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- Essex Gangsters : The long road to murder
Later
Bernard O'Mahoney arrived in Essex in the early 1990s.
Thanks to a character reference from Reggie Kray, he found
a job as a doorman at Raquel's nightclub in Basildon.
His no-nonsense approach to confrontations soon elevated
him to head of security at the club but also made him
a number of dangerous enemies.
To protect himself he joined forces with Tony Tucker,
a notorious local hard man who ran a large Essex firm
of doormen. For two years, Tucker, O'Mahoney and the rest
of their firm governed much of Essex under a reign of
terror. Their activities were as lucrative as they were
violent.
In November 1995 their empire began to collapse when teenager
Leah Betts collapsed and died at her 18th birthday party.
She had taken ecstasy which had been purchased in Raquels
and it didn't take the media long to expose the activities
of Tucker, O'Mahoney and their associates.
Drug-fuelled paranoia took over and the once powerful
firm became consumed by internal conflicts. Tucker turned
against O'Mahoney and threatened his life. A matter of
weeks later, Tucker and two of his closest cohorts, Craig
Rolfe and Pat Tate, were found shot dead inside a Range
Rover parked on a secluded dirt track.
The men had fallen foul of a rival firm while planning
a dramatic drug theft. O'Mahoney escaped prosecution for
any crimes relating to these murders and the Leah Betts
enquiry. This is his account of the horror and savagery
that prevailed in Essex while the firm were still thriving:
As the notoriety of the firm grew, so too did the number
of people who wanted to be known as our associates.
The presence of the firm in pubs or clubs in the area
prompted respect, and I have to admit it was a good feeling.
Because of the firm's reputation for sorting out problems
and people, we were now doing a lot more than running
the door at weekends. Additional work was forthcoming.
Protection, punishment beatings and debt recovery were
all added to the firm's CV.
It wasn't just local work, either. Cries for help came
from as far afield as Sunderland, Manchester, Bristol
and the Midlands. The work was diverse. Some of it was
legal, some of it gratuitous, some of it downright illegal.
It seemed that anybody who had a grievance wanted to use
our violent firm to get their revenge on whoever had slighted
them.
Peter Singh, an Asian from Basildon, paid me and another
doorman to protect his brother who had been threatened
in a family feud. His brother had entered an arranged
marriage and after a couple of years he wanted a divorce.
The girl's family took It as a great Insult and they had
threatened his life.
At the divorce proceedings in Southend County Court, there
was pushing, shoving and shouting, and threats were issued.
The judge removed me and my friend from the court after
the girl's family said they'd been threatened. Eventually
Peter's brother got his divorce.
A man from Leicester named Martin Davies contacted us
and asked us to recover a series of debts which had accumulated
following the collapse of his video hire shop chain. I
travelled to Leicestershire with two other men and soon
discovered most of the debts were useless. The people
involved had lost heavily in the business also, and they
had no money to repay the outstanding debt.
One of the men who owed money was a taxi driver named
Danny Marlow. I went to his house, knocked on the door
and a woman, whom I assumed was his wife, answered. She
told me he wasn't in and she had no way of contacting
him. Through a neighbour I learned which cab office he
worked at and went to see him there.
The controller was persuaded to contact Danny on his radio.
He told him to come back to the cab office but Danny refused.
I gave the controller my number, and Danny rang me. We
had a row and I threatened him. He said he was going to
contact the police.
Some time later, at about 11 o'clock one evening, Danny
was outside his home and he was struck by a speeding car.
He had received a phone call at his local pub, the Bell,
at 10.30 pm. He left about ten minutes later. A witness
heard two men talking. The voices got louder, then he
heard a high-revving car and Danny's pool cue case clatter
to the ground.
Danny died on his way to hospital. Forty minutes later,
a stolen Ford Granada was found burnt out nine miles away.
The police interviewed me, Martin Davies and the other
two men. They were convinced that Marlow had died for
the £800 he owed. That may have been the case. It
was certainly nothing to do with our firm.
We would hardly kill anyone for a share of £800.
