When Russell Tate was called to give his evidence, he stunned the packed courtroom by claiming he had only got involved in the smuggling venture because he knew all along Steele had murdered his brother and he wanted to bring him to justice. Tate said he believed that by befriending Nicholls and Steele he might eventually gather some evidence that would help police convict those responsible for murdering his brother. Only Nicholls was alleged to have imported drugs with Russell Tate; Steele was neither charged nor in court as a witness, so it was not a very plausible story and he was found guilty.
Mr Justice Jeffrey Rucker agreed and said Russell Tate had prepared ‘an ingenious story as a way of explaining his involvement in the conspiracy, but it did not simply bear the scrutiny of common sense and day-to-day experience of life – it was wholly untrue. In listening to the evidence, I do not for one moment believe that Tate had ever suspected Steele of murdering his brother.’
Russell Tate was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment and Craig Androliakos, who had been stopped driving the car Nicholls had hired, received two years.
On Friday, 13 November 1998, Darren Nicholls appeared at Woolwich Crown Court to be sentenced for the importation of cannabis. Mr Justice Hidden said, ‘I have no doubt that without the evidence provided by this man, a terrible crime would never have been solved and two killers would still be walking the streets. In return, Mr Nicholls will undoubtedly have to spend the rest of his life in fear. I have no hesitation in awarding him full credit for the assistance he provided both police and Customs in this matter.’ Mr Justice Hidden then sentenced Nicholls to 15 months’ imprisonment, but he walked free because the length of time he had spent in custody prior to the Rettendon trial more than covered the sentence.
You will find no trace of Darren Nicholls now. His birth certificate and marriage licence have been deleted. His National Insurance number has been withdrawn, his passport details destroyed. All his bank and building society accounts have been closed down, along with all his old store cards and hire-purchase loans. His driver details have been erased from the computer at Swansea and he no longer appears on the electoral roll. Even his criminal record is no more. Every way of tracking him down has been blocked.
Nicholls may have vanished, but he was never going to stop boasting and bragging about himself and his exploits. For once, Mick Steele and Jack Whomes were going to be pleased that Nicholls could not stop talking.
Chapter 16
When I arrived at Basildon Magistrates’ Court to face the charges relating to the incident with Gaffer, I was horrified to see a group of demonstrators gathered outside the main entrance holding placards with my photograph on them. I had no idea what their intentions were but when they saw me they immediately began to chant, ‘Essex Police cover-up, Essex police cover-up.’
I recognised one of the demonstrators as John Whomes, Jack’s younger brother. I had seen him on television several times protesting his brother’s innocence. ‘They only let you walk because you helped them, O’Mahoney,’ John shouted.
The idea that the police had not investigated me fully concerning the Rettendon murders was a view many held in Essex. People thought that I had been deliberately ‘overlooked’ by the police because I had assisted them with the media-sensitive Leah Betts case. The truth, of course, was the total opposite. The police had not overlooked me at all. I was considered a suspect, I was investigated and eventually eliminated from the inquiry, although you have to say the police investigation into the murders wasn’t worthy of much, if any, praise.
I could see that John and those with him were irate, so I thought it best to ignore them rather than risk a confrontation. I walked into the court and John followed me. Not wanting to be in John’s company, I went and sat in the public gallery of Court 2, where my case was going to be heard.
When the usher called my name, I went and stood in the dock and John sat immediately behind me in the public gallery. The prosecution asked me to confirm my name and address but before I could reply John stood up and began shouting about Essex Police ignoring evidence that could implicate me in the Rettendon murders. I didn’t know where to look or what to say. John, after all, was only trying to draw attention to his brother’s plight. I had to admire him: he couldn’t care less about the magistrate’s objections, he was going to have his say regardless.
Once John had been ushered out of the court under threat of arrest and imprisonment for contempt, my case was adjourned and I walked outside. John and the other demonstrators immediately confronted me.
‘Give me a break, John,’ I pleaded. ‘I know your brother and Mick Steele didn’t iron out those three, but I didn’t do it either.’
I had an appointment with my solicitor, so I gave John my mobile phone number and asked him to call me later that afternoon. ‘If I can help you, John, I promise you I will. Whoever did murder those three did the world a favour, but, trust me, it wasn’t me.’
Later that day, John telephoned me and we arranged to meet at a pub in Marks Tey the following night. There was, to say the least, a degree of mistrust between us. I was a former member of the firm whose leaders John’s brother Jack had been convicted of murdering. For all John knew, he was being lured into a trap so their deaths could be avenged.
I arrived at the pub with Emma because I wanted to demonstrate to John I had no intention of doing anything untoward. John was not at the pub when Emma and I arrived, but he turned up shortly afterwards with a friend. We all shook hands and ordered a drink. The pub was extremely busy and therefore not an ideal setting to discuss a triple murder, so Emma and I invited John and his friend to our home. They said they would follow me in their car, which, oddly enough, was a blue Range Rover identical to the one in which Tucker, Tate and Rolfe had been murdered. As we reached the outskirts of Basildon, my mobile phone rang. It was John. ‘You’re having a fucking laugh, aren’t you, Bernie? Are you sure about this?’
