’s entirely their choice. Violence is a messy business.

  One Sunday evening I arranged to go to Epping country club with three drug dealers: Steve Curtis, Nathan Kaye and David Thomkins. I had met them in the Ministry of Sound. They told me that they were from the Bristol area. I had agreed to introduce them to Tony Tucker because he was trying to recruit new drug dealers for his clubs.

  I’ll always remember introducing Steve, Nathan and Dave to Tucker. He asked me if they had any drugs with them. I asked them and they said they could sort Tucker out but they would want £40 from him. Tucker looked at me, looked at them, then started to laugh. ‘Tell them to hand over what I asked for or I’ll take the fucking lot.’ This was typical of Tucker. He wasn’t in the habit of paying for things, particularly drugs.

  I decided that I would discuss a deal of my own I had in mind with Tucker concerning doormen for Raquels. I explained to Tucker about the trouble I was having and said I needed the backup of a strong firm. I told him that if he went into partnership with me, I would run the door and he could reap whatever benefits there were to be had from providing invoices and any other ‘commodities’ – drugs, protection, debts and so on. I would not bother him with the day-to-day running of the club. The only time I would call on him was if I had a severe problem and needed backup. In return, trouble or no trouble, he would make money each week from the club. Tucker nodded in agreement and we shook hands.

  On 4 September 1993, Tucker and I began working together at Raquels. The agreement brought new faces onto the scene in Basildon. Men who worked for him and were looking for a change would come and work with me. One evening, I got a call from a doorman who said his mate, Gavin, was looking for work. Apparently Gavin had been sacked from a club in Ilford after sending a customer to hospital. The doorman said he’d already spoken to Tucker on Gavin’s behalf but had been told there was no work. This struck me as odd because I’d already mentioned to Tucker that I needed an extra doorman. I suspected he had another reason for saying no.

  The politics of the door is worthy of academic study. The microcosm is a catty little world built on bubbling jealousies, stifled resentments and long-borne grudges. One week someone was in favour, the next he was a grass, a bottler or a wanker. People won’t speak to each other for years for quite petty reasons. Perhaps someone sweated on their towel in the gym, or tipped over their nail varnish. Many bodybuilders are better manicured than Jordan and Jodie Marsh put together; if you could calculate which groups spend the most on sunbeds, leg-waxing and hairdos, you’d find it a toss-up between call girls and bodybuilders. I hated all that doorman politics. I like to take people as I find them, not as they’re ‘generally known’.

  I rang Tucker and asked him about employing Gavin. He said he didn’t really like the guy, although he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, give a reason. In the end, he said, ‘It’s up to you, Bernie. If you need someone, then take him on.’ So I rang back my contact and told him to send Gavin along.

  When I got out of my car at Raquels that Friday evening, I noticed an Asian-looking bodybuilder locking up his car. I was always very vigilant when entering and leaving the club. I felt that was the point at which a doorman was most vulnerable to attack from people seeking revenge. The Asian man walked towards me and asked, ‘Are you Bernie?’ After eyeing him up with caution, I said I was. He stuck out his hand and said, ‘All right, mate. I’m Gavin.’

  During the evening, I asked Gavin why certain people seemed so set against him working at Raquels. He explained that Tucker had once turned up at a club where he was working and hadn’t wanted to queue, pay or show any sort of respect to the doormen. That would have been typical of Tucker. He’d walk to the front of any nightclub queue and when asked for money he would look at the door staff with utter contempt. Tucker had ended up being bashed. He’d lost a bit of face – an unforgivable outrage in the world of the door. As a result, he didn’t want to give work to anyone who’d been part of that door firm.

  I liked Gavin from that first conversation. Quiet and uncomplicated, he meant what he said and said what he meant. His catchphrase with leery customers was, ‘What’s your problem, mate?’ Then he’d usually try reasoning with them. If they continued to be aggressive or violent, he had no hesitation in creating new customers for the NHS. He didn’t care for reputations – and could certainly fight. In fact, he turned out to be one of the best doormen I ever employed. In a short time, he became the man I relied on most when war broke out. Away from Raquels, he became my best friend.

  One evening, two skinheads with tattoos on their heads and necks came to The Piano Bar. They arrived with four non-skinhead friends. I could see them looking at Gavin, then making remarks and laughing. They started doing the same to me. One of them stood behind me, aping me. I turned round and grabbed him by the throat, pushing him backwards as I did so. He fell back and hit his head on the corner of a small glass pillar, which shattered – as did his tattooed head. Gavin heard the sound of breaking glass and ran from the other side of the bar with a bottle in his hand. He told me later he thought I’d been attacked with a glass. He saw my ‘attacker’ on the floor but couldn’t see the gash at the back of his head. Gavin whacked his bottle a few times over the skin’s already-skewered skull. Then we both pulled
him up and dragged him to the doors. His mates seemed too stunned to do anything. We threw him into one of the glass doors, which also smashed, cutting his upper arm. He was still struggling a bit, so we beat him before throwing him down the stairs. His mates meekly followed him, only shouting abuse when they’d got safely outside.

