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10/10/03 - Hoddesdon gym
victim's past revealed
By Nigel Rosser, Evening Standard
The full extent of the criminal past of a nightclub owner
shot dead outside a Hertfordshire gym can be revealed
today.
Dave King, known as Rolex Dave, was a well-known underworld
figure with many enemies.
Police believe he was involved in drug dealing and
handling stolen property, especially watches. He served
time in prison for a violent assault and several of
his associates have also been murdered.
A police source said today: "Whatever someone's past,
no one deserves to be killed like this. But it was the
way of the world he operated in."
King, 32, died in a hail of AK47 bullets last Friday
outside the Physical Limits health club in Hoddesdon
in a suspected contract killing. The fitness fanatic
was ambushed, as he left the building, by an unknown
assailant with an automatic weapon. Police are still
hunting his killer.
An investigation by the Evening Standard shows that
King has a criminal past going back at least a decade
and links to some of the most violent men in the country.
The 6ft 2in sometime-bodyguard was in prison in the
Nineties for violently assaulting a man in Stevenage
and hiding his victim in the boot of a car.
After King's release from prison he became a nightclub
doorman, where he quickly helped control the sale of
drugs to nightclubbers.
It is understood his nightclub career took off after
meeting Tony Tucker, a member of the notorious
Essex Boys gang that ran one of Britain's drug rings.
Tucker spotted King, who had by then earned a reputation
as a good fighter, in the mid-Nineties when he frequented
Tucker's north London shop selling muscle-building supplements.
As well as working the door at nightclubs, the pair
occasionally worked as bodyguards for boxer Nigel Benn,
although King's association with Benn ended after Tucker's
death. There is no suggestion that Benn was aware of
the pair's criminal activities.
Tucker, who was 38, and two of the other Essex Boys
- Patrick Tate, 36, and Craig Rolfe, 26 - were gunned
down as they sat in a Range Rover in a country lane
in Rettendon, Essex, in 1995.
Eventually, King launched his own nightclub in Stevenage.
The Renaissance was a notorious centre for drug dealing
and was closed by the local council for non-payment
of rent last year.
One bar manager in the town said: "It was a drugs
haven. It was full of them."
An employee of King's said of his old boss: "He
was a nice feller in his way but you wouldn't want to
get on the wrong side of him."
The worker added: "He lived his life to the full.
You live by the sword, you die by the sword."
King's murder came as a shock to the community in Hoddesdon.
But, in King's world, killings were not unknown. One
of his close friends was a man named Darren Pearman,
who was stabbed to death in a mass brawl at the Epping
Forest Country Club in 1999.
Underworld sources say Pearman's stabbing was the result
of an argument started by King at a north London pub
- which ended in Ronnie Fuller, the head doorman, forcibly
ejecting them.
When Pearman saw Fuller at the Epping Forest Country
Club a few weeks later there was a fight during which
Pearman was stabbed to death. Fuller was charged with
taking part in Pearman's killing but the charges were
later dropped.
A year later Fuller was also dead - shot in an apparent
contract hit outside his home in Grays, Essex. No one
has been convicted for either killing.
As well as violence and drugs, King was linked to the
lucrative London trade in stolen watches - earning him
the soubriquet "Rolex Dave" - and was rumoured
to sell them to the Russian mafia.
Former gangland enforcer turned author John Rollinson
said in his book, Gaffer, that King had angered many
with his attitude. "He joined up with our firm
after coming out of prison, much against my better judgment...
once he did he systematically began to turn everybody
against each other and caused a lot of bad feeling."
One criminal source said: "He was a violent bully."
His parents, Jimmy and Norma, remember their Glasgow-born
son as a football-crazy family man.
They said in a statement: "He was ambitious for himself
and for his family and wanted the very best for his children.
A devout Muslim, David's bodybuilding formed a great part
of his lifestyle. He was proud of his appearance and a
perfectionist in all that he did." |
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