‘But people are talking,’ he said.
‘I don’t give a fuck about people, Tony,’ I replied. ‘I’m out of it.’
Tucker sneered, ‘I don’t believe you,’ and then the line went dead. I assumed he had switched off his mobile phone.
On 6 December I was asked to attend South Woodham police station as DI Storey, the policeman heading the investigation into Leah’s death, wished to speak to Debra and me. He said he needed to speak to everybody who had worked at Raquels on the night the pill which had killed Leah had been obtained. Debra was employed to search females as they entered the club, but I guessed this had nothing to do with her – it was just a ploy to get me down at the station.
When we arrived, four detectives met us at the door. Two said they wanted to speak to Debra and I was told that DI Storey wanted to have an informal chat with me. Storey was well aware of the firm’s involvement in just about everything. He knew what he could prove and he knew, despite knowing the facts, what he could not. Murray had been pulled and questioned, but nobody was going to give evidence against him. I could see Storey’s task was painful, but he knew at that time the only people who could realistically be prosecuted were Packman and Smith. He asked me about the tape which had been given to him against my wishes by the journalist. What could I say? I could hardly deny I was the person on the tape. He asked me if I would make a statement. I didn’t have to implicate anyone. All I had to say was, yes, that is my voice on the tape.
He said that there was always the possibility that if I refused I could be subpoenaed to court. He made it clear he wasn’t offering me an ultimatum, he was just being honest with me.
I told him I understood my position, but I wouldn’t put my family at risk for things I had done. I told him I would have to go away and give it some serious thought, discuss it with my family and speak to him again in a couple of weeks. I wanted the problem with Tucker sorted out first. Despite what the police had warned, I didn’t believe Tucker was a threat to me. It was the wannabes, the fucking gang groupies around him, who were trying to stir it up. The conversation with Storey ended around 4 p.m. When I came out, Debra was waiting. She said they had only kept her for half an hour. She had been asked about who was working on the night and other trivial matters – facts they already knew. I guess they had to speak to everyone who was in the building on the night the pill was bought. Procedure these days demands it.
As we drove away from South Woodham police station snow was falling. It had settled and was perhaps three or four inches deep. We had arranged for Debra’s mother to look after the children whilst we spoke to the police so we drove over to her home, where we arrived at about 5 p.m. We stayed for a cup of tea and then drove to Wickford, where we had something to eat. Heading for home we drove from Wickford up to the Rettendon turnpike on the A130, which is the main roundabout between South Woodham Ferrers and Chelmsford. We reached there at about 6.30 p.m. It was a miserable night. The sky was pitch black and the surrounding fields were bleached white with the snow, which was still falling. Unknown to me, around the very same time, Tucker, Tate and Rolfe were driving along the very same road.
That night I went to bed early. I had an appointment the following morning with a solicitor in London. I was involved in a civil case at the time and I had to discuss a few points with my counsel.
I had travelled on the train, as I didn’t fancy battling through the traffic. At about 11 a.m., I rang home to see if any messages had been left on the answering machine. There was one. It was from a detective who asked me to contact him as soon as I got his message. I rang him from one of the public call boxes inside King’s Cross station.
He said to me, ‘We’ve found a Range Rover with three bodies inside. They’ve all been shot through the head. We think it’s your mates.’
‘What do you mean?’ I asked.
‘Do you recognise this registration number: F424 NPE? I am sure it is them. We were watching them on Tuesday and they were in it then.’
I was confused. I said, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, explain to me what’s happened.’
He repeated that they had found a Range Rover. Tucker, Tate and Rolfe were inside, but they had not been formally identified at that stage.
I said, ‘Are they dead?’
‘They’re very dead,’ he replied.
I knew instinctively why they had died: it was their stupid plan to rob a shipment of cocaine they believed would net them enough money to retire. They were certainly in retirement now and few people would be shedding tears over their premature departure.
The day after the blood-spattered bodies were discovered in the Range Rover, the police charged Stephen Smith and Steve Packman with being concerned in supplying the Ecstasy tablet that had claimed Leah Betts’ life. It made sense: the investigation that sought to expose those at the most lucrative end of the supply chain was going nowhere and the police’s most-wanted now lay dead. In an ironic twist, the detectives who had been trying to gather evidence against Tucker now switched their efforts to gather evidence against his killer.
On 25 January 1996, I met DI Storey, who wanted me to make a statement in relation to the conversation I’d had with Packman. I told him I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I had been trying to give up my life of gangs and crime since March 1995 and every step I took towards sanity I was knocked back three by one incident or another.
With Tucker, Tate and Rolfe dead, surely now my time had come. Did I really have to put myself centre stage in a high-profile trial to get my chance? Storey explained that the Crown Prosecution would never let me just walk away. He said they could subpoena me to attend court and the press would then attack me for being a hostile witness in a case concerning the death of a young girl who was currently on the front page of every national newspaper. I knew he was talking sense and he could see that I was struggling with the very thought of accepting that fact. Storey suggested I take another week before I made my final decision. For two or three days I wrestled with my conscience. I knew in my heart what I had to do, this nightmare had to end some time. I will never, as long as I live, forget the next meeting I had with DI Storey at Maldon police station.