I laughed. I had already guessed John wouldn’t be feeling too confident about driving through the areas Tucker and the firm had once controlled. ‘Trust me, John, our house is only around the corner.’
‘I don’t trust anyone, especially you,’ he replied.
When we arrived, John and I sat down together and talked into the early hours of the morning about the murders and the events that led up to them. It soon became obvious to me that, despite his noble intentions regarding his brother’s case, John was going to have problems learning the truth about the murders because he didn’t know any of the characters involved in the murky Essex underworld, a maze of deceit, mistrust and extreme danger. If John did manage to locate any of them, it was highly unlikely they would acknowledge him, never mind answer questions that may implicate the real executioners. Unlike John, I knew all of the main players: I knew what they were involved in and I knew how to contact them. My safety among them was no longer assured, but I told John that I would do all I could to help him, his brother and Mick Steele. But before I could help anyone, I had to help myself.
I had written to the Crown Prosecution Service after the first two court hearings concerning the knife incident with Gaffer asking them to drop the charges because there was little or no evidence to disprove my version of events and only a little to support theirs. Eventually, after a lot of haggling and mind-numbing games, the charges were dropped. To say I was relieved is an understatement. I was overjoyed because I wanted to get on with my life free from any sort of trouble.
Deep down, both Emma and I knew it would be impossible living in Basildon, where so much had gone on in the past. I had expanded the haulage business I managed in Cambridgeshire considerably and it was now taking up more and more of my time. My working day was growing longer and this was affecting my relationship with Emma. Her mother, Terry, had also recently been killed in a tragic accident, which police initially thought was murder.
Emma and I had gone to Paris together for a weekend to celebrate her 21st birthday. It was the first time we had travelled abroad tog
ether and we had a fantastic time. We arrived home late on the Sunday night and talked about visiting Emma’s mum the following day, which was Emma’s birthday. When I left home for work early the next morning, I noticed the street where Emma’s mum lived was cordoned off with police tape. I rang Emma to tell her and a few hours later she rang me to say her mum had been killed. Terry’s partner had telephoned for an ambulance after finding her at the bottom of the stairs with head injuries. Because of the nature of those injuries and his unusual behaviour, he was arrested for her murder but later released without charge. I cannot imagine how Emma felt losing her mum, especially on such an important birthday. The incident brought us closer together, but Emma felt isolated and lonely when I wasn’t there for her.
The answer was staring me in the face: we both had to leave Essex if we wanted our relationship to work. Emma needed fresh surroundings to help her block out the circumstances of her mum’s death and I needed fresh surroundings to move on from the dreadful events of 1995. In the summer of 1999, Emma and I moved to a place called Stanground in Peterborough and soon settled in.
It’s hard to describe how I felt. It was as if the troubles of the world had been lifted from my shoulders. For the first time in years, I felt happy and free. The sensible thing to do would have been to forget all about the events in Essex, but I have never been described as sensible and I had warmed to John Whomes as soon as I’d met him. Additionally, I firmly believed his brother and Mick Steele were innocent. I couldn’t just turn my back on them. I knew there were many villains in Essex who had theories and possible information concerning the murders. I also knew the penalties for grassing or implicating other villains were extremely harsh. Therefore, some, if not all, of these villains would be too afraid to talk openly in case the wrong people got to hear about it. But I was convinced some would talk if given a safe medium to do so.
After considering the problem, John and I decided to set up a website on the Internet. Martin Moore, a friend and computer genius from Devon, agreed to design and run the site on our behalf. To generate interest in it, all of the evidence from the case, including crime-scene photos, were uploaded, as were all of the numerous media reports about the case. Putting the crime scene photos on the site was not a decision we reached easily. To protect the victims’ loved ones from seeing them accidentally, we had three warnings they had to click on before they could be viewed. I thought the photos were a powerful deterrent for any would-be villain who thinks being a gangster is glamorous. I saw it as no different to those photographs of Leah Betts lying in a coma in hospital with tubes attached to her that were splashed across newspapers to highlight the dangers of taking drugs.
John Whomes didn’t see things my way – nor did Essex Police, who had taken the photos and retained the copyright on them. They threatened to sue me if the images were not removed. I did comply but only after John Whomes asked. He thought it was a step too far in highlighting the case. I still think it was right to show them because numerous young men did contact the website saying they were not aware of the horrors of ‘living that life’. One claimed he had since given up crime because the images haunted him. On TV and in films victims who are shot fall over clutching a small patch of blood on their clothing. The reality is far more gruesome. There is nothing glamorous whatsoever about murder.
We were soon inundated with emails and messages from people claiming they had information about the shootings. Initially, theories rather than facts about the crime came flooding in. Kenneth Noye, ex-members of the Kray firm and the notorious north London Adams family were blamed, as was I. Tucker and Tate’s threats to shoot me were common knowledge amongst the criminal fraternity in Basildon. For many, it gave me a motive to carry out the killings. I had also toyed with the idea of parting with Tucker prior to Leah’s death. Wanting ‘rid of him’, albeit in a business sense, had added to people’s suspicions about me.
