One evening, Jimmy had gone down the town to meet his friends for a drink. When the pubs had closed, they had begun walking to a taxi rank. Jimmy, who was drunk but not incapable, had picked up a crash helmet that had been left on the seat of a motorcycle parked at the side of the road. It was a stupid, pointless act, but Jimmy was behaving as many young men do when in drink: fooling about with friends, oblivious to the upset and concern that their loutish antics may cause to others. When a taxi arrived, Jimmy got into it, still clutching the crash helmet, and asked the driver to take him home. His friends lived in other areas of Newcastle, and so they caught separate taxis.
As the driver turned into Northbourne Street, Jimmy could see that a fight involving a group of men was in progress. Rather foolishly, when Jimmy climbed out of the taxi, he tried to break the fight up, but several bystanders remonstrated with him, saying he should mind his own business. Because Jimmy was so well liked, it didn’t take long for people to come out of their houses to back him up. As Jimmy tried to pull the lads apart, he was punched in the face, and in no time at all a skirmish between half a dozen lads had turned into a full-scale battle involving between 20 and 30 people. The lad who had punched Jimmy was trying to get him into a headlock, and so, instinctively, Jimmy lashed out while still holding the crash helmet. Another of the combatants had fallen nearby, and two men were kicking his head repeatedly. Jimmy was adamant that this was the person who later died from head injuries, but the police maintained it was the guy Jimmy had struck with the crash helmet. When the two men who had repeatedly been kicking their opponent were questioned, both denied kicking anybody and both made statements alleging that it was Jimmy who had killed the victim, using a crash helmet. Unsurprisingly, Jimmy was convicted of murder and served a total of 17 years for a crime that he still maintains he did not commit.
When Tommy Findlay screeched to an abrupt halt at the rear of Paddy’s Northbourne Street home, Barry Redfern threw a survival-style knife he had on him out into the street and dashed for the gate. The pursuing police car arrived moments later, and an officer gave chase. Unfortunately for Findlay, Maureen hadn’t had time to open the garden gate, and the policeman pounced on him as he tried to climb over it. Drawing his baton, the officer began to club Findlay, and he soon fell to the floor. As reinforcements arrived, they too drew their batons and began striking Findlay, who was screaming with fear. Paddy thought it was totally unnecessary for them to hit a man who wasn’t offering resistance, and so he ran to his aid. As soon as the police left Findlay alone and focused their attention and batons on Paddy, Findlay got to his feet and ran away.
In the battle that ensued, Paddy was badly beaten and several police officers were injured. Paddy doesn’t remember too much about the fight, because he was knocked unconscious by a baton that was wrapped around the back of his head by an overzealous policeman. When a neighbour named Mickey Burke saw two police officers sitting on top of Paddy, and their colleagues striking him with batons, he ran over to assist him. Picking up a long piece of wood, Mickey struck one of the officers over the head. The wood smashed into two pieces, and the officer fell to the pavement beside Paddy. Both men were unconscious.
When Paddy awoke in the cells some hours later, he was informed that his injuries had been sustained when he had put his own head through a window at the front of the police station and that a knife had been found in his pocket. The intense beating Paddy’s head had been subjected to had obviously affected his memory, because he couldn’t recall head-butting a window or carrying a knife. A doctor who examined Paddy said that he had bruising around his head and eyes, a half-inch abrasion on his forehead and a swollen lip. He had suffered ‘severe contusions’, some of which ‘may well have been caused by truncheons’. It is, of course, possible, given the nature of Paddy’s injuries, that the police were mistaken and that he had in fact been thrown head first into the window and the knife had been planted on him. The only ‘weapon’ Paddy could recall possessing that night was his mobile phone. Surely the police, honest and true, wouldn’t fit somebody up, would they?
