Fog on the Tyne

by Bernard O'Mahoney

  Paddy was repeatedly asked to make a formal complaint against Jesus, but he was no Judas. Paddy believed that a decision had been made to charge him simply because the prison officers thought that he might save himself from punishment by telling them the truth. Jesus could have quite rightly faced an attempted murder charge, but, fortunately for him, Paddy is not an informant, and so it was Paddy who faced being punished for a crime that he did not commit.

  On the morning of Paddy’s trial, he was frogmarched into the governor’s office, and after the charge of assault had been read out he was asked to plead guilty or not guilty. Staring straight at the governor, Paddy smiled and said, ‘Guilty.’

  ‘Get out of this room, Conroy! Get out!’ the governor bellowed.

  Out in the corridor, the escorting officers stood glaring at Paddy and shaking their heads. A few minutes passed, and then the governor’s door flew open. ‘Take Conroy down the segregation unit, and get the other person involved in this matter up here now!’ a voice screamed. When Jesus appeared in front of the governor, he too refused to cooperate, and so he too was sent to the segregation unit, where he ended up in a cell next to a man from Liverpool named Frankie Mullen. When Mullen asked Jesus why he had been put in solitary confinement, Jesus said that he had stabbed a man named Paddy Conroy. Mullen had been a very good friend of Paddy’s long before he had been sent to prison, and so he turned on Jesus immediately. ‘If you have stabbed Paddy, you will soon be fucking dead,’ Mullen warned him.

  Before Paddy had been imprisoned, Mullen had stayed at his home in Newcastle after falling out with a Liverpool-based drug-dealing firm who were claiming that he was responsible for the disappearance of 30,000 of their Ecstasy pills.

  The Bull and Paddy would occasionally go shooting game and rabbits at a place known as Tam’s Camp, which is approximately 40 miles north of Newcastle. They were not particularly interested in blasting bunnies. It was considered to be more of a lads’ night out with shooting practice thrown in for good measure. As any Geordie will tell you, when residing in the West End of Newcastle, it is important that one maintains a degree of regular firearms practice. The Bull and Paddy would take a tent and a few beers, go shooting during daylight and then sit around a campfire talking at night.

  One time, Mullen asked the Bull and Paddy if he could accompany them, and they readily agreed. As they made their way to Tam’s Camp, the Bull spotted what appeared to be a freshly killed rabbit at the roadside. Paddy asked Mullen to get out of the vehicle and pick up the creature so that they could cook and eat it later. After arriving at their destination, making a fire and inspecting the rabbit, the trio decided not to eat it after all, as the corpse was stiff and the rabbit had therefore been dead much longer than they had first thought. The Bull threw the rabbit on the blazing fire, and within a very short time it was engulfed by the flames. Mullen sat staring at the animal’s body as it was devoured by the fire. It appeared as though he was in some sort of deep trance.

  When the Bull and Paddy got into their sleeping bags that night, Mullen, who had hardly spoken a word all evening, remained sitting staring at the fire. A week later, Mullen murdered two of his adversaries, chopped up their bodies and burned them. He was serving a double life sentence for those murders when he encountered Jesus in the segregation unit.

  Fearing for his safety, Jesus blurted out the truth to Mullen about the attack on Paddy. He told him that it was Dessie Cunningham who had paid him to carry out the stabbing. ‘I have no personal grievance with Paddy,’ Jesus said. ‘It was Cunningham who wanted him done.’ Four weeks later, Cunningham was found dead in his cell. His lifeless body hung from the bars at the end of a bed sheet. It is not known if Cunningham took his own life or if somebody with a grievance had murdered him.

  One morning, a notorious south-London villain named Dennis Arif arrived at Paddy’s cell door. ‘I have a message for you, Paddy,’ he said. ‘John Henry wants to see you out on the yard this afternoon.’

  ‘Right you are,’ Paddy replied. ‘I will be out there.’

  Later that day, Paddy walked out onto the exercise yard with Dennis. The wing Paddy was housed in had its own yard, and the wing in which John Henry was housed had a yard that adjoined it. Only a wire mesh fence separated the two, and so it was possible to converse with inmates from the other wing.

