??/06/00 - The end of the road
Hot Air

ON THE MORNING OF 7 DECEMBER 1995, THREE MEN WERE FOUND DEAD IN A BLOOD-SPATTERED RANGE ROVER IN A FIELD NEAR THE SLEEPY ESSEX VILLAGE OF RETTENDON. TONY TUCKER, PAT TATE AND CRAIG ROLFE HAD BEEN SHOT IN WHAT SEEMED AN INEXPLICABLE MURDER SPREE.

IN THIS EXCLUSIVE EXTRACT FROM ESSEX BOYS, PUBLISHED BY MAINSTREAM, BERNARD O'MAHONEY DESCRIBES THE VIOLENT LIFESTYLE THAT LED TO THEIR DEATHS. O'MAHONEY, A FORMER ASSOCIATE OF THE MEN, WAS SUSPECTED OF THE MURDERS FOR A TIME...

TONY TUCKER and i began when I was in charge of door security at Raquel's nightclub in Basildon in September 1993. I told him I wouldn't bother him with the day-to-day running of the club.

The only time I would call on him was if I had a severe problem and needed urgent back-up. In return, he would make money each week from the club providing false invoices, drugs, protection and so on. We shook hands.

Tucker was in his mid-30s and a mountain of a man. He ran a very big and well-respected door firm providing security for a number of clubs in Essex and London. He also used to lead the boxer Nigel Benn into the ring at all of his fights and on occasion we would be invited to parties in honour of Nigel and his friends.

After one of his fights a party was held at the Park night club in Kensington High Street. Everyone was there. We really had a good time. Tucker was in his element out of his head, shitfaced on coke and Special K, one of his favourite drug cocktails.

The agreement with Tucker brought new faces on to the scene in Basildon. Men who worked for him and were looking for a change would come and work for me at Raquel's. Troublemakers began to go to other clubs.

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.

Tucker told me he was having his birthday party at the Prince of Wales in South Ockendon, and he invited me and all the other doormen from Raquel's. It was a real success. Doormen from everywhere were there. In the early hours of the morning a man in his early twenties pushed open the door, which hit me.

I looked at him, waiting for an apology. He asked me what the matter was. I said to him: "You've just knocked the fucking door into me." He said "Well, you're a doorman, aren't you?" Before the fight could start, we were separated. I later learned he was Tucker's closest friend, Craig Rolfe.

It was Tucker who told me a few days later, when I was explaining what had gone on, why Rolfe had this chip on his shoulder. On Christmas Eve 1968, a man was found murdered in a van in a lay-by on the A13 between Stanford-Le-Hope and Vange in Basildon. He was Brian Rolfe, a market trader from Basildon.

On Boxing Day a 19-year-old motor fitter from Basildon was charged with the murder together with the murdered man's 23-year-old wife. In court, the fitter was found guilty of murder and jailed for life. Rolfe's wife was found not guilty of murder, but sent to prison for 18 months for making false statements to impede Kennedy's arrest.

It was while serving this sentence in Holloway Prison that she gave birth to Craig. Little wonder he had a chip on his shoulder and he'd chosen a life of crime.

POP CONCERTS were being held at the Towngate Theatre in Basildon when Tucker and I took over security. It was hardly a lucrative contract, but it was work and additional money. One evening I was told that there were doormen already there.

To my surprise a security company from Kent had taken over our contract, which was a verbal one, without me or Tucker being notified. [Subsequently, there was "a disturbance" at the theatre which their security could not handle.] I was asked to attend a meeting with two environmental health officers who ran the door registration scheme for Basildon Council.

At the meeting the subject of the Towngate Theatre incident arose. I told the council they were getting involved in something they knew little about. People couldn't just turn up from another town and undercut you and take over your door and expect nothing to happen. One of the environmental health officers told me that Basildon was not Chicago.

"Maybe it's not Chicago," I thought, "but there are people in the town who sometimes wish it was." Then in July of 1994 an explosive ingredient was added to what was, under the surface, becoming an increasingly volatile situation. Pat Tate was released from prison after serving four years of a six-year sentence.

