13/11/06 - Stupor-grass cost us £100,000
By ANTHONY FRANCE
Crime Reporter
The Sun
 
A SUPERGRASS who nailed the notorious Essex Boys killers has cost taxpayers £100,000 — after blowing his cover while boozing.

Darren Nicholls had to be moved to a safe-house by cops after boasting in a pub about his part in the murder case that became a hit film.

Furious cops discovered his bragging after he was arrested for allegedly battering a love rival outside a pub. Days later the 41-year-old’s car tyres were slashed.

Nicholls was the getaway driver when drug barons Tony Tucker, 38, Pat Tate, 36, and Craig Rolfe, 26, were lured to a quiet country lane near Chelmsford in 1995 and shot in their Range Rover. The murders inspired gangster film Essex Boys starring Sean Bean.

Nicholls’ evidence put Mick Steele, 62, and Jack Whomes, 44, behind bars for triple murder.
He has since been living under the witness protection scheme.

A police source said: “Nicholls is acting like he’s got a death wish. “There are many who would love to get their hands on him. Eleven years may have passed but they still want him dead for what he did.”
The grass is believed to have received a new identity and home at a cost of £100,000.

A spokesman for the unnamed police force that arrested him said: “One male dragged another into a car park of the pub and punched him several times.” Nicholls is on bail for the alleged assault.

Steele, from Great Bentley, Essex, and Whomes, from Brockford, Suffolk, failed earlier this year to have their convictions quashed. Appeal judges rejected their lawyers’ claims that Nicholls had fabricated his story with cops’ help.