  Paddy strolled around the yard chatting to Dennis until John Henry and Dennis’s brother Mehmet appeared on the other side of the fence. Dennis then asked Paddy to go over and speak to John Henry. Paddy approached the fence with a broad grin on his face and asked John Henry what he wanted. ‘What have you been saying about my father?’ John Henry asked.

  ‘I think that he is a grass. In fact, I know that he is a grass,’ Paddy said as he stared straight back at John Henry. Paddy then went into some detail to explain why he had reached that conclusion. The Arif brothers stood open-mouthed as they absorbed what Paddy was saying and looked in disgust as John Henry slouched off with his head bowed. ‘Come back, man,’ Paddy shouted. ‘I haven’t finished yet.’ Paddy’s words fell on deaf ears as John Henry continued to walk away from him. That incident was the catalyst for a lot of the bad blood that flowed between the Conroy and Sayers families thereafter.

  Later that day, Paddy was approached by a cockney who alleged that John Henry had put a contract out on Paddy’s life. Thrusting a long-bladed knife into Paddy’s hand, the cockney said, ‘Take this, Paddy. I think you’re going to need it. When they come for you, strike first, ask questions later.’

  As word spread throughout the prison about the simmering feud between Paddy and John Henry, inmates began to swear allegiance to one side or the other. The next time Paddy and John Henry crossed paths, it was in the visiting room. John Kendall, who in 1987 had escaped from prison in a helicopter, was sitting at a table adjacent to Paddy’s, and Mad Frankie Fraser, who was visiting another prisoner, Eddie Richardson, was sitting at another. John Henry and his visitors were also sitting around a table that was in view of Paddy and his visitors. Paddy wanted to confront John Henry about him allegedly having a contract out on him, but he decided to bide his time and have his say when they were alone.

  Five minutes before the visit was due to end, Paddy saw John Henry get up and walk out of the room. Paddy immediately told his friends and family that he had to leave, and set off in pursuit of his target, who by this time had left the main visiting hall. When prisoners have had a visit, they are searched for contraband and then kept in a holding area before being returned in groups to their respective wings. Paddy knew, therefore, that John Henry could not have got very far. After being searched, Paddy went into the holding area, but John Henry was nowhere to be seen. When Paddy entered the toilet block, John Henry was standing at the urinal with his back to him. ‘Perfect,’ Paddy thought as he approached him. ‘He won’t even know what has hit him.’

  As Paddy was revelling in his good fortune, John Henry spun around and caught him under the chin with a right hook, which sent him flying across the room and into a wall. ‘Fucking hell,’ Paddy thought. ‘What sort of a punch was that?’ Momentarily dazed, Paddy struggled to stay on his feet. John Henry, realising that he might have won by delivering a single sucker-punch, leapt on top of Paddy and began pummelling his head and face. Regaining his composure and fearing defeat, Paddy summoned every ounce of rage and strength that he had in him and began to hit back. Blow after blow found its target until John Henry fell and curled up into a defensive ball.

  Standing back, Paddy allowed John Henry to get to his feet, but as soon as he was upright Paddy sent him sprawling back across the room and crashing into a radiator with a right hook. As John Henry now struggled to remain on his feet, Paddy kicked him as hard as he could in the reproductive organs and grabbed him by the head. Plunging his thumb into the back of John Henry’s eye socket, Paddy threatened to gouge it out. ‘It’s over right, fucking over. I want no more bollocks from you,’ Paddy said. Standing John Henry upright, Paddy punched him as hard as
he could in the face, and he flew backwards into a toilet cubicle, where he slumped down onto the seat. At that moment, a group of prison officers stormed into the toilets and grabbed the two men. Paddy was put into solitary confinement, and John Henry was returned to his wing.