In December 1988 Tate 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 helped 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 on to 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. Several days later, Tate surfaced in Spain. He remained there for a year, but made the mistake of crossing over into Gibraltar where he was arrested by British authorities.

Everybody in Basildon had a good word for Tate. Tucker warmed to men like him. He was six foot two, very broad, 18 stone and no fool. After he was released from prison, he was soon recruited by the firm. Pat Tate brought with him ideas of grandeur.

He had made lots of useful contacts inside whom he thought we could work with or exploit. 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.

Tucker and Tate were becoming increasingly unpredictable. Their consumption of drugs was spiralling out of control. Tucker, once level-headed, was now often totally irrational. Tate was explosive. When they were together the mood was always boisterous and fun, but a single comment could alter it instantly.

Tucker, Tate and Craig Rolfe turned up at Raquel's one evening with a man they introduced as Nipper, because of his size I guess. His real name was Steve Ellis. He was from Southend, and was very likeable. Everywhere the firm went, he was there.

One weekend Tate, Tucker and Nipper went into a 7-Eleven store in Southend. Nipper threw a bread roll at Tate, who retaliated by throwing a cake at Nipper. They were all high-spirited and soon engaged in a food fight in the shop. The police turned up. Tucker and Tate walked off and Nipper was arrested. It was no big deal.

In fact, everyone thought it was rather funny. The following day Tucker and Craig Rolfe turned up at Nipper's house [claiming he had "grassed them up" after the 7-Eleven incident]. Tucker stuck a loaded handgun into his temple and said he was going to kill him.

He was threatened with a machete and they said they were going to hack off one of his hands and one of his feet. Then they looted Nipper's house. Rolfe plastered his excrement over everything that was left behind. Nipper fled. On the Sunday, Tate was in the bathroom when somebody threw a brick through the window.

Tate peered outside and Nipper opened fire from close range with a revolver. The round hit him in the wrist, travelled up his arm and smashed bones in his elbow. Tate was taken to hospital. Tucker said, "When Tate gets out, Nipper's going to die".

Nipper served seven and a half months in jail for illegally possessing a firearm. Even while in jail the death threats from the firm never ceased. This incident was not the firm's main problem. Kevin Whitaker, from Basildon, had been a friend of Craig Rolfe's for some time.

Rolfe had introduced Whitaker to Tucker and they were starting to use him as a middleman and courier for drugs. Whitaker had been involved in a £60,000 cannabis deal with a firm from Romford. It had gone wrong, and Tucker had lost out.

As Whitaker was the go-between, the debt was down to him, and Tucker wanted to know how he was going to pay. Whitaker blamed the firm from Romford for the loss of the cannabis, so Tucker and Rolfe said they would take him to the firm to confront the people. They were getting increasingly annoyed.

It was dawning on them that they weren't going to get their money. They had hold of Whitaker, and they kept saying to him: "Thieve our gear, would you? If you like drugs that much, have some more of ours." They were forcing him to take cocaine and Special K. He was out of his head on the gear they had forced him to take.

They left Basildon and were travelling along the A127 towards Romford. Tucker said as they reached the Laindon/Dunton turn-off, that Whitaker was slipping in and out of consciousness. They got out and pulled Whitaker out, but he just collapsed on the side of the road. They drove off and looked back.

Whitaker was motionless. Rolfe got out of the car and ran back to him. He stood over him and kept telling him to get up. But still there was no response. "Fucking leave him," said Tucker. "You can't leave him here," replied Rolfe. It was about six o'clock and everyone was coming out of work.

They drove the car back the short distance to where Whitaker lay. Tucker and Rolfe got out of the car, and they both put Whitaker back inside. They then drove back over the A127 to Dunton Road.Tucker said they looked at Whitaker, and they knew he was dead. They pulled him out of the car and he was put in the ditch.

