Fog on the Tyne

by Bernard O'Mahoney

  Glover remained in solitary confinement until 14 February, when he once more agreed to wear prison clothing and behave. At lunchtime that day, Glover spoke to Senior Officer Underwood and informed him that he knew the whereabouts of a firearm that had been smuggled into HMP Holme House, in Stockton, on Teesside. The officer listened to Glover’s story for an hour and a half, and at the end of it he concluded that the information appeared to be ‘unfounded’. Two nights later, the same officer once more spoke to Glover, whom he described as being in a distressed state. Glover explained that he was missing his family in the north-east and was willing to write a letter detailing his involvement in numerous crimes if the authorities would move him nearer home. SO Underwood explained to Glover that he was not in a position to do deals and that if he felt like unburdening himself of his previous criminal activities then the police could be notified if he so wished. The officer then continued on his rounds.

  Glover did write a letter, in which he claimed that Paddy Conroy and others had been involved in the attack on Brian ‘the Taxman’ Cockerill. He also claimed that members of the Conroy family had shot members of the Harrison family and that Paddy was guilty of the kidnap and torture of Collier. Glover, of course, played down his role in any wrongdoing. He said that he had been present on the day Collier was attacked only because his mother is Paddy’s sister-in-law and he had wanted to back Paddy up. Rather bizarrely, Glover alleged that Cockerill had been attacked because of trouble the Conroys were having with the Sayers family at that time. According to Glover, Cockerill was a ‘Sayers man’.

  A few days after writing this fictitious nonsense, Glover, like his predecessor Judas Iscariot, decided to take his own life. Glover attempted to cut his throat and wrists, but prison officers managed to intervene before he caused himself any serious harm. In order to protect Glover from himself, prison officers placed him in a body belt, which is a thick leather device that fits around the waist and has handcuff attachments at either side. The person wearing the belt can stand upright and walk, but his hands are effectively fixed to his waist, and so any attempt to harm himself or others is futile. Because Glover had attempted to commit suicide, he was transferred to the prison’s hospital wing for observation. Staff were clearly concerned about his mental health, but they were not the only ones.

  Glover’s state of mind was of great concern to many beyond the prison walls. He was clearly getting desperate, and whenever he got desperate he was prone to inventing stories about those closest to him in order to improve his own situation. HMP Winson Green is just a four-hour drive from Newcastle, but for Glover and his family he might as well have been incarcerated in Birmingham, Alabama. With the family breadwinner in jail and young children to care for, Glover’s partner was unable to afford to visit him. This caused Glover untold distress, and his broken heart brought out the worst in him.

  Glover informed Northumbria Police that the Conroys were using the Happy House to cultivate cannabis and that he knew the house that the gunmen had fled to after murdering Viv Graham. According to Glover, this was a safe house that had once been owned by the father of a man named Stephen Craven. The property, a bungalow, had been empty and put on the market following a campaign of hostility towards the family after Stephen Craven was convicted of the murder of a girl named Penny Laing.

  On Christmas Eve 1989, 28-year-old Craven had been at the Studio nightclub in Newcastle. Nineteen-year-old Penny had been walking across the dance floor when Craven had made a remark that she considered to be inappropriate. Penny had slapped Craven across the face, and he had responded by smashing a glass on her neck, which severed her jugular vein. Penny’s boyfriend attacked Craven, and in the chaos that ensued Craven made good his escape. The following day, Craven attended hospital for treatment to a cut on his finger and then flew to New York, where he remained for three days. Upon his return, he was arrested, charged and eventually convicted of Penny’s murder. Craven was sentenced to life imprisonment but released after just seven years.

  Glover claimed that Viv’s killers or their co-conspirators were aware that Craven’s family had vacated the bungalow and so they had obtained the keys from an estate agent on the pretext of viewing the property. They had then had a spare set of keys cut before returning the originals. Having secured a base from which to work, the men then set about putting their grisly plan into action.

