Fog on the Tyne

by Bernard O'Mahoney

  The senior officer Harry Perry had called straight after the shooting rang Paddy one day and said that he would like to talk to him face to face. Wary but equally curious as to why a policeman would wish to speak to him, Paddy declined the offer of a meeting but agreed to listen to anything that he had to say. ‘It’s like this, Paddy,’ the policeman said. ‘If your brother’s death was an accident, we need the gun to prove that fact. Today is Friday. If we are given the weapon today, for instance, it could be tested by the ballistic guys by Monday or Tuesday. Your friend Bullock is back in court on Thursday, and so he could have the murder charge dropped if he is telling the truth. If he has done no wrong, he has nothing to fear.’

  As soon as the officer had finished talking, Paddy replied, ‘I will see what I can do.’ Paddy then hung up the telephone before the officer had a chance to continue the conversation.

  It didn’t take Paddy long to locate Harry Perry, and when he found himself sitting face to face with him it was hard to contain his anger. Perry began warbling on about how sorry he was, but Paddy made it blatantly obvious to him that he wasn’t interested in how he felt. Paddy told Perry that the only thing he wanted from him was the gun, adding, ‘Not next week, not tomorrow, but today.’

  A few hours later, Paddy received a call requesting that he drive to a certain car park and wait. Sitting alone, Paddy watched intently as a vehicle circled the perimeter before pulling up alongside him. The driver’s window opened and a shoebox wrapped in newspaper was thrust towards Paddy. He grabbed the parcel and threw it onto the passenger seat before driving to his local pub, the Grainger.

  Once there, Paddy asked two local lads to take the box, put it in a bin cupboard at a nearby house and then ring the police to tell them it was there. Sitting in the bar of the Grainger, Paddy watched through the window as the two lads did as he asked. Paddy was expecting a police car to pull up, check the cupboard, find the parcel and drive away, so one can imagine his shock when the bomb disposal squad arrived and cordoned off the street. After two or three hours, they established that the parcel was not an explosive device. It was then removed from the bin cupboard, and the gun was later identified as the one that had taken Neil’s life.

  The Bull’s relief at being released from custody and having the murder charge dropped was short-lived, as the gun turned out to have been stolen. Both he and Harry Perry were arrested and taken to the police station. As usual, the Bull refused to answer police questions, but Harry Perry requested to speak to his friend the senior police officer. It’s not known what was said, but neither man was charged, and after three weeks the police informed them both that the matter was now closed. The death of Neil Conroy had a devastating effect on all of his family, but the Bull in particular suffered badly. To this day, a part of him has never fully recovered from what happened that terrible night.

  The Harrisons were a large, powerful family who struck fear into the hearts of many in the West End of Newcastle. Their notoriety was such that investigative journalist Roger Cook dedicated an entire episode of his television series The Cook Report to their tyranny and drug-dealing activities. There were eight brothers, ranging in age from their early teens to their late twenties. They lived in a block of flats that became known locally as ‘Fort Harrison’. If a stranger dared to approach the premises, it was more than likely that a gun would be aimed at them from one of the upstairs windows, which were always manned.

  A man in his early twenties named Darren Vent became embroiled in a dispute with a member of the Harrison family, and in an effort to resolve the issue the two men agreed to have a straightener. When the pair fought, Vent soon got the better of Harrison and began beating him to a pulp. That was until an onlooker passed Harrison a knife, which he plunged into his opponent. Vent was not seriously injured, nor was he defeated. As he was helped away from the scene of the fight by friends, Vent vowed to take on Harrison again just as soon as he had recovered from his gaping stab injury. When Vent was once more fighting fit, he not only beat Harrison badly with his fists but also stabbed him in revenge for the knife wound that he had suffered.

  The Conroys were unaware of the trouble between Vent and Harrison until one night when Paddy was in the Grainger pub having a drink. Paddy heard sirens approaching, and moments later the interior of the bar was illuminated by blue flashing lights as a fire engine flashed past in the road outside. In the West End, there were no strangers, and so anything that affected one family had an effect on them all. Paddy was concerned, therefore, when the fire engine braked and turned into the road next to his home. Somebody close to Paddy was clearly in need. Turning to the Bull, Paddy said, ‘Go and find out what that’s all about.’

