Essex Boy

by Steve 'Nipper' Ellis; Bernard O'Mahoney

  When Alvin met the probation officer appointed to write his report, he knew exactly what he was required to say in order to attract maximum credit. He was going to have to invent a story backed by fabricated evidence and say that he had acted under duress and any punishment he received for his crime would punish his innocent wife and child more than it would punish him. Alvin told the probation officer that, following the death of his good friend Dean Boshell, he had become very low and depressed.

  He claimed that he had been diagnosed as suffering from depression and his condition had become so dire he began to ‘self-medicate’ with cocaine. Initially, he only used the drug socially but after moving to the Benfleet area of Basildon, he had become increasingly involved with heavy cocaine users. This had resulted in Alvin’s habit spiralling out of control, to the point where he was using up to £250 worth of the drug a week. Alvin said that he was able to conceal his drug dependency from his wife but when refurbishments were required at his home he had secured a £10,000 loan from drug dealers that he associated with, and a further £5,000 from them at a later date.

  At first, there were no problems with the arrangement but Alvin said that as his drug habit escalated he fell behind with the repayments, and relations between him and his creditors began to sour. In December 2002, matters came to a head when Alvin was confronted by a number of men from this gang, who demanded their money back. Alvin asked them for more time to pay but the men refused to listen. Alvin said that he was stabbed in the leg and then beaten with a hammer. As he lay on the floor bleeding, he was told that if he did not pay or somehow work the debt off, future attacks would involve not only him being hurt, but also members of his family. As he told the shocked probation officer his story Alvin struggled to keep his composure. He said that he had initially refused to comply with the gang’s requests, but when they threatened him and demanded the full amount, he reluctantly agreed to work off some of the debt by making a delivery of cocaine. It was while transporting a kilo of cocaine from Leigh-on-Sea to Canvey Island, on behalf of the gang, that Alvin had been arrested.

  While in prison, Alvin said that his wife had been accosted by gang members and forced to withdraw £20,000 from their savings in order to repay the debt. Despite handing over this money, his wife had continued to receive menacing phone calls and death threats. These included a funeral wreath being delivered to her address with a card that read, ‘With Deepest Sympathy for You. Tell him to keep his trap shut or these will be yours. May it help you to remember that friends are always there.’ In a note posted through her letterbox, which had been made using letters cut from a newspaper, the gang had warned, ‘We want our fucking money. Sort it, or we will sort you.’

  Alvin claimed that these threats against his family were intended to dissuade him from giving information to the police about the gang. That was why he had refused to answer police questions when he had been arrested.

  After hearing Alvin’s tale of woe, the well-meaning probation officer wrote in his presentence report: ‘Given the circumstances surrounding this offence and further information provided within this report, if the court feels that only a custodial sentence can be justified, I would ask that any term of imprisonment imposed be as short as possible in order to limit further pressure upon Mr Alvin’s family, who have already suffered significantly as a result of this offence.’

  Knowing the importance of shoring up a bullshit story with factual evidence, Alvin produced a medical certificate to ‘prove’ that he had been stabbed and beaten by the loan sharks he owed money to. This certificate stated that he had attended a doctor’s surgery around Christmas 2002 suffering from cuts to his hands and leg. These were, the document said, ‘allegedly caused by a knife’. Alvin’s wife had already reported the death threats, letters and funeral wreath she had received to the police. It’s unlikely that any judge would have doubted the authenticity of Alvin’s dreadful plight at the hands of such an evil drug gang.

  On 10 July 2003, Alvin appeared at Basildon Crown Court for sentencing. When asked by the judge if he had anything to say in mitigation, Alvin acknowledged that he was aware that the only sentencing option available to the judge for such a serious offence was a custodial sentence. However, he begged the judge to consider how much he had changed in the past few years of his life.

  ‘My past offending is shameful,’ he said, ‘and I’m far from proud of my previous convictions, but I have changed in the past few years. I have got married to a wonderful caring woman and together we have bought a house. We have a baby and have another on the way. I started my own business three years ago, which has been steadily growing and I normally employ up to six people. I know the offence I committed was both stupid and irresponsible and I have no one else to blame but myself. I know this is no excuse but I got myself into a position I didn’t know how to get out of. I now realise I could have, and should have, done things differently. I am now clean from drugs and receiving help with the depression caused by the murder of my friend [Boshell], which led to my habit. I have helped the police to the best of my ability with everything I know. I ask you for one last chance and for you to consider giving me a shorter term of imprisonment. When I’m released, I want to show that I can live a normal, law-abiding life and continue with my business.’

  There wasn’t a dry eye in the courtroom by the time Alvin had finished delivering his emotionally charged speech. But the ‘Damon Alvin Sympathy Show’ was not over just yet. Pregnant and dabbing at her eyes with a tissue, his wife Clair listened intently as a letter she had written as an encore to her husband’s performance was read out on his behalf.

  ‘I am living between my own home and my parents’ house,’ Clair had written, ‘because I am scared to be at home alone with my son, due to the threats that I have been receiving. I have had an alarm and panic button installed but I still feel unsafe. I have lost my husband, who I love and miss very dearly. We have never been apart before and I’m finding it hard to cope. We are a very close couple and although I don’t condone what Damon has done, I do feel that I now understand the reasons why he did it. Both myself and my young son are still suffering as Damon is away from us, and we are still living with the threat that he tried to resolve.’