We were annoyed that Davies had revealed our identities
during questioning by the police, and decided that we
should be compensated. We fined Davies £3,000, a
grand for each member of the firm whose name he had given.
He paid up, and we have not heard from or seen him since.
These people were not from our world, and were considered
easy pickings. We were contacted about a man named Jackson
in Southend, for example. He had borrowed £60,000
to Invest. The business venture had gone horribly wrong
and the man who was holding his money had disappeared
to Geneva.
We descended on Jackson. He was very middle-class: nice
house, nice wife, nice job. He didn't like our kind of
people around, so after a bit of intimidation he agreed
to pay us £3,000 expenses to fly to Geneva to try
and apprehend the man who was holding his money. We took
Jackson's cash but never went as far as the end of Southend
Pier.
A week later we returned to his house and told him we
had been unsuccessful and needed to go on further trips.
I think he smelled a rat, because eventually he had an
injunction put on us preventing us from approaching him.
We devised a set of rules for straight people requiring
our services for debt recovery.
When someone came to us with a debt we used to tell them
that there was no fee for our services until the money
had been recovered. Then we would require a third of everything
we had collected. Most of these people had been through
solicitors or the courts and paid huge fees for little
or no result, and so the deal we offered seemed quite
good. After all, they had nothing to lose or so they thought.
The other clause in the agreement was that once we were
on the debt it remained ours and they couldn't employ
other people to chase it. Also, once we'd agreed to take
it on, we would remain with it until the money was recovered;
the person who employed us couldn't change his mind, or
if he did, he had to pay us a third of the debt as our
fee. It all seemed fair, and everyone agreed.
What we used to do, however, was intimidate the person
owing the money, or cause a scene at his home so he would
call the police. The police, not knowing who we were,
would go to the person the money was owed to and tell
them that if there were any more problems, they would
be prosecuted. So the person who was owed money would
get in touch with us and ask us to pull out because the
police had threatened to prosecute.
We would remind them of the clause that if they called
it off, they would have to pay us a third. Fearing prosecution
from the police on one side, and violence from us on the
other, they had no choice but to pay. The illegal side
of our operation was far less complex. We did a job for
one man who'd been hounded by a motorist in a flashy car.
The guy used to do wheel spins in his street and play
loud music from his car stereo; the man was at his wits'
end. He said the driver was using his street as a race
track. He feared for his children. He couldn't get any
peace and quiet because of the music. He paid us £500
to sort it out.
The car which was causing the problem was the guy's pride
and joy. We were told he was putting it in for a respray
and contacted the garage to find out when he was picking
it up. On the day the man collected his newly resprayed
car, he was followed and when he parked It outside his
home and went inside, it was petrol-bombed, burnt out,
absolutely gutted. We were told the aggrieved man danced
in his front room as he watched the car burn.
The firm were also employed as minders on drug deals.
The fee would depend on the size of the parcel. When the
two parties met to do the deal, a member of the firm was
present just to make sure one side didn't have the other
over. They weren't required to say or do anything unless
something didn't go according to plan.
When things didn't go to plan, we the effects must have
been terrifying. Another man, Dean Power, was trapped
in a similar way. He was whipped with a metal coat hanger
and flogged with a bamboo stick. In a second attack some
time later, Power was jabbed with a roasting fork and
beaten with lumps of wood.
His crime? He had tried to restrain Vella in a pub argument
over money. His head was also kicked, his feet and arms
were stamped on. He was totally disfigured. Power told
people Vella was like the devil, he was possessed. Although
the police were well aware of Vella's activities, nobody
would give evidence against him.
The police were called to many incidents. One man was
admitted to hospital with burns to the back of his hands
from a hot iron. He wouldn't talk. Another had been shot
at close range with a handgun. He wouldn't talk either.
One house had the door kicked in. The people inside were
sprayed with CS gas and the TV was blown out by a sawn-off
shotgun.
They refused to complain. A man named Reggie Nunn owed
Vella £7,000. He had been sent to Scotland as a
courier and he had spent some of the profits on what he
called expenses. Vella lured him to his home in Basildon
to discuss the debt. When Nunn couldn't explain to Vella's
satisfaction what had happened, he was beaten and kicked.