  Shortly afterwards, Paddy was told that the Harrisons had petrol bombed a flat belonging to a girl named Debbie Cronin. As the flames engulfed the front door and threatened to cut off Cronin’s escape route, she had grabbed her daughter from a blazing bedroom and run through the inferno. Cronin suffered terrible burns to her arms, but fortunately her child escaped unscathed. Word soon spread around the West End that Cronin was in a relationship with Vent and that this cowardly attack on a woman and her child was allegedly in retaliation for him stabbing Harrison. Paddy couldn’t have cared less if they had shot, stabbed or crucified Vent, but he failed to see how the Harrisons could justify petrol bombing the home of a young mother and her daughter. It’s fair to say that he and many others were absolutely disgusted and incensed by the Harrisons’ behaviour.

  A few weeks later, the Harrisons’ father, Duncan, and two of his sons entered the Hydraulic Crane. The moment Paddy set eyes on them, he walked over and sat down at their table. ‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing petrol bombing women and children?’ Paddy said. ‘You’re so fucking out of order.’ Maybe Paddy was being naive, because he was expecting an answer, but in retrospect how could any man defend such a cowardly and despicable act? Quite rightly ashamed, the Harrisons slunk out of the pub without even finishing their drinks.

  Before the situation could escalate between Vent and the Harrisons, Vent was permanently removed from the situation by his own actions. He and another man, Lee Cockburn, had visited the home of a drug dealer named Michael McHugh. Both men felt that they had justified grievances with McHugh. Vent thought that McHugh had insulted a female friend of his, and Cockburn believed that he had been ripped off in a drug deal. In the violent fracas that followed, McHugh was stabbed. He died of his injuries shortly afterwards. Both Vent and Cockburn were convicted of murder and sentenced to serve life imprisonment.

  The weekend after Paddy had spoken to the Harrisons in the Hydraulic Crane, his nephews were enjoying an evening out with their friends at a pub called the Hawthorns. The Harrison boys swaggered in, saw members of the Conroy family and immediately attacked them. Petrol bombing women and children is foolish, but attacking a Conroy for no reason at all is fucking suicidal. Paddy’s eldest brother, Lenny, went in search of the Harrisons as soon as he heard what had happened to his sons and beat them all around the car park of a pub. Fearing a tit-for-tat war was about to break out between the Conroy and Harrison families, Duncan Harrison contacted Paddy and said that any issues should be resolved by having a straightener. ‘Lenny can fight one of my sons,’ Duncan said. ‘And one of Lenny’s sons can fight another of my sons around the same age.’

  The Conroys have never walked away from any man or gang, and so Duncan Harrison’s offer was readily accepted. When the day of the proposed fight arrived, the Harrisons appeared to have backed down, because they replaced one of their men with a man named Paddy Summerville, who was going to fight Lenny, and their other fighter failed to materialise. Despite Lenny’s opponent being a big, fit man and Lenny being older and certainly past his best, he still accepted Summerville’s challenge. The venue for the fight was the car park of the local Presto store, which adjoined Lenny’s home. It was agreed that only two people could be present during the fight, which would prevent others from getting involved and things get
ting out of hand, and so Paddy and Duncan Harrison volunteered.

  Nothing can be taken away from Paddy Summerville. He knocked Lenny Conroy over as soon as the fight started. As Lenny fell to the floor, Summerville began kicking him, even though Lenny had made it clear that he had accepted defeat. There was no way that Paddy was going to stand by and watch his own flesh and blood be kicked to a pulp, and so he grabbed Summerville by the hair and began pounding his face with his fists. Four members of the Harrison family came running from nearby bushes, where they had been hiding, wielding bricks, sticks and a cricket bat. Despite being greatly outnumbered, Paddy stood his ground until eventually the Harrisons backed off and then ran away. Paddy had suffered a few cuts and bruises, but apart from a deep gash in his mouth, where he had been hit by a brick, he was OK. Lenny remained motionless, curled up on the floor. ‘Come on Lenny,’ Paddy said. ‘Let’s get cleaned up. This doesn’t end here.’