  About half an hour later, customers near the exit doors began screaming and shouting, ‘Fire! Fire!’ Gavin and I ran to the stairwell and saw flames leaping up from the bar entrance. I told the manager and staff to deal with the fire, then Gavin and I ran out through the flames into the street. We found the skin with the sore head standing there with a red petrol can in his hand. Perhaps the earlier beating had slowed his reflexes because, although he looked surprised to see us, he didn’t run immediately, a significant mistake on his part.

  I ran across to him, my Irish hurling stick in my hand. He dropped the petrol can. ‘It wasn’t me. It wasn’t me,’ he pleaded. He turned to run, but I hit him across the back with the hurling stick. He fell to the ground. Gavin began kicking him in the head with his steel boots. The skinhead begged us not to beat him any more. Gavin stamped on his head and I hit him so hard across the back with the hurling stick it broke. He lay there unconscious.

  We picked up the petrol can and doused him with the remaining fuel. The other skinhead, who’d run a short distance away, began screaming, ‘Please don’t burn him! Please don’t burn him!’ We told him to come to us, as we weren’t going to do anything. He wasn’t stupid; he stayed where he was. We gave him the impression we were about to light the fire. The skinhead became hysterical. In the end, we threw down the petrol can and walked back to the club.

  A week later, the skinhead who’d run away came to the club’s front door, pissed out of his head, asking for ‘that fucking Paki’. Gavin and I dashed downstairs to the dissatisfied customer.

  ‘What’s your problem, mate?’ said Gavin.

  ‘You, you Paki cunt,’ said the skinhead. ‘You’re going to get this.’ He took out an axe from the inside of his jacket, but before he could use it, I’d squirted him in the face with ammonia and Gavin had slashed him across the head with a blade. We threw him outside amid a flurry of kicks and punches, then slammed the door shut. The skinhead lay howling outside in the gutter. Eventually, he got up and skulked off. We received regular death threats and warnings on the grapevine, but the skinheads never came back.

  Not all of the customers were violent villains. Many were just amusing freaks. One character I grew to like was an awesomely thin creature in his late teens. Around six foot and with lizard-like features, he’d gulp and stutter violently when he tried to talk. We named him Disco Dave. On Mondays, we used to hold an under-18s night, which attracted 300 potential and actual juvenile delinquents from the local estates. We wouldn’t sell them alcohol, but that didn’t make any difference: they’d just get pissed beforehand. Like their sociopathic parents, these kids would then indulge in brawls, beatings and drunken gropes.

  One night, we got called to a disturbance on the dance floor. As I approached, I noticed a heap of around ten writhing, spitting kids. They appeared to be attacking someone who lay on the floor beneath them. We dragged the kids off one by one to find a bleeding man at the bottom. This was my first meeting with Disco Dave. Apparently, he’d taken off his shirt to expose his gruesomely underdeveloped body. A group of youths objected. Disco told them to fuck off and they’d steamed him.

  I cleaned him up and suggested he go home and instead come to the adult nights, as it was now a few years since he’d been under 18. He said he didn’t have enough money to attend the adult nights or to get home. I agreed to give him a lift when the club closed. He waited for me patiently. Every time I tried talking to him he became engulfed in violent gulping and stuttering. In the end, I decided silence was the best policy. I told him to sit in the back of my car to prevent idle chat.

  On the way to his house, I was stopped by the police. This wasn’t unusual: they were always on my case. When I saw the flashing blue light, I told Disco to let me do the talking because I wanted to get home at a reasonable hour. The policeman walked up to the driver’s door and asked me the usual questions. I said, ‘I’ve been to work and I’m going home, and – before you ask – he’s fuck-all to do with me. I’m just giving him a lift home.’

  The officer then asked Disco for his details. Disco was so nervous that he gulped, stuttered, spat and blinked for so long that in the end the policeman said, ‘It’s all right, mate. Forget it. Off you go.’

  I suppose I adopted Disco Dave as a sort of club mascot. I knew he had no money, so I used to let him in free. I could see this made him feel important. One day, I told him that in the future he should ignore the long queues, march straight to the front, walk past the door staff, cashier and those searching and, if anybody said anything, he had to say, ‘My name’s Disco Dave. I don’t pay. And I don’t give a fuck.’ Nothing more. Nothing less.