  The Sunday Sun reported this brawl on its front page with the headline ‘Gangster Families Go to War’. The police, the newspaper claimed, had issued secret warnings about a ‘turf war’ between two notorious gangland families, one headed by bank robber John Henry Sayers and the other by violent blackmailer Paddy Conroy. It’s untrue that John Henry had been convicted of robbing a bank and Paddy of blackmail. The story had clearly been sensationalised to enrage law-abiding suburban husbands and excite their bored housewives. The newspaper went on to report that a ‘chilling top-level dossier’ had spelt out the police’s fears about this so-called turf war. John Henry, according to this dossier, ‘continued to run his crime empire from inside Britain’s most secure jail, tried to interfere with witnesses in a trial concerning his brothers and attempted to set up a partnership to smuggle cocaine into jail’. In an attempt to add weight to this drivel, extracts from the police intelligence report were published alongside in diary form:

  17 February 1996: Ongoing feud between Newcastle gangsters John Sayers and Paddy Conroy for the position of top family.

  May 1996: Alliance is formed to get cocaine into Whitemoor Prison between Sayers and a fellow prisoner called Gomez.

  23 July 1996: Police warnings state that another criminal faction, headed by Conroy [called ‘a very violent leader’] is opposing the Sayers family gang.

  December 1996: Sayers apparently gives the impression that he expects the duty governor to be at his beck and call, hinting that ‘staff will have to change their ways’ when certain other prisoners arrive at the jail.

  11 December 1996: Police regard Sayers as a top echelon criminal in the north-east. They believe he has close links with ‘much of the organised’ crime in the rest of the North. The police also believe he has accumulated substantial wealth. He is recognised as a sophisticated leader of a criminal organisation based in Newcastle, and it is said he has considerable influence among other prisoners. He is polite to staff but should be kept separate from Paddy Conroy. Northumbria detectives believe Sayers may be conducting criminal enterprises from inside prison both by telephone and instructions through visitors. His two brothers Michael and Stephen Sayers face blackmail charges, and intelligence suggests there may be an attempt to interfere with witnesses. These witnesses now have a police guard 24 hours per day. Senior police officers believe ‘Sayers presents a serious threat to human safety and should be held in exceptional-risk conditions’.

  Shortly after this ‘secret dossier’ was published in the newspaper, Paddy was transferred back to HMP Full Sutton, in York.

  The prisoners whose arrival would result in ‘officers having to change their ways’, according to John Henry, were his brothers Michael and Stephen. When the Sayers brothers were reunited at HMP Whitemoor, a story appeared in the Sunday Sun under the banner headline ‘Crime Brothers Reunited in Jail.’ It’s not known if the good people of the north-east were interested in reading that it had been almost seven years since the brothers had all met, but the story appeared in the paper in any event. The Sayers may well have been in the same prison, but reunited they most certainly were not. The authorities ensured that they were kept on different wings within HMP Whitemoor, and so, apart from an occasional fleeting glimpse of one another, contact was minimal.

  Paddy wasn’t in HMP Full Sutton long before a fight broke out between him and one of the top Yardie gangsters named Cokie. Paddy had watched in horror as Cokie and several of his henchmen threatened a prisoner named Price in the shower block with a knife. Price apparently owed the Yardies £10 for cannabis, and they were intent on slashing his throat if he failed to pay. Causing serious harm or killing somebody over such a trivial debt may sound excessive, but every day in the dispersal system people are cut and stabbed – or worse – for less. The gangs that control the drugs and contraband within the system believe that if they let anybody get away with anything, however trivial, their reputation will be ruined and their illicit business will collapse or be taken from them.

  At the time, Paddy was not aware that Price was being threatened as a result of a drug debt and shouted out, ‘Back off, you goat-molesting mongrels, and leave the man alone.’ Glaring at Paddy, Cokie and his associates stepped back but assured him that he would pay for involving himself in their business.

  Three days later, as Paddy walked along the landing, Cokie smashed a large glass bottle of cooking oil over the back of his head. Momentarily stunned, Paddy held on to a safety rail and a wall, as he was convinced that if he hit the ground he would die. Regaining his composure, Paddy grabbed Cokie by his dreadlocks and smashed his head against every hard surface he could find. Bash, bash, bash. The sound of Cokie’s head and body being bounced against the doors and walls brought half a dozen prison officers racing towards the fight from across the wing. Before they could reach Paddy, he had held Cokie by the throat with his left hand and punched his face with his right until his adversary collapsed at his feet in a bloody heap. ‘Step back. Step back from him, Paddy!’ the prison officers shouted. There was no need, as far as Paddy was concerned. He had done all that he had set out to do: the bully had lost all the credibility that his illicit business had thrived on.