  Paddy walked with Lenny to his home, and once his brother was safely inside Paddy made his way to the local hospital, where he had five stitches to his mouth. Paddy’s wounds were relatively minor, but the damage to the Conroy family pride was considered to be major. When Paddy arrived home, the only thing he could think about was the best way of hitting back at the Harrisons.

  Before Paddy had a chance to wreak his revenge, the Harrisons struck again. The Bull was filling his car up at a garage when three of their gang pulled up alongside him on the forecourt in a van. They knew the Bull was a Conroy in everything but name, and so one of the Harrisons pulled out an Irish shillelagh, crept up behind him and brought the hammer-like weapon crashing down onto his head. Until this incident, Paddy had been unaware of the Bull’s interest in American sports, but it just so happened that a heavy baseball bat that he had recently purchased was still in his car. Staggering back towards his vehicle in order to retrieve the bat, the Bull saw that the other two Harrisons were armed with bottles and blocking his route. In desperation, the Bull picked up sections of a stack of metal shelves that were displaying fancy goods and began hurling them at his attackers. The Bull in a rage and swinging a weapon in your direction is not a pretty sight to behold, and so, rather wisely, the Harrisons ran back to their van, jumped in and sped away.

  Pauline Patton, one of the Bull’s cousins, was at that time living with Trevor Harrison, one of the three men who had attacked him at the garage. The Bull ‘retired’ his new baseball bat, because he deemed it unsuitable for the task ahead, and instead acquired a samurai sword. He then asked his cousin Pauline to arrange a ‘meeting’ for him with the Harrison brothers. When the time and location had been agreed by both parties, the Bull arrived in a taxi with his samurai sword lying across the back seat. ‘Give me two minutes,’ he told the driver. ‘I just have to pop in and see my cousin.’ When Trevor Harrison answered the door, the Bull hit him with a barrage of questions: ‘What the fuck was all that about? Your problem is with Paddy and Lenny. It has nothing to do with me. Why was I attacked by a group of you? Aren’t you man enough to take me on alone?’ Unable to offer any sort of rational explanation, Trevor Harrison told the Bull to fuck off or he would sort him out. Laughing sarcastically, the Bull informed Harrison that he wasn’t going anywhere and so he had better carry out his threat. Harrison walked out of his house and into the street, where he and the Bull began to fight.

  The Bull lived only a stone’s throw from his cousin Pauline’s home. It was important to him, therefore, to resolve any issue that the Harrisons might have had with him. The last thing he wanted was to walk home every night looking over his shoulder. As soon as the Bull started to get the better of Trevor Harrison, a transit van sped into the street and screeched to a halt. The side door flew open, and the Harrison gang spilt out onto the street like a pack of rabid dogs. Brave but not stupid, the Bull considered running to the taxi to retrieve his sword, but after glancing at just how far away it was he ran for his life in the opposite direction. Fearing he would be caught by the Harrisons, the Bull decided to seek refuge in his own flat.

  As he sprinted down the street at the speed of an Olympic athlete, the Bull could see his stepson standing outside his home, and so he called out to him to open the security door. The boy ran and began shouting into the intercom for his mother, Margaret, to operate the door-release button. By now, the Bull had reached a gate that led into the flats, but as he tried to climb over it he was hacked across the back of his neck and shoulder with a sword. Doctors have since said that had his assailant struck him cleanly across the neck instead of catching his shoulder he would have been beheaded. Falling to the pavement with blood gushing out of a gaping open wound, the Bull saw to his horror that the Harrisons were not quite finished with him just yet. ‘Kill the fucking pig bastard! Kill the fucking pig bastard!’ Duncan Harrison shouted. As his sons dutifully attempted to carry out their father’s command, others loyal to the Harrisons kicked and hacked at the Bull with a variety of weapons.