Then a sword was produced and Vella stabbed him. Afterwards
Vella started shouting at Nunn. There's blood on my settee,
stop whimpering like a little boy. You know it's not going
to end here, Reg.' Vella gave him a few more slaps and
swipes and went out of the room. Reggie overheard Vella
saying he would be kept overnight and finished off in
the morning.
In panic he jumped through the upstairs window, falling
nearly 20 feet to the ground. He staggered to a neighbour's
door, begging for help, and they called the police. There
was no need. At that time, 40 officers from Essex had
been assigned to an investigation against Vella, known
as operation Max, and his flat was under surveillance.
Police video cameras had caught Nunn jumping from the
window and staggering to the neighbour's house. It was
the end of the road for Vella and his firm. Shortly afterwards
they were all arrested and remanded in custody to await
trial for various offences ranging from drug dealing to
serious assault.
But to secure a conviction, three men had to be provided
with new identities after giving evidence an expensive
business. In the same month that Vella's world collapsed,
a new outlet for drug users in Basildon opened up, and
the firm started its ascendancy. Its activities would
make Vella's seem user-friendly.
On Friday, 25 July 1994, Raquels opened its doors for
the first house and garage night promoted by the team
from Southend. It was absolutely packed, because this
type of event was rare in a violent town like Basildon,
where peroxide blondes, cheap drinks and drunken nights
were more commonplace.
We kept all those types out, and for those not involved
in the politics it really was an enjoyable night. There
was no trouble among the customers and the atmosphere
in there was fantastic. It's hard to describe. You could
feel the music, it was so loud. You could see little because
of the darkness and dry ice, but already there was a feeling
of unity among the revellers.
I had begun to experience a new feeling myself which at
first I dismissed. In the firm you had a sense of security.
On your home ground, you felt safe. Everyone in that particular
jungle knew who to avoid. It was when we moved to seemingly
greener pastures working in northern England, the Midlands
or Bristol that the problems for me started.
Danger was everywhere, yet you couldn't see it there was
just a feeling that something was going to happen. It
is then that paranoia creeps in, and for me it struck
deep. I became suspicious of everybody. If a car pulled
up outside the club, I was expecting somebody to get out
and launch some sort of attack upon us.
Groups of men in the club probably talking about everyday
business aroused suspicion in me. The pressures of my
environment were beginning to affect me. I wouldn't leave
the house unless I was armed. Even during the day, if
I went to fetch a newspaper or post a letter in the town
I took a sheath knife with me.
My car had weapons hidden in the boot and under the dashboard
on the driver's side. There could be anything from a knife
to a gun, depending on where I was going and what I was
up to. I even kept a gun in my bedroom and there was a
baseball bat and squirt (ammonia) in the cupboard by the
front door. I considered every possibility. If they kicked
the door in and I was upstairs in bed the weapons by the
door were useless.
Therefore I had to have a weapon in my bedroom. If I was
getting something out of the boot of my car and they came,
the weapon in the dashboard was useless, therefore I had
to have one in the boot. I tried to convince myself of
the stupidity of it all, but paranoia had taken a grip
of me. With the crowds and the house music came a demand
for ecstasy.
Raquels was hit by an avalanche of drugs. Local men were
quickly recruited by Murray. Dealers were everywhere in
the club. The demand was being met. I had now recruited
what I considered to be an ideal door. I had doormen who
were not bullies. They were friendly and could mix with
the people who were entering the club and they were not
seen as intimidating.
Yet if someone wanted trouble, they would fucking get
it, and they would regret it. None of the men was from
the Basildon area; they came from south and east London.
They weren't impressed by the local hardmen's reputations.
They took people how they found them. They dealt with
them accordingly. Without exception, everybody accepted
it.
On the face of it the police now had a peaceful club and
they could divert their attention elsewhere. The occasional
victim was of our own kind and so of little concern to
them. Previously we had endured twice-weekly visits from
the constabulary, but we rarely saw them now, and on the
odd occasion we did, it was only as they drove past to
buy tea from the burger van.