In early November 1995, when relations between Tucker, Tate and me had begun to sour, I had been offered what was described as a ‘swansong’ by a villain from Southend. A ‘swansong’, he explained, was a final job that would earn me enough money to disappear from Essex for good. I was on bail for possessing a gun at the time, so it was certain that I would lose my doorman’s licence when convicted. Once I had lost that I would lose my job and so would be without any income, the man explained. ‘You’ll need money to support your family, Bernie,’ he said. ‘And this is an easy way of getting it.’ The words ‘disappear from Essex for good’ set off alarm bells in my head. It sounded more like a death threat than a genuine offer to assist me.
I had already thought about how I might earn a living after the court case for possessing the gun and had approached a man I knew named Lawrence. I had asked him to front a door-staff agency for me if I did lose my door licence. I would recruit door staff, employ them to work the doors and travel from venue to venue checking everything was trouble-free without officially ‘working’ on the door myself. Lawrence would say it was his company and I worked for him but not as a member of the door staff.
Lawrence agreed it was a good idea and together we decided that I would end my partnership with Tucker and control Raquels and other venues from ‘behind the scenes’. Lawrence was so keen to go into business with me he even looked into the possibility of setting up an offshore company so we could avoid future tax payments. But Lawrence soon became concerned about any merger with me when I revealed I had been offered the swansong. This grand finale, I was told, was shooting dead a man in Cornwall.
The intended victim had fled Essex after running into debt with drug dealers. Those who had a grievance with him had located him and now they wanted me to carry out their dirty work. The death of Leah Betts shortly after I had been approached to do the job took any decision out of my hands because as soon as she had collapsed every aspect of my life fell under police scrutiny. I do not think I could have done it, in any event; I certainly wouldn’t have been prepared to do it with Essex Police breathing down my neck.
I never did find out who tried to implicate me in the plot, but Essex Police were certainly made aware of my potential involvement. When they questioned me about it, they rather surprisingly also offered me a ‘swansong’, albeit less lucrative. Their deal involved me pretending to go through with the plot to shoot the man, then they would arrest the conspirators and put me on the witness protection programme. I declined.
Not long after the Rettendon murder trial, a journalist gave John Whomes a very detailed document that included names, addresses, dates and venues in relation to the Cornish murder plot and my possible involvement in the Rettendon murders. I have to say it was pretty convincing because it was factually true, but the facts had been woven together to produce a totally misleading picture. It was this document that initially made John think that I was guilty of luring Tucker, Tate and Rolfe to their deaths. No doubt those in Essex wishing to see the back of me had a hand in producing it.
In July 1998, Steele and Whomes were refused leave to appeal against their life sentences. The pair had hoped to have their convictions quashed but a High Court judge ruled that Whomes and Steele would not even be allowed the chance to present their case before the Court of Appeal in London. News of the rejection shocked all of those involved in the campaign to free the two men. Jack Whomes’s mother had been delighted when her son decided to appeal. She said that Jack had the full backing of his legal team, who had maintained his innocence throughout the murder trial.
John could not see how the appeal judge had the time to read the paperwork supporting the appeal in full. ‘The way I look at it is that the papers had to be ready by 2 July, which only left 3 July for the judge to study them,’ he commented to the press at the time. ‘The paperwork was about four feet high and he would had to have read everything all in one day. That’s absolutely impossible. My brother has been wrongly convicted: there was no murder weapon, no money and no drugs found. Even the papers proving the men’s time of death were lost.
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‘Jack is very shaken up, my parents are devastated and the rest of the family are extremely unhappy about the decision to refuse permission to appeal.’
In order to highlight what John and his family saw as a gross injustice, John and his friend, Peter Ager, attempted to hang a 350-foot banner from Orwell Bridge in Ipswich proclaiming, ‘Jack Whomes is innocent.’
Their attempt to protest, however, went horribly wrong. They had used Peter’s 21-foot speedboat to check the bridge could be climbed, but it was when they returned to the marina that their problems began. Peter had been reversing his Land Rover Discovery and a trailer down the slipway when its wheels fell over the end, dragging the £12,000 vehicle with it. Water rapidly entered the vehicle and was rising over Peter’s lap before he managed to scramble to safety out of the passenger window. After calling the coastguard and the vehicle recovery services, the Land Rover was finally rescued. It was to be the first of many stunts and protests John mounted in support of his brother and Steele. Fortunately, future protests were far more successful.
In January 1999, Steele and Whomes were once more refused leave to appeal. John vowed that his brother and Steele would now take their case to the European Court of Human Rights. Unknown to John at that time, Darren Nicholls, the man who had secured his brother’s conviction, was unwittingly helping to bring about the appeal hearing everybody wanted.
In October 1998, Granada Television announced it was going to make a film ‘inspired by the Rettendon murders’ called Essex Boys. ‘We have not cast the film yet, but it will be stars of film rather than television,’ a Granada spokesperson said. ‘The budget is not finalised, but the film will probably cost several million pounds. We hope we will be shooting some scenes at Rettendon and the rest will be done in other parts of the county. The film, which will take about two months to make, will be all about organised crime, will be purely fictional and will be shown in cinemas throughout the country.’
Bonded by Blood Page 21