I asked Tucker what he was going to do. He was laughing, but I knew he was concerned. He said the Old Bill would just think that Whitaker had taken a bit too much gear at someone's house and died. That person, not wanting a body in their home, would have taken him out and dumped him anyway.

Tucker was right. Detectives could find no evidence to support any murder claims. Whitaker was written off as a junkie who had overdosed. At the time of the inquest Tate was still laid up in Basildon hospital after being shot.

Each evening members of the firm gathered round his bed listening to blaring house music, taking drugs and generally having a party. Nobody dared object. A nurse discovered the gun while making up Tate's bed. She contacted the police and Tate was arrested.

Because he was still out on licence for his six-year robbery sentence, he was automatically returned to prison for being in possession of a firearm, something which broke his parole conditions. Tucker too was feeling vulnerable.

When he used to come and see me on Friday nights to give me the invoices and the doormen's wages for the club, he would park at the top of the street in his black Porsche. I used to go up, open the door and get in. He would always have a handgun on the seat between his legs.

Pat Tate was due to be released from prison soon after his breech of parole, and everybody was talking about an article which had been in the local papers. Half a million pounds worth of cannabis had been found in a farmer's pond near a place called Rettendon.

It was believed that the 336lb of cannabis, wrapped in 53 different plastic parcels about the size of video tapes, had been dropped from a low-flying aircraft. Instead of landing in the field, it had landed in a pond, and the dealers were unable to find it. Tucker said he was going to find out who the drugs belonged to.

He didn't like the idea of people trading on his manor, particularly if he wasn't getting a slice of the profit. He also knew that, as the drugs had been lost, there would be a replacement shipment coming soon.

Word soon reached Tucker that the Rettendon drugs had been destined for a heavy firm from Canning Town in east London. He approached the people concerned and told them he was interested in purchasing any future shipments.

They told him they were due to receive a replacement drop and they would keep him informed so a deal could be struck when it arrived. Tucker had a better idea: he was going to steal it. Tate's other get-rich-quick scheme was also under way at this time. He had approached shady car dealers, villains and dodgy businessmen to put up approximately £120,000 in cash for a shipment of cannabis from Amsterdam.

Tate calculated that he would get up to £270,000 back on the investment. Darren Nicholls, a man Tate had met in prison and who considered himself to be a bit of a face in the drugs world, was going to purchase the drugs and use what he called his "suicide jockeys" to bring them into the country.

These were the people, obviously desperate for money, who were prepared to drive cars laden with drugs from the Continent to England for between £6,000 and £8,000 a trip.The only risk lay with the jockeys. Tate and Tucker felt they couldn't lose. The cannabis turned out to be dud. Darren Nicholls was in great danger.

They thought he had conned them. Then on Saturday 11 November 1995, Leah Betts collapsed during her 18th birthday party at home, having taken an ecstasy tablet which was allegedly obtained from a supplier in Raquel's nightclub. The world and his mother thought that we were responsible for Leah's death.

People I had known for years had stopped speaking to me. Reporters were ringing Raquel's and my house. They were saying to me, "Is that Bernie?" Then asking, "Look, Bernie, can you get hold of anything for us tonight?" It was just incredible.

[O'Mahoney did not deal drugs, though he had a good working knowledge of the dealers.] Tony Tucker rang me. He was going mental. There was too much police attention both on him and on the firm, he said. Now Leah had died, the shit was going to hit the fan.

Tucker was stressed out because he feared the police attention from the Betts enquiry would unearth the dud cannabis deal with Nicholls and jeopardise the robbery he was planning at Rettendon. Soon after, Tate and Rolfe came back from Amsterdam, having retrieved the syndicate's £130,000 which they kept.

Still feeling mugged off by events, Tate and Tucker decided to teach Nicholls a lesson. A third of the cannabis that had been imported was of good quality. Tucker and Tate managed to salvage this from the haul.

They sold it and pocketed £72,000.They also told all the members of the syndicate that Nicholls had not only delivered dud cannabis in an attempt to con them, he had also failed to reimburse them. Tate and Tucker were quietly confident that Nicholls would soon be dead, and they could keep the syndicate's money.