The following morning, Paddy was charged with wounding a police officer named John Middleton with intent to resist lawful arrest, assaulting another in the execution of his duty, criminal damage and possessing a knife. In the charge room, the desk sergeant informed Paddy’s solicitor, Peter Hedworth, that the injuries caused to PC Middleton had been inflicted by a lump of wood and not the knife that Paddy was alleged to have had in his possession. Paddy knew that such a comment was of evidential value, as he had not been accused of wielding a piece of wood, and so he asked his solicitor to ask the officer if he would confirm his last statement. Mr Hedworth did as he was asked, but the officer totally ignored him. Paddy thought that the police were being rather discourteous to his solicitor, but unbeknown to him at that time they were investigating Hedworth in connection with a million-pound mortgage and property fraud.
When Hedworth was eventually arrested and charged with these offences, he pleaded not guilty and stood trial at Doncaster Crown Court. During the proceedings, which lasted three months, a jury heard how he had ripped off clients and building societies so that he could pay for a farm in the Lake District. Despite his plea of innocence, Hedworth was found guilty, sentenced to serve six years’ imprisonment and struck off the roll of solicitors.
Had Paddy been guilty as charged and known that his legal representative was partial to breaking the law himself, he might well have asked him to assist him somehow above and beyond the call of duty. However, Paddy believed he was genuinely innocent and that justice would prevail. To add to his dismay and outrage, he was denied bail and remanded in custody to await trial.
The West End of Newcastle was incensed by the treatment Paddy had been subjected to and what they believed to be the trumped-up charges that he faced. The identity of the person who had hit the policeman with the lump of wood was the worst-kept secret in Newcastle. Everybody in the street where Paddy lived knew that he was being wrongfully accused of wounding the policeman. They believed this strongly, simply because the shouting and screaming that night had brought all his neighbours out into the street and they had witnessed the incident as it unfolded. Seventeen people attended the police station to make statements on Paddy’s behalf. One said that the police van that he was put into was ‘rocking from side to side as they kicked and beat him, despite the fact that he was already unconscious’.
The night after Paddy’s arrest, an angry mob numbering more than 70 people attacked a police station in the West End. Windows were smashed, and a barrage of bricks, bottles and thunderflashes was thrown. In the street outside the station, a line of parked police vehicles had windscreens smashed and bodywork damaged. ‘Skinny’ Gary Thompson, who lived near Paddy, was arrested and charged with no fewer than 16 counts of criminal damage. Several other locals also faced similar charges. However, the arrests failed to have the desired effect on the community: instead of deterring protests, they inflamed the situation. Cars were stolen and set alight across the entrances to strategic streets in the neighbourhood. If the police attempted to remove the vehicles, or if the fire brigade attempted to extinguish the fires, they were attacked by mobs patrolling the area. Police cars were rammed by stolen vehicles if they tried to enter certain streets, and residents used two-way radios as a means of calling up reinforcements if their defences were threatened or breached. The only true no-go area that Newcastle had ever known had been created in Paddy Conroy’s name.
While in custody, Paddy had undergone an operation to remove a cataract from his eye. Shortly afterwards, he was taken under escort from HMP Durham to see an eye specialist, but while lying on a stretcher alone in a room he had struggled to sit up and fallen on the floor. The impact of his head hitting the floor burst the stitches in his eye, and the skill the surgeon had used during the operation was now undone. When the prison officers found Paddy, he was rushed to an operating theatre, where his eye was restitched under a local anaesthetic. The
procedure was a success, but the specialist warned Paddy that his eye was now susceptible to haemorrhaging, which could result in him losing his sight. The point was stressed to Paddy and both of his escorts that he must attend the hospital every two weeks for an injection to lessen the risk of haemorrhaging.
A fortnight later, Paddy grew extremely concerned when officers failed to attend his cell in order to escort him to the hospital. Paddy demanded to be taken, but the staff members he asked claimed to know nothing about his appointment or passed the buck and sent him to see somebody else. That night, as Paddy lay in his cell, his eye haemorrhaged and tore the retina off the back of the inside of his eyeball. Unfortunately, such an injury cannot be repaired, and Paddy lost the sight in his eye. Behind his trademark patch, Paddy still has his eye, but it is a bloody mess, and so he chooses to cover it as a matter of courtesy for those he might meet.