We now had a club full to capacity with peaceful people.
The customers were getting what they wanted, and the firm
had got what it wanted. In that same July of 1994 an explosive
Ingredient was added to what was, under the surface, becoming
an Increasingly unstable and volatile situation. Pat Tate
was released from prison after serving four years of a
six-year sentence.
In December 1988 Tate had robbed a restaurant in Basildon.
He had been in a Happy Eater with his girlfriend and had
got into a dispute with the staff about his bill. He decided
to help himself to the takings. When he was arrested he
was found to be in possession of a small amount of cocaine,
which was for his personal use.
Billericay magistrates decided that Tate would see in
the new year within the confines of Chelmsford Prison.
Tate, however, had made other plans. He jumped over the
side of the dock and made for the door. Six police officers
joined the jailer and jumped onto his back, but he broke
free and ran off.
One WPC received a black eye and another police officer
was kicked in the face as they tried to block his escape.
He ploughed his way out of the court to a waiting motorcycle.
Roadblocks which were Immediately set up failed to trap
him. His escape was so speedy, the police couldn't say
what type of motorcycle It was, or whether he was alone
or travelled as a passenger.
Several days later, Tate surfaced in Spain. He remained
there for a year, but he made the mistake of crossing
over into Gibraltar where he was arrested by the British
authorities. Everybody in Basildon had a good word for
Tate, but he had begun using harder drugs in prison and
this caused a marked change in his character.
I call prisons hate factories, because all they produce
is people full of hatred. Tate came out of prison that
way. He wanted the world to know he was out and he was
not happy about the way he had been treated. Tucker warmed
to men like him. He was six foot two, very broad, 18 stone
and no fool. He also had a glamorous bit of history.
His fight with the police in court and escape on a motorbike
were talking points in criminal circles. He was soon recruited
by the firm. Tate's arrival was met with resentment by
some members. Chris Wheatley had returned from America
some time before Tate's release. Tucker had latched on
to him, giving him control of one of his clubs in Southend,
and he became a close friend.
However, when Tate came out, Tucker dropped Chris as if
he didn't exist. Chris Is one of only a few of my former
associates that I have any time for. I do not think he
deserved the treatment he received from Tucker; he turned
on him for no reason, and the firm followed suit. Tate
took his place.
Others who had no reason to dislike Tate felt their position
in the firm was being threatened. Few felt comfortable
about his appointment because he had an explosive temper.
Tucker, on the other hand, was loving every minute of
it He loved to pitch people against one another. On one
occasion a doorman from Chelmsford mentioned in conversation
that he thought one of his colleagues was a police Informant.
Tucker rang the guy and arranged a meeting outside McDonald's
in Chelmsford. Then he told the other man that if he thought
someone was a grass, he should confront him and not talk
about him behind his back. He was allowed to arm himself
with a machete and was then taken to the meeting at McDonald's.
Fearing he was going to lose face, he accused his colleague
of being a grass in front of Tucker. The man denied it,
of course. 'He's just called you a fucking grass,' said
Tucker. 'What are you going to do about it? I'd fucking
hit him if he said that to me'. The so-called grass threw
a half-hearted punch and the other man slashed his arm
with the machete before he fled.
You didn't get a P45 in our firm. Pat Tate brought with
him ideas of grandeur. He had made lots of useful contacts
in prison whom he thought we could work with or exploit.
Prison is the university of crime, and such meetings are
inevitable. Dealing with the unknown is a dangerous business,
however. I was all for looking after what was already
there rather than expanding into unknown territory.
Tucker and Tate felt everyone was there for the taking.
They began to talk about lorries bringing in drugs from
the continent and small aircraft dropping shipments in
the fields around Essex. However many times I told them
it was risky, they wouldn't listen.
Being king on your home ground is one thing, but going
on an International crusade with the disregard they had
for other people was a recipe for disaster.
Extracted from Essex Boys by Bernard O'Mahoney published
by Mainstream in April 2000 |
| Contact : bernard.omahoney@bernardomahoney.com |
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