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??/??/?? - My Tony was not villian they say he was
By LINDA CHRISTIE
Evening Echo
THE GIRLFRIEND of murdered drugs baron Tony Tucker said he would
still be alive if pal Pat Tate hadn't been released from jail.
Tate, who had convictions for armed robbery and drugs offences,
left prison five weeks before he, Tucker and another friend
Craig Rolfe, were found shot in a lane at Rettendon.
And just two days before his death, he put a man in hospital
in an argument over a pizza. Donna Garwood, 17, of Fairview
Road, Basildon who got to know Tony at Raquel's nightclub said:
"If Pat was still inside this wouldn't have happened."
Referring to the Echo in which Pat's mother claimed her son
had gone to the drugs meet only to protect his two pals, Donna
said: "She was trying to get her son out of trouble. "But
if anything went on between them then Pat was involved because
the three never did anything without each other."
Donna is trying to pick up the pieces after the ruthless killings
and visits 38-year- old Tony's grave nearly every day. She recalled
the television news that three men had been shot in a Range
Rover. "I just knew it was him it was Tony's car, and when
I tried to ring him on his mobile it was switched off.
"I had spoken to him that day and asked when I was going
to see him again. He told me he was going to the Global restaurant
in Romford with Pat and Craig." She added: "He didn't
tell me what they would be doing before that. He was always
secretive. Pat was more open with his girls."
Tony had arranged for Donna to live in Tate's flat in Swanstead,
Vange while he moved into a £250,000 bungalow in Fobbing.
Donna said: "I did wonder how he was getting his money,
but he is not one of these people who would go out selling E's.
He had too much respect for that."
"I never went to his home, or the one he owned before in
Chelmsford, but that was just because he was such a private
man." Tony had two teenage children from a previous marriage
and Donna said: "His boy was very ill a while ago and he
was really good. He spent a lot of time with him."
She has kept in contact with Pat's ex-girlfriend Sarah, and
Craig's common-law wife Donna Jaggers. "Donna's really
bad. 'After all she has Craig's child. I'm going to see a counsellor
now to get myself sorted out. It's hitting me more and more.
I feel that a part of me has been taken away.
"In my eyes Tony wasn't the drug baron or villain he has
been made out to be. "He used to say: They don't know me
so who are they to judge?." Tony's mother suffered a second
blow when relatives broke the news of his death. Husband Ronald,
63, died of a heart attack. |
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