The upstairs office we sat in overlooked a quaint row of shops and below people were going about their everyday business. As I sat there watching the normal world go by, I was talking about the unnecessary deaths of young people caught up in a very different and murky world. I was astride two very different worlds at that moment and my decision would leave me in one or the other. I knew which one I wanted to inhabit. I agreed to make the statement validating the tape. As I uttered the words ‘I will do it’, the door to my previous life slammed firmly behind me.
9
MURDER AND MAYHEM
On Thursday, 23 May 1996, my old friend and Raquels colleague Larry Johnston fulfilled my grisly prophecy and murdered a man. Larry always had to go over the top and it was inevitable that it was going to happen one day. Larry had gone to a theme pub in Rush Green, Romford, called Big Hand Mo’s. He had got into a dispute with a 31-year-old doorman named Steven Poultney. After refusing Larry entry, Poultney had been stabbed in the side. An ambulance was rushed to the scene but the doorman was pronounced dead on arrival at Old Church Hospital. Larry was arrested the following day and charged with murder. He was subsequently convicted and given a life sentence.
Two lives wasted and for what? Stupid fucking bravado. But that is what these gangsters think it’s all about: being a face, being a somebody. Preferring to murder a man rather than face the ‘humiliation’ of not being allowed in a pub.
My decision to assist the police had been met by them with relief and caution. Their investigation now had few loose ends and would appear neat and tidy, but my life, they warned, was now in danger of being ended prematurely. My home became a virtual fortress care of Essex Police. Debra and I were told to carry small pager-sized panic alarms and electronic boxes tuned into the local police headquarters were in every r
oom of our home. If the telephone wires were interfered with, an alarm would be activated and an armed-response unit would come running. It was an awful way to live, not so much for myself but for my family.
On Thursday, 20 June 1996, two detectives, whose job it was to escort me to court for the committal proceedings concerning Packman and Smith, picked me up from my home. The night before I could not sleep.
I had sat at the end of my bed in the dark, wrestling with my thoughts. I’d made the agreed statement about my meeting with Packman, but I knew that today was the day that mattered. If I didn’t turn up the case would collapse and I could face three months’ imprisonment for ignoring a witness order. It almost seemed worth it. It would solve many of my problems and I would be back on-side with my associates. I looked in at my sleeping children and realised I could betray my associates but I could not betray them. Any chance I had of making my life worthwhile lay with my children. I had to do what was right despite the fact that doing right felt so wrong.
I walked out to meet my escort. I wasn’t stupid – it wasn’t there solely for my protection, it was also there to make sure that I turned up at court. On the journey to Southend Magistrates’ Court, the detectives made casual conversation, most of it about Tucker, Tate and Rolfe. One of the detectives had been present at Broomfield hospital in Chelmsford when the three had been laid out in the morgue. He told me that Tucker and Rolfe had been badly disfigured. ‘Big fucking geezers, weren’t they, Bernie? Their heads were a right mess,’ he said. I wanted him to shut up, to not make any conversation with me. I didn’t even want to hear him speak. The thought of getting friendly with the police made my stomach churn. It wasn’t the men – I had known decent police officers – it was their authority, their uniform and the past experiences I had endured that filled me with loathing.
When we arrived at Southend, I was driven straight into the police station via a back entrance. I was told they didn’t want the press or cameramen getting anywhere near me. ‘Let’s keep it low-key, Bernie,’ one of them said.
Once inside I was led through a maze of corridors, the detectives flashing their warrant cards to get numerous locked doors opened. We passed through the custody area and eventually into the court building. We climbed a dozen narrow, wooden steps and emerged into the dock of the court. The proceedings had not yet started so the court was empty. I looked across from my more familiar position in the dock to the witness stand. I was going to have to stand on that platform and publicly assist those I had spent my life resenting. I was once more in turmoil. If I walked out now, I would be condemned as the man who had brought about the collapse of the Leah Betts trial, a girl who in death had become a national icon in the war against the evil drug trade.
The papers would have a field day speculating as to why I would rather face prison than awkward questions. The bitter finger of suspicion would once more be levelled at me.
I could face prison, I could endure the press and the gossip, but could my family? They didn’t deserve to have to endure anything, as they had done nothing. The detectives must have sensed my anguish as they suddenly decided that we should all leave the court and get some tea sent up to another room. I laughed out loud, but I didn’t tell them why I was laughing. I was thinking of my mother. Whatever the crisis, however dire the situation, she always resorted to saying, ‘We had better make some tea.’
At 10 a.m. I was called into court. Packman looked sheepishly around the room, wanting to avoid eye contact with me. Only he and I knew the truth about what really happened at our meeting on the garage forecourt. I had nothing to lose and I genuinely hoped that he would be acquitted. Once I had been seen to fulfil my promise, neither the police nor the press could criticise me.