  In exchange for detailed information about the Conroys’ alleged cannabis farm and Viv Graham’s killers, Glover asked the authorities if he could be moved to Strangeways Prison, in Manchester, which would make visiting easier for his wife.

  The police knew that Glover’s allegation concerning the Happy House cannabis farm was false and based on spite rather than fact, because they had almost taken the property apart in their search for guns following the shooting of the Harrisons. However, the unsolved murder of Viv Graham has posed more questions on Tyneside than who shot JFK, and so Glover’s information was not something that the police were prepared to ignore.

  At 11 a.m. on Wednesday, 22 February 1995, a DC Trotter and a colleague named DC Bower travelled to Birmingham in order to speak to Glover. With them, the officers had brought a video recording of houses in Sackville Road, Heaton. Glover was going to be shown the video, and he was then to be asked to point out which house Viv’s killers had gone to after the shooting. After arriving at the prison for the visit, the police officers were told that they would not be able to see Glover, because he had been disruptive that morning. Because they had travelled so far, it was suggested that they return after lunch, when, it was hoped, he would have calmed down.

  At 1.30 p.m., the officers were taken to a room within the prison complex, and Glover entered shortly afterwards, surrounded by a number of officers, the wing governor and the security chief. Glover was wearing a body belt and was ushered to sit down at a table. After introducing themselves to Glover, the police officers explained the purpose of their visit, and Glover agreed to view the video. Appearing to stare intently at the screen, Glover said that he recognised the row of bungalows but couldn’t say for sure which one the killers had sought refuge in. The police officers asked Glover how he knew for sure that those responsible for murdering Viv Graham had gone into one of the bungalows. Glover’s reply shocked everybody in the room. ‘I drove the getaway car,’ he said in a matter-of-fact way.

  Barely able to contain his excitement, one of the officers said, ‘What exactly do you mean by that?’

  Glover replied, ‘I drove the getaway car after the shooting.’

  At this point, the wing governor asked the police officers if all his staff needed to be present, and it was agreed that the only persons to remain would be the police and the chief security officer. Glover was then cautioned and asked who had shot Viv Graham. ‘Michael Sayers,’ he replied. ‘Michael Sayers shot Viv Graham.’ Glover claimed that on the morning of the murder he and Sayers had travelled to Birtley, near Chester-le-Street, and stolen an old blue Ford Escort from a car park near the swimming baths. Glover said that he had managed to get into the car by ‘jiggling the locks’. From Birtley, they had driven approximately eight miles to Heaton, where they parked ‘somewhere in Sackville Road’. According to Glover, they had then parted company until later that day, when he picked up Sayers after retrieving the stolen vehicle. Glover said that they then scoured the streets looking for Viv’s distinctive Ford Cosworth.

  Sayers, according to Glover, had told him that he was going to shoot Viv in the legs in retaliation for some ongoing dispute during which Sayers had been assaulted. Unable to locate their intended target, Glover and Sayers had driven to Viv’s home, but his car was nowhere to be seen. It was common knowledge that Viv frequented the bars in Wallsend High Street, and so they decided to search for him there. The duo soon discovered Viv’s blue Cosworth parked in a side street near the Queen’s Head Hotel. Glover told the police that he parked the stolen Escort he was driving in a back lane that had a view of the rear of Viv’s car. Sayers is t
hen said to have walked over to the vehicle and smashed the driver’s window. The hazard lights came on, and Glover said that he assumed that the alarm had been activated.

  Glover told the officers that shortly afterwards he heard three loud shots and as he looked across the street he saw Viv on all fours next to his vehicle. ‘Sayers ran back to the car and ordered me to drive,’ Glover said. ‘I was directed to a quiet lane in Heaton, and the vehicle was torched.’ According to Glover, both he and Sayers were then picked up by two other men in a burgundy Shogun vehicle. Glover told the officers that Sayers had used a .357 Magnum that was grey in colour. ‘He kept it in a shoulder holster, which he always wore,’ Glover said. He added that Sayers had been high on cocaine when he had shot Viv and that afterwards they both believed that he had only been wounded, because they had seen him trying to get to his feet.