  One evening, the company directors and other VIPs visited the club. They were all standing around the reception area when Disco walked in wearing trainers. One of the directors looked at Disco, then looked at me, and stood waiting for me to say something. I just shrugged. The director decided to intervene. He said to Disco, ‘I’m afraid you can’t come in wearing trainers, sir.’

  Disco looked straight at him, gulped and, with the pride and arrogance of a bullfighter, stuttered out the words ‘My name’s Disco Dave. I don’t pay. And I don’t give a fuck.’ He then marched past the director and all the door staff and disappeared upstairs.

  ‘Who on earth is that?’ the director said.

  ‘Don’t ask,’ I replied. ‘He’s a fucking nightmare.’

  When we went upstairs later, Disco was dancing on a raised podium with his shirt off, looking like a complete fool. Indirectly, he’d helped us rebuff the charge that we’d become too violent to customers. Indeed, the director thought we ought to impose our authority a bit more firmly. He hadn’t liked our completely hands-off approach to a stuttering, skeletal representative of the undead who’d pushed his way into the club without paying.

  Since our partnership began, I had seen a lot more of Tony Tucker socially. He invited me and all the other doormen from Raquels to his birthday party at the Prince of Wales pub in South Ockendon. He also asked me to take Steve, Nathan and Thomkins along from Bristol, so that there would be a supply of drugs for him and his guests. Tucker was in a very good mood. The party was a real success. Doormen from everywhere were there. Most were out of their faces on cocaine, Special K or Ecstasy, or a cocktail of all three and more.

  In the early hours of the morning, I was sitting on the floor of an upstairs room with Steve, Nathan and Debra. A man in his early 20s pushed open a door, which struck me. I looked at him, waiting for him to apologise, but he just smirked and asked me what the matter was.

  ‘You’ve just knocked the fucking door into me,’ I said.

  ‘Well, you’re a doorman, aren’t you?’ he replied.

  It was a stupid thing to say because it was obviously intended to cause trouble. I got up and walked towards him. He walked out to the kitchen and I followed him. Friends of Tucker’s followed us, but before the fight could start, we were separated. It was only later I learned he was Craig Rolfe, Tucker’s closest friend. I discovered that Rolfe was possessive of his friendship. I told him that, out of respect for Tucker, he shouldn’t cause trouble at his birthday party. Rolfe seemed all right afterwards, but he still had an attitude. When I was explaining to Tucker a few days later what had gone on, he told me why Rolfe had this chip on his shoulder. On Christmas Eve 1968, a man was found dead in a van that was parked in a lay-by at the side of the A13 between Stanford le Hope and Vange in Basildon. The dead man had been found slumped in the seat of a grey Austin van. His name was Brian Rolfe, a market trader from Basildon. At the post-mortem later that day, the cause of death was determined as a fractured skull.

  In less than 24 hours, the case had been solved. On Boxing
Day, a 19-year-old motor fitter, John Kennedy from Basildon, was charged with the murder together with 23-year-old Lorraine Rolfe, the wife of the murdered man.

  A few weeks earlier, the couple had run away together to start a new life in Birmingham, but Lorraine discovered she was expecting her husband’s child and opted to return to him rather than live with the jobless Kennedy. The affair continued, however, and Kennedy became increasingly frustrated at Lorraine’s refusal to end her marriage.

  He decided he had had enough. He broke into the couple’s Linford Drive home, crept up to the main bedroom and as Brian lay asleep next to his wife, smashed his skull to pieces with three blows from a ten-pin bowling skittle that weighed nearly four pounds. Brian’s skull was crushed like an eggshell.

  When Lorraine Rolfe was charged, it is reported she replied, ‘I never touched him, honest, on my baby’s life.’

  Lorraine was at that time the mother of three children and was expecting a fourth – Craig. When the case came to trial at Maidstone in March 1969, the prosecution alleged that Lorraine and Kennedy murdered Brian Rolfe and tried to fake a roadside robbery. Both pleaded not guilty to the murder charges. Kennedy was found guilty of murder and jailed for life. He was also given a concurrent sentence of seven years for breaking and entering the Rolfe family home and stealing £597. During this episode, Lorraine gave birth to Craig in Holloway Prison. Not surprising, then, that he had a chip on his shoulder, or that he’d chosen a life of crime.

  By the age of 16, Rolfe had grown into a classic juvenile delinquent: at odds with everything that society had to offer and accumulating several minor criminal convictions along the way. He worked for a short time as a tyre fitter and then as a plasterer, but the only trade in which he ever excelled himself was drugs. Whatever was on offer, Rolfe would sample or sell it.