Old-style committals are, in effect, dress rehearsals for a Crown Court trial. The magistrates listen to the evidence and the witnesses under cross-examination and decide whether the matter should proceed to a full trial with a jury. I was in the witness box for an hour and three-quarters and at the end of it, the magistrates decided that the case would go to trial. I felt dirty leaving the court, but the police were jubilant. It was a real kick in the teeth when they actually thanked me. I couldn’t wait to get home. I wanted the events of 1995 to have some sort of closure. The police dropped me off, wished me luck and disappeared down the drive. I wondered if they would be slagging me off and laughing. Paranoid? I doubt it.
My conversion from regular defendant to prosecution witness did little or nothing for my relationship with the police – other than those connected with the Betts case that is.
For several years I had rented out a house I owned in London and a flat in Staffordshire for a bit of additional income. To be honest, it was hardly lucrative, but I kept it going so my children could have a bit of capital in the future. A young couple moved into the flat in Staffordshire but despite assurances, they didn’t appear to have any money to pay the rent. They told me they were employed; I don’t know why they lied. It would have made no difference to me if they had claimed their rent from the benefit agency or paid it to me themselves. When I contacted them about the rent, which was getting seriously in arrears, they told me they had been paid by cheque and were waiting for it to clear. Then when pressed, they said the cheque had been cancelled as they were no longer going to be paid monthly. Eventually, after receiving no money whatsoever, I went to the flat to talk to them, but nobody was there. I let myself in and found amongst the post, various letters from the DHSS regarding their claim for benefit.
It soon became apparent that they had fraudulently signed my name and entered my details to claim housing benefit for the rent. I waited for them to come home and told them they had to leave within seven days. When I went back at the end of that period, they were still there so I started to put their possessions in the street – admittedly via the upstairs window.
As I dragged the larger items outside, they locked the door and called the police. Two police officers arrived and told me I wasn’t allowed back into my own flat and if I had damaged any of the couple’s property I would be arrested. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
Amongst the letters in the flat, I had found one from a magistrates’ court stating that the man who had rented my flat had a warrant out for his arrest over non-payment of fines. Yet here were the police giving him sanctuary in my fucking flat. I told the police that whatever they said ‘these people were going today’. The officers called for back-up on the radio and within minutes five police cars came roaring down the road, blue lights flashing and sirens wailing. It was a total farce. Four officers went into the flat, two stood guard at the door and the others surrounded Debra, who had come to see what the fuss was about. The police told us that we had to prove that the flat was ours, so Debra rang our solicitor and asked him to attend in person. The solicitor arrived an hour later and confirmed to the police that we owned the flat. However, the police said that the couple in the flat still had rights. ‘You can’t just go in. You have to get a certificate from a magistrate backing your claim that the flat is yours and then show it to the squatters.’
I totally flipped. ‘Fucking squatters, fucking ponces! When you’re gone I am going to put them out and back in the gutter.’
One of the police officers grabbed my shirt and I pushed him back.
For a moment it looked as if it was all going to end in violence but one of the officers, who knew me well, stepped forward and asked everybody to calm down. ‘Bernie, we’re leaving a WPC to guard the door. Go and start the legal process. Whatever you think, you are not going to get into that flat today.’ I knew that if I remained, I would end up being arrested so I stayed at my mother’s home that evening and went to the flat the following morning. What I found was a scene of carnage.
The police had gone and the front door was ajar. All the furniture in the flat, which I owned, had been slashed with a Stanley knife. The bed had been slashed, the three-piece suite had been slashed and used tampons and excrement had been smeared
on the walls. The place was totally wrecked. The incident was reported in the Daily Mirror after a reporter who had heard about what had happened to us contacted Debra.
SQUATTERS TRASHED MY HOME AS POLICE STOOD GUARD
Squatters destroyed a mum’s flat while police guarded the front door to keep her out. The intruders ripped open furniture and daubed excrement on walls, but hairdresser Debra King was left outside in tears after police told her these people have rights. Mother of two Debra, 30, has asked the Mirror to investigate and demanded £1,000 compensation from the police. She said the money would only replace what has been destroyed, ‘the police couldn’t afford to pay for the upset this has caused me’. She said, ‘I tried to get in with my boyfriend, but five police cars pulled up and we were threatened with arrest. A policewoman was put on guard in case we harassed the intruders.
‘I called my solicitor but he could do nothing and police told me, “These people still have rights, you can’t go in.”’
Police told Debra that she could not get in without a certificate from magistrates backing the claim that the flat was hers and it would have to be shown to the squatters. But while she started the legal process, the squatters fled, shredding a three-piece suite, two double beds and curtains with a knife, and spreading excrement, urine and used tampons around. ‘I returned the next day to find it completely and utterly trashed,’ she said.
She has since discovered that there was an arrest warrant out for one of the squatters for non-payment of fines while another made false claims for Social Security benefits using her address. ‘I was warned not to intimidate or harass these squatters but no one warned them not to damage my property or do the awful things they did.
Wannabe in My Gang? Page 15