Tucker once more approached the Canning Town cartel who were waiting for the replacement drop at Rettendon. They told him it was due any day, and that he would be the first to know when it was available.

Tate and Tucker knew they weren't dealing with fools, so they bought some firepower for the robbery. They approached a man from south London who supplied them with a machine gun and silencer. They also recruited a minor player from the Canning Town cartel to find out more about the incoming shipment.

They thought they could buy anybody in the drugs world; they thought there was no loyalty, only to them. They were wrong. [Meanwhile, O'Mahoney, having distanced himself from Tucker's wilder schemes, took another decisive step away by resigning from the "door" at Raquel's.]

Monday, 20 November, Tucker rang. I wasn't in. He left a message on the answering machine. He was abusive and threatening. He said I couldn't just walk out of Raquel's and he wanted an explanation. He said: "I'm going to fucking do you." I later received a phone call from an Essex detective.

He told me that I ought to watch my back as the police had received information that a firm was going to shoot me. He said Tucker was the man behind it, and I should take the threat seriously. I didn't expect a gold watch when I quit the firm. But I didn't expect to be shot, either. Darren Nicholls was in trouble, too.

He had been getting a lot of grief from members of the syndicate who still believed he had not repaid their money. In desperation he approached Tate, pleading with him to come clean and admit he had been given the money back.

Tucker told Nicholls that Tate wasn't in any position to pay anybody back for the time being. "The fucking car dealers and their ponces can wait. When we pull off this job at Rettendon, they'll get their money," he said.

On 6 December, Tucker received the call he had been waiting for: the Rettendon drop was being made the next day, and the Canning Town cartel advised him to get the money organised. Everything, Tucker thought, was coming together.

He received a second telephone call. This time it was from his informant in the Canning Town cartel who was calling from a payphone near Great Blakenham. He told Tucker he wanted to meet him, Tate and Rolfe later that evening to show them where the drop was going to be made so they could rehearse the robbery at the scene.

The following morning I'd arranged to meet my brother Paul in London. I travelled on the train, as I didn't fancy battling through traffic in the snow. At about eleven I rang home to see if there were any messages on the answering machine.

There was one, a detective asking me to contact him as soon as possible. It sounded urgent. I rang him as soon as I got to King's Cross station. "We've found a Range Rover with three bodies inside," he said.

"They've all been shot through the head. We think it's your mates." Tucker, Tate, Rolfe. They'd all been warned, but they wouldn't listen. They should not have fucked with people in the game we were in. Any fool can pull a trigger - it doesn't take a hard man.

But they wouldn't listen. They thought nobody could touch them. They were wrong. After the killings both Bernard O'Mahoney and Nipper Ellis were naturally considered suspects. Nipper Ellis was not particularly fazed, telling The Sun newspaper: "It wasn't me who did it, but I'd love to shake the hand of the man who did. He's my hero."

O'Mahoney was less exalted, partly because he really liked Tucker before he went off the rails, and partly because he could have done without the aggravation. Some time later, he was successful with an application under the Data Protection Act and managed to extract some of the information on the police computer that related to the murder investigation.

The print-outs he received read in part: 'Associate of Tucker' 'Associate of Tate' 'Previous convictions: robbery, ABH, GBH and offensive weapons' 'O'Mahoney as possible killer.'

The police focus, however, would switch from O'Mahoney and Ellis and other possible suspects to some friends of Darren Nicholls, the luckless central figure in the duff cannabis saga.

Two of them, Mike Steele and Jack Whomes, were eventually convicted of importing cannabis and for the murders, and were given three life sentences with a recommendation that they serve at least 15 years.

Darren Nicholls served 15 months for his one-man crime wave. Case apparently closed. Only Bernard O'Mahoney is by no means convinced that the right men are behind bars.

Extracted by Lewis Chester from Essex Boys by Bernard O'Mahoney, published by Mainstream.