  Taking into account the circumstances that supposedly led to Alvin being forced to courier drugs and the fact that he had been ‘beaten, stabbed and his family left traumatised’, the judge sentenced Alvin to thirty months’ imprisonment, instead of the six years that he had been told to expect.

  A confiscation order was also made against him for the £31,420 that had been found in his washing machine and a further £18,000 was seized out of his savings. Justice, it would appear, had prevailed. Damon Alvin had broken the law and Damon Alvin had been made to pay. Proof, if any were ever needed, that there is no correlation between morality and legality. Neither is there any correlation between justice and ‘the law’.

  Eight brief months after being sentenced to serve two and a half years, Damon Alvin was released from prison on the condition that he agree to wear an electronic tag for a period of four months. These tags are tuned into an electronic box in the offender’s home, which sends a warning signal to the police if the person is not within a certain distance of it at designated times. The idea is that, rather than have low-risk inmates inhabiting prison cells that could be used to house more dangerous criminals, they can be tagged and effectively put under house arrest. This allows them to work during the day, but prevents them from roaming the streets at night. After three long, seemingly inactive years, the Boshell murder investigation appeared to be going nowhere. That was until 2004, when the Labour Government announced that they were going to introduce new legislation.

  The then Home Secretary, David Blunkett, said that a new strategy to tackle organised crime was needed and this would include a revamp of the supergrass system. Blunkett said that his proposals were aimed at getting a grip on gangs who controlled drug running, people smuggling, prostitution and financial
rackets.

  ‘Criminals who “turn Queen’s evidence” could win immunity from prosecution, or have their sentence cut by more than two-thirds if they shop their gang bosses,’ he said. ‘Existing criminals who “turn Queen’s evidence” already have their sentences reduced and are often given new identities, but this will be the first time that this approach has been formalised in an Act of Parliament.’

  Nobody knows if Essex police already had a strategy for the Boshell case simmering on some back burner, or if news of this new legislation prompted officers to think again. Coincidentally, or otherwise, the police decided to rearrest Damon Alvin. At 0400 hrs on the very morning that Alvin was due to have his electronic tag removed, the police stormed his house and took him into custody for the murder of Dean Boshell. At the same time, Kevin Walsh and Kate Griffiths were arrested for allegedly conspiring to pervert the course of justice. Ricky Percival’s address was also raided but he was not home at the time.

  Alvin was taken to Harlow police station for questioning, but on the advice of his legal representative he made no comment when interviewed. He did, however, produce a written statement. Alvin said that he had met Boshell in Chelmsford prison and they had become friends. He said that he had liked Boshell and had had no reason to fall out with him and certainly no reason to want to kill him.

  Alvin vehemently denied planning to go on any sort of burglary with Boshell at the time of the murder, adding, ‘If I was doing something really serious like that, I would not have relied on Dean.’

  In an effort to appear helpful, Alvin offered the interviewing officers a second possible motive for the murder. He said that Boshell might have been involved in gun running and drug dealing with immigrants in the Southend area.

  ‘I simply do not know who killed Dean,’ he said. ‘When I was taken out of prison to Gravesend police station, the officers told me that they knew that I had nothing to do with the murder. They said that they believed it was Ricky Percival who was responsible for the killing. They offered me all sorts of deals, which I refused. I said I did not know anything about Dean’s death and so was unable, even if I had wanted to, to do a deal with the police and implicate Ricky. I have heard various rumours about Percival’s involvement in criminal matters. I know nothing of these matters and believe that many of these rumours have been put about by the police. Further, I believe that I have only been charged to put pressure upon me to give the police information about Percival’s possible involvement in Boshell’s murder. Unfortunately, I do not know anything.’

  At the end of the interview, Alvin was bailed to reappear at the police station in two months’ time pending further inquiries. Walsh and Griffiths were interviewed at separate police stations and both reiterated the accounts that they had given previously, concerning the night Boshell had died. The police had formed the opinion that the couple had either been coerced or threatened by Percival, Alvin or both men to give them an alibi for the time that Boshell had been shot.

  The unofficial time of Boshell’s death had been calculated by the police after considering the time Boshell had been seen leaving Southend and the second statement of Gordon Osborne, who claimed that he had heard two or three shots coming from the allotments between 2300 hrs and 2330 hrs. Boshell had not been seen alive again after leaving Southend. He had been shot three times and, according to the police, nobody other than the gunman knew this. Osborne, therefore, must have been telling the truth when he said he heard that number of shots being fired between 2300 hrs and 2330 hrs.

  Convinced that Alvin, Percival or both were responsible, the police were left in no doubt that Griffiths and Walsh must, therefore, be lying. They had to be, because they had both said that Alvin and Percival were in their flat at the time the police claimed Boshell had been murdered. Kate Griffiths, a hard-working young woman of good character, was seen by the police as the weakest link in the alleged plot to provide Boshell’s killers with an alibi, and so she was subjected to intense questioning over two days. Laughing nervously when they accused her of lying during her numerous interviews, Griffiths insisted that she was telling the truth.