  Some time later, Paddy was in the Special Secure Unit. A young man from Manchester who was serving 20 years for shooting a rival drug dealer called Paddy over to look at something in his cell. ‘What do you think of those, Paddy?’ he asked, pointing to three long dreadlocks pinned to a board on his cell wall.

  ‘Nothing really,’ Paddy replied. ‘Why do you ask?’

  The Mancunian began laughing and said that the day Paddy had bashed Cokie he had followed him down the landing, picking up the dreadlocks he had torn from his opponent’s head during the struggle. ‘I was trying to get rid of the evidence, because I thought you were going to kill him, and when I heard he was OK I kept them as souvenirs,’ the man explained.

  For assaulting Cokie, Paddy was put in solitary confinement for four months. When Paddy was due to be returned to his normal location, he was escorted to the governor’s office and asked to shake hands with Cokie, which he did without hesitation. Why wouldn’t he? As far as Paddy was concerned, the chew they had between them had been resolved when they fought on the landing, Conroy 1 Cokie 0 being the full-time score.

  Chapter Ten

  HOMEWARD BOUND

  WITH THE CITY’S two most powerful families in prison, control of the Newcastle underworld was up for grabs, and there proved to be no shortage of potential takers. The rise in gang-related violence created by the power struggle resulted in Northumbria Police launching a two-year investigation, code named Operation Domino. Three of the investigation’s main targets were Gateshead men Robert Webber, Paul Ashton and Ashton’s close associate Paul ‘Monkey’ Lyons. (Ashton is the man who took on Viv Graham for 20 gruelling minutes in a fight that failed to produce a clear winner. Following that encounter, Billy Robinson hired Graham as a doorman.)

  On Thursday, 11 January 1996, Ashton and Webber were driving around Gateshead in a Mercedes. Ashton was in the passenger seat, and Webber was at the wheel. As they made their way down Bensham Bank, they encountered Stuart Watson and several of his friends. Watson was in a blue jeep being driven by a man named Terry Mitchell. (Watson is the man Viv Graham, Stephen Sayers and others were sent to prison for assaulting at Hobo’s nightclub in 1989.) When Mitchell saw Ashton and Webber, he immediately turned the jeep around and gave chase. He managed to overtake the Mercedes and block the road ahead before coming to an abrupt halt. A gun was then fired. The bullet went through one of the windows of the Mercedes and struck Paul Ashton in the chest. Personal safety equipment was high on everybody’s shopping list during those troubled years in the north-east, and the bulletproof ve
st that Ashton happened to be wearing that day undoubtedly saved his life.

  After the bullet had struck the vest, it fell to the floor, where it was retrieved by Ashton. Fearing he would be the gunman’s next target, Webber reversed the Mercedes at speed before doing a U-turn and heading towards Newcastle across the Redheugh Bridge. The jeep gave chase, and five or six more shots were fired, but none hit the occupants of the fleeing Mercedes.

  The following morning, Ashton and Webber lay in wait for Watson to return to his home in Bensham. When Watson and Terry Mitchell pulled up in a van outside, several shots were fired from a Jaguar parked across the street. Watson and Mitchell returned fire and raced towards their attackers. Ashton tried to flee the scene on foot, but it is alleged that Mitchell struck him across the back with a sword. Rather wisely, Ashton then ran into a nearby police station seeking refuge. Meanwhile, Watson dragged Webber from the Jaguar and peppered the vehicle with shotgun pellets.

  The seeds of this gang-related feud had been sown when Ashton had clashed with a friend of Watson named Stevie ‘the Hammer’ Eastland at a club called After Dark. Witnesses told the police that the men had chased one another around the premises with knives. A straightener was arranged for the following day so that the men could settle their differences, but for reasons unknown Ashton failed to attend. The next time that Ashton and Eastland had met, they had both pulled out knives and Eastland had run away from Ashton, but not in fear. He had drugs in his possession, which he later claimed were steroids, and he was concerned that if the police were called he would be found with them, although, it has to be said, it is not illegal in the UK to be in possession of steroids for one’s personal use. After hiding the drugs under a brick in nearby bushes, Eastland returned to Ashton and the pair began to fight. A member of the public called the police, and Eastland was arrested, but not before he had managed to throw away his knife.