  The stunned detectives realised that Glover’s evidence could not be ignored, because he was not only naming Viv Graham’s killer but was also implicating himself as an accomplice. Deciding to test the authenticity of what he had told them, the officers put it to Glover that he could have gleaned all the information in his account from newspaper articles. ‘Tell us something only people involved in Viv’s murder would know,’ they asked. Glover thought for a moment and then said that as he had sped away after the shooting the vehicle had hit something and damaged the bumper. He added that he knew the stolen vehicle had belonged to a female because there had been a box of tissues in the glove compartment and some furry toys on the dashboard. If that was not proof enough of his involvement in Viv’s murder, Glover then claimed that he had a tape recording of Michael Sayers boasting about the killing. This had allegedly been recorded without Sayers’ knowledge at a karaoke night in a Newcastle pub. When the detectives asked Glover the whereabouts of the tape recording, he would only say that he had it in safe keeping.

  For reasons known only to Northumbria Police, David Glover was not charged with any offence in relation to Viv Graham’s murder, nor was Michael Sayers, the man Glover had blamed. Perhaps Northumbria Police know that Glover, like Berriman, is prone to inventing stories in order to save himself.

  Chapter Nine

  TRIAL AND RETRIBUTION

  PADDY CONROY’S TRIAL, or ‘the torture trial’, as it became known, began on 6 October 1995. Paddy’s legal team had applied to have it moved away from Newcastle, because his reputation in the city was such that they did not think he would get a fair trial. Rightly or wrongly, the application was turned down. Rather than risk another embarrassing escape by Paddy and Glover, police chiefs put in place security measures unlike anything the city of Newcastle has seen before or since. A cavalcade of motorcycle outriders surrounded the prison van, a helicopter and a fixed-wing aeroplane patrolled the skies and police marine launches bobbed up and down on the River Tyne.

  Every man is entitled to be tried by a jury of his peers, and Paddy, Glover, Peachy and Waters all decided to exercise that right by pleading not guilty to the charges they faced. Paddy, Glover and Waters were accused of kidnap, false imprisonment and grievous bodily harm with intent, and Peachy was charged with false imprisonment and attempting to pervert the course of justice.

  There was a real sense of drama prevalent throughout the proceedings. The media used lurid phrases in banner headlines such as ‘the battle-torn streets of the West End’, ‘gangsters who terrorised a community’ and ‘gun law having gripped the city’. The prosecution undoubtedly earned its fee throughout the trial. They made Paddy Conroy sound like the devil incarnate. In fact, one female juror became so upset by the nature of the evidence that she suffered a panic attack. The judge acted promptly and discharged her from continuing with the trial. When evidence of Collier’s torture was given, a second female juror indicated to the jury bailiff that she was unable to continue. Her doctor delivered a medical report to the court the following morning:

  This person is a very anxious lady. Since the trial began she has developed symptoms of an anxiety state – loss of appetite, nausea, insomnia – and she feels she cannot continue with jury service. I do not believe that she is medically fit to serve.

  This lady was also discharged, and so it was thought that the judge would have to order a retrial with a new jury, but, despite protestations from the defence barristers, the judge ruled that the trial should be allowed to continue.

  The most damning evidence given against Paddy didn’t come from the police or Billy Collier; it came from none other than his co-defendant David Glover. While assisting the police with solving every crime that he had ever invented, Glover had written a ‘confession’ in HMP Winson Green, in which he said that he had been enlisted by Paddy as ‘backup’ for the attack on Collier. However, when he gave evidence at the trial, he claimed that his confession was in fact false, because he had been ‘psychotic’ at the time that he had written it. Glover told the jury that he had heard voices in his head while in prison. These voices were telling him that he was going to end up in a body bag. He shaved off all his hair and became convinced that the police were trying to kill him and fit him up for a murder. Despite there being plenty of evidence available to support Glover’s claim that he had been suffering from mental illness, the judge ruled that the statements he had written could be given in evidence against Paddy.