  Kevin Walsh was undergoing a similar interrogation to Kate Griffiths. He, too, was insisting that he was innocent, but the police officers interviewing him were far from convinced. After two days of relentless questioning, Griffiths and Walsh were bailed to reappear at a police station pending further inquiries. Shortly after the arrests of his three friends, Percival had handed himself in at a police station and was arrested for the murder of Dean Boshell. Later the same day, after giving a no-comment interview on the advice of his solicitor, he too was bailed to return to the police station at a later date.

  On 21 October 2004, all four suspects attended Harlow police station where Alvin was formerly charged with the murder of Dean Boshell and Percival, Griffiths and Walsh were charged with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. Later that afternoon, they appeared in court, Griffiths and Walsh were released on bail to await trial but Percival and Alvin were remanded in custody to my old address, HMP Chelmsford.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  *

  On 2 September 2005, just ten days before Alvin’s trial was due to begin, DC Sharp was dispatched to take a more detailed statement from Gordon Osborne. The police were desperate to firm up their theory that the telephone call made at 2348 hrs to Alvin’s then-girlfriend, from the payphone near the allotments, was relevant to Osborne’s recollection of hearing a gunshot or, as he later said, ‘gunshots’, between 2300 hrs and 2330 hrs. The police believed that Alvin had murdered Boshell at around 2330 hrs and then walked to the telephone box, which was described as ‘a stone’s throw away’, to ring his partner Clair for a lift home. Rather naively, the police had never considered the possibility that it may have been Boshell who made the call, which is why Clair had initially refused to sign her statement.

  Since the murder, Osborne had left the UK for Spain, where he had set up his own bar and restaurant. When DC Sharp travelled to Spain to meet Osborne, Osborne explained that he had emigrated because he was ‘fed up of life in England’, so much so in fact, he said, that he was never going to return there. Osborne said that he and his family were settled where they were and, in any event, the weather was far better in Spain than in Essex. DC Sharp noted that during their conversation Osborne appeared relaxed; he spoke freely about his business, his plans for the property he was living in and the quality of life that he was enjoying. However, the mood changed when DC Sharp explained that the contact numbers Osborne had given to the police were no longer in use and the address he had provided was incorrect.

  ‘Locating your whereabouts,’ DC Sharp said, ‘has not been easy.’

  Osborne explained that he was not trying to avoid the police, he had merely lost his phone and he had only recently realised what his actual address was.

  I have never heard of an adult not knowing his or her home address, but Osborne’s explanation was accepted by the officer without further comment. DC Sharp asked Osborne if he would be willing to return to England to attend court and give crucial evidence about the gunshots he claimed to have heard, but Osborne was emphatic when he said ‘no’ and assured DC Sharp that he would never change his mind because he feared those who had been charged in connection with the murder. That is ‘the official police line’ in any event, but many would argue that Osborne didn’t want to return to England because he knew that there was an outstanding warrant for his arrest in relation to an indecent assault, which might result in him swapping his good life in Spain for an English prison cell.

  We are asked to believe that, although disheartened, DC Sharp refused to concede defeat and asked Osborne to make another statement, which he would submit to the prosecution, in the hope it could be read out at the trial in his absence. DC Sharp knew that if a judge was made aware that Osborne feared for his safety, then this method of including his evidence might be ruled as acceptable. Osborne agreed and, despite it being four and a half years since t
he night Boshell died, he managed to recall even more details than in his previous statements.

  ‘Dealing first with the house-to-house inquiry form,’ he said, ‘I recall the details I gave were recorded by a detective who called at my door. I will admit that, at the time, I didn’t really think about the answers I gave to the officer and I was quite vague about what I said. However, by the time an officer called to take a full statement from me, I had given it more thought. In this statement I said that I went to bed at about 2100 hrs on the night in question. This was probably earlier than the usual time I go, but I’d had a hard day at work. My bedroom was at the rear of the house. I would always have one of the bedroom windows open; the curtains would also have been open because they were never closed. Occasionally I would read in bed, sometimes I would just drift off to sleep. On the night in question, I can’t recall what I did or how long I was awake before I went to sleep.

  ‘I woke up at about 2300 hrs that same evening; I’d heard two or three shots coming from the allotment. I can’t be more specific about the time now, but I had a digital alarm clock by the bed, which I did look at. I immediately recognised the sounds as coming from a handgun; this type of weapon has a distinctive sound, totally different from a shotgun or rifle. I have had experience of firearms since I was 11 years of age, when I shot rifles with the Sea Cadets. I remained in the cadets until the age of 16. At the age of 17, I joined the Royal Marines, staying with them for 18 months. During my time with the Marines, I was trained on the Browning 9mm semi-automatic pistol, self-loading rifles, Lee Enfield rifles, American M16 rifles, German Mausers and Lugers. Since leaving the Marines, I have not had any dealings with firearms but, like riding a bike, you never forget what you’ve learned and the sound each weapon makes. I can’t say how far away these shots were. All I can say is that the sounds definitely came from the back of my house.