The trouble on the streets of the West End meant that Northumbria Police had to divert much of its manpower away from regular duties, and this caused problems in other areas of the city. The authorities realised that the easiest way to resolve the civil disorder and cut their mounting costs of policing the streets was to grant Paddy bail. His solicitor was duly advised that if a bail application was made it wouldn’t be opposed. However, if Paddy did inflame the tension on the streets further by taking part in protests or inciting others to do so he would be returned to prison forthwith. Paddy was grateful to be out. The people of the West End had, as always, stood by one of their own and on this occasion forced the authorities to secure his release.
Paddy knew that his freedom was only temporary. He still had to stand trial and convince a jury that the police were mistaken and that he, Paddy Conroy, a man with a string of criminal convictions, was being honest. There were only two hopes: Bob Hope and No Hope. But regardless of the odds he intended to fight his cause until the bitter end.
Paddy appeared at Newcastle Crown Court before Judge Percy in February 1989. The prosecution alleged that he had been arrested when a car in which he had been a passenger was stopped by police after being followed through Newcastle. It was accepted that Paddy had not been driving, and none of the other people in the car had been charged with any offence. The prosecution claimed that, when the vehicle had pulled up at the rear of Paddy’s home, PC Middleton had arrested Tommy Findlay on suspicion of taking and driving the vehicle away. It was said that Paddy then grabbed PC Middleton from behind, struck him and proceeded to drag him off Findlay, who then managed to escape. Several officers claimed that during Paddy’s struggle with PC Middleton they had seen a long-bladed knife fall from his jacket or waistband. Paddy nearly fell out of the dock with laughter when it was alleged that, while handcuffed, he had launched his own head through the police station window. Unfortunately, the jurors were not laughing with him. The looks on their faces told Paddy that they believed the police and were disgusted by such behaviour. Unsurprisingly, Paddy was convicted of wounding PC Middleton, possessing an offensive weapon and criminal damage but cleared of assaulting another officer.
If the shock of being wrongly convicted wasn’t enough for Paddy, Judge Percy sentenced him to five years’ imprisonment for wounding and eighteen months for possessing a knife. The shouting and stamping of feet as the Conroy family and their friends made their disapproval known drowned out the judge’s words, and so Paddy was unable to hear what sentence he had received for the alleged kamikaze-style attack on the window with his head. After Paddy was led away to the cells to begin his sentence, his partner, Maureen, walked out of the court, whereupon Pinky, the police officer, sneered at her and said, ‘What are you going to do for money now, Maureen?’ Officers Pinky and Perky were loving every minute of Paddy’s family’s misery, and as Maureen turned away the sound of their laughter echoed through her ears.
Paddy’s family and friends had arranged to go out after the trial to celebrate his acquittal, which, with the benefit of hindsight, may have been tempting fate. But Paddy felt he was genuinely innocent, and so he hadn’t contemplated being found guilty. Nobody should ever take anything for granted in this world, especially when dealing with the police. As the prison van drove Paddy towards Durham jail, a fleet of taxis was taking his family and friends down the town. Instead of celebrating Paddy’s release, they were now going to drown their sorrows. The end result of their pub crawl that night was always going to be the same, regardless of the outcome of Paddy’s trial: the lads were going to get drunk out of their minds. They spent that evening visiting pub after pub, and when the pubs had closed they went to a nightclub called Zoot’s before later moving on to a venue called Julie’s.
At the door of this second venue stood Viv Graham, who was surrounded by a group of fellow scowling, steroid-bloated bouncers. Viv pointed out one or two of the lads and said that they were OK to go in, but he refused Paddy’s brother Michael and others entry. Put out by Viv’s blatant rebuke, Michael said to him, ‘You’re just a fucking copper.’ Viv immediately pushed his chest out and flexed his enormous muscle-bound frame, but Michael, an extremely competent boxer, wasn’t impressed or intimidated by his feather ruffling.
‘If you’re going to call me a copper, Michael, I will have to fight you,’ Viv said.
‘Well, let’s get fucking started,’ Michael replied.