  One person who witnessed the attack later told the police that the Bull’s attackers looked like wild animals engaged in a feeding frenzy. As the violence continued, the sword was thrust firmly into the left side of the Bull’s chest, just a quarter of an inch from his heart. The tip of the blade poked precariously out of his back. Instinctively, the Bull gripped the sword with both hands to prevent the weapon being used against him again, but his assailants were equally determined to achieve their aim. Deep lacerations appeared in the Bull’s hands as he fought to keep control of the sword. He knew that if he dared to let go it would cost him his life. ‘I’m done. I’m done,’ he called out. ‘What more do you fuckers want?’ The Bull was unable to protect himself, because his hands were gripping the sword, but the Harrisons replied to his pleas for mercy by repeatedly smashing him in the face.

  A woman who unwittingly happened upon the slaughter as she left the flats began screaming hysterically, and this brought a degree of sanity back to the bloodthirsty mob. The attack stopped, and the Harrisons gathered up their weapons and ran back to their van. Getting to his feet, the Bull managed to pull the sword out of his body before staggering into the safety of the flats. ‘I am OK. I am OK,’ the Bull mumbled before collapsing in a pool of his own blood. The Bull’s partner, Margaret, had witnessed what had happened and had called for an ambulance before the attack had finished. By the time she had run down the stairs and begun to comfort the Bull, the ambulance had arrived. She begged the Bull to allow her to accompany him to the hospital, but he was having none of it. ‘You stay here and look after the kids. I can look after myself,’ he said.

  The Bull didn’t know it at the time, but the sword had punctured his lung and he was losing a life-threatening amount of blood. As the Bull started to lose consciousness, Margaret began to scream and the paramedic kept saying, ‘Stay awake, lad, or you might never wake up.’ As the ambulance disappeared up the street with its blue lights flashing and sirens wailing, Margaret sank to her knees and sobbed her heart out. As soon as Paddy heard about the attack, he began to plan a bloody reprisal. There was no way back for the Harrisons now. The Conroys were going to hit back and hit back fucking hard.

  David Glover junior, who as a child had terrorised the West End of Newcastle, had his own chew (trouble) with the Harrison family at this time. It wasn’t surprising, therefore, when he turned up at the hospital to visit the Bull and ask if there was anything that he could do. The Conroys were not involved with Glover at that time, and they certainly did not trust him, because he was quite an unpredictable person. Glover had been in secure homes since the age of nine for committing robberies and attacking other children. On his 15th birthday, he had graduated to a young offenders institute, from which he had managed to escape no fewer than 15 times. Paddy had lived with Glover in the past – Paddy’s partner, Maureen, was Glover’s aunt – and so he was practically family, but his sudden interest in the Conroys’ problems with the Harrisons did set alarm bells ringing. Everything about Glover appeared to spell trouble.

  When G
lover’s father, David Glover senior, had been serving a seven-year prison sentence for his part in a conspiracy to supply £180,000 worth of cannabis, he had almost managed to get Paddy locked up. Long-term prisoners are allowed to ‘accumulate visits’ if they are serving a sentence in a jail that causes hardship for their loved ones to get to. Instead of their families trekking the length and breadth of Britain once a month for a one-hour visit, the inmate can save up six or seven visits and then get transferred to a local jail for a week so that all the visits can take place on consecutive days.

  David Glover senior was serving his sentence in HMP Acklington, in Northumberland, and had successfully applied to have a series of accumulated visits at HMP Frankland, in County Durham. Two guards and a driver were assigned to get Glover safely to his destination, but on the way he somehow talked them into stopping off in Newcastle for some lunch. Paddy had to look two or three times before he was sure who it actually was when Glover and the three prison officers walked into the Hydraulic Crane.

  Moments later, David Glover junior walked into the pub, ‘quite by chance’, and joined them. Fearing the local constabulary might pop their heads around the door to check on his clientele, Paddy chaperoned Glover’s party into a discreet corner and sent them over complimentary food and drink. After half an hour or so, David Glover junior slipped out of the pub. He was later arrested for an armed robbery that had been commmitted just down the street. When he was questioned about his whereabouts at the time the robbery took place, Glover junior told detectives that he had been in Paddy’s pub with his father.