  More than a decade later, in December 2007, Glover was interviewed by the Evening Chronicle. He told a reporter that he had never signed any statements against Paddy, written any confession or been a police informant. In a bizarre effort to add weight to his denials, Glover told the reporter that he had tried cutting his own hands off in prison by ‘smacking them against the edge of a broken toilet seat’, to ensure that he would be physically incapable of signing anything.

  Paddy has always held the view that when the trial judge ruled that Glover’s confession about the attack on Collier was admissible as evidence, rather than rubbishing it as lies, the authorities should also have accepted Glover’s confession concerning his involvement in the murder of Viv Graham as true. There was evidence to suggest that Glover was being honest: he had told the police things that only those involved in the killing could have known. He knew about a box of tissues being in the getaway car, and he knew a female had owned it. When the police forensically tested the thing Glover had collided with while speeding away, which turned out to be a low wall, it had traces of blue paint that matched samples taken from the stolen getaway vehicle. It was bizarre that Glover’s confession had been ignored. Only Glover knows if he was telling the truth, but if he was he has escaped prosecution for the most notorious murder ever committed in the north-east.

  While cross-examining Paddy in the torture trial, Mr Batty for the prosecution asked, ‘Have you ever heard of the Green Man pub?’

  ‘No, but I have heard of the Green Tree pub,’ Paddy replied with a degree of sarcasm.

  ‘Is it right that your brother had his brains blown out in there?’ Mr Batty asked.

  Rather than give Mr Batty the satisfaction of an answer to such an unnecessarily disrespectful and hurtful question, Paddy picked up a jug of water that had been left in the witness box for refreshment and drenched him with it. The prison officers sitting either side of Paddy attempted to restrain him, but he tossed them aside, and for a few moments it looked as if the judge was going to order the court to be cleared. As Paddy struggled with the prison officers, the judge was shouting, ‘Order! Order!’ and Paddy’s family and friends were shouting obscenities at Mr Batty. When Paddy felt that he had made his point, he sat down. His barrister pleaded with him to apologise, but Paddy refused, and so his barrister asked if he could do so on his behalf. It was a meaningless apology, but Mr Batty accepted the barrister’s sincere regret regarding the incident. Everybody present thought that the judge would have Paddy removed from the court, but when he did comment on the incident all he said was, ‘You are lucky, Mr Batty. It could have been the microphone that he had thrown.’

  After seven long weeks of evidence
, Conroy and Glover were convicted of kidnap, false imprisonment and grievous bodily harm, and Waters and Peachy were both found not guilty of all charges. Before sentencing Paddy, Judge Carr said that the nature of the offences he had been convicted of called for a long term of imprisonment: ‘I am satisfied that you were the organising force that day and that you were the one who controlled, by and large, what went on. I say by and large because, insofar as Glover is concerned, I am perfectly satisfied that he is a dangerous young man on his own account, but you were the organising force that day and therefore you must bear the responsibility.’ Paddy was sentenced to serve eleven and a half years’ imprisonment, and Glover was given ten and a half years.

  The Northumbria Police witness support scheme financed protection for nine different people during the trial. Some, such as Collier and his girlfriend, were relocated and given new identities. A senior CID officer who worked on the case was quoted in the Newcastle Evening Chronicle as saying:

  In the past, people have been too scared to give evidence for fear of reprisals. The witness protection scheme has been able to give support to people who were prepared to stand up for justice. They have had the courage to give statements and now some of the witnesses have been re-housed away from friends and family – but it was a price that they were willing to pay.