Standing toe to toe, the two men exchanged a flurry of vicious blows. Every time Michael smashed Viv in the head, the bouncer dropped his guard and struggled to remain on his feet. Fearing he was going to be knocked out, Viv abandoned the use of his boxing skills, grabbed hold of Michael and began to wrestle with him. Few men could match the power of Viv Graham in such a situation, particularly if they had consumed as much alcohol as Michael had that night. Using just his sheer weight and size, Viv overpowered Michael and struck him twice in the face before leaping back into the doorway of the club. The end result of the brief encounter was that Michael suffered a broken jaw and Viv Graham had been humiliated in front of his friends.
‘No comebacks, Michael, no comebacks,’ Viv shouted out as Michael walked away. ‘It was the hardest fight I’ve ever had. Respect to you, Michael, but no comebacks.’ Clearly concerned that Michael was going to confront him when sober, Viv was doing his sorry best to smooth the situation over. Across the road, a van full of police officers had watched the fight, and Viv went over to speak to them. Turning to Michael and his friends, Viv shouted out, ‘Say goodnight to Number One, lads. Don’t worry, nobody is getting nicked over this.’ People can make their own minds up as to whether Viv was trying to impress the police by calling himself ‘Number One’ or trying to curry favour with Michael by saying that nobody would get arrested. What isn’t in doubt is the fact that Michael Conroy wasn’t the only person Viv had upset around Newcastle, and somebody somewhere was planning to have him removed.
Chapter Three
FUCK ROGER RABBIT
FOLLOWING PADDY CONROY’S conviction and imprisonment, a man nicknamed Willbow set up a ‘Justice for Paddy Conroy’ campaign and organised protest marches through the streets of Newcastle. Initially, the authorities did not take much notice, but as the numbers of those marching swelled, the chief of police called a meeting with Willbow and several others who were sympathetic to Conroy’s plight. Willbow and Mickey Burke, who had hit the police officer with a lump of wood on the night Paddy had been arrested, were chosen by his supporters to represent them at the meeting. Fortunately for the chief of police and the other officers in attendance, Mickey chose to leave his lump of wood at home. After several heated exchanges between the protestors and the police, a route for the protest marches was agreed. The organisers were asked to give an undertaking to the police that all the marchers would be law-abiding and any demonstrations that they held would be peaceful.
Michael ‘the Bull’ Bullock, who could never be accused of being a conformist, broke this agreement on the very next march. A lorry adorned with banners proclaiming Paddy’s innocence was to be driven along the agreed route, and the Bu
ll, who didn’t even possess a dog licence, never mind a driving licence, had volunteered to be behind the wheel. After just a few yards, he lost control of the large vehicle, mounted a pavement and narrowly avoided crushing a pedestrian, who fortunately managed to leap to safety. John Henry Sayers, who was one of those on the march, advised the Bull to stand down and suggested that it might be safer for everybody if he were to drive the vehicle instead. On the roof of the lorry that John Henry Sayers drove that day stood John and Geoffrey Harrison, whose family were feared throughout the West End. It’s hard to believe that members of the Harrison and Sayers families united that day to support a Conroy, because events since have soured relations between them all. The only procession they would like to see one another on now would have to be led by a hearse.
Undeterred by his lack of driving skills and keen to play an active role in guaranteeing the demonstration’s success, the Bull ‘acquired’ a 2.8-litre Granada, which he used to ferry people from around the city to the march. He was also stopping to distribute to protestors T-shirts with the slogan ‘Fuck Roger Rabbit. Who framed Paddy Conroy?’ and a cartoon rabbit emblazoned across the front and back. The T-shirts, which were snapped up by people who had not even intended to join the march, had been donated by a local businessman who said that he was ‘troubled’ by Paddy’s conviction.
A vigilant police officer noticed that the vehicle the Bull was driving was untaxed and so attempted to stop him. The Bull, fearing that the fact that he didn’t quite own the vehicle would be unearthed if he complied with the policeman’s request, raced away in the opposite direction and abandoned the vehicle near the Tyne Bridge. The Bull was aware that the march was due to cross the famous Newcastle landmark, and so he began to climb the structure, which at its highest point stands 59 metres above the mighty River Tyne.
Fog on the Tyne Page 5
