Some time during the night of 6 -
7 December 1995 three men - all career criminals -
were blown away with a shotgun as they sat in a Range
Rover parked in a remote farm track in Essex.
After a long trial at the Old Bailey, engineer Michael
Steele and mechanic Jack Whomes were convicted largely
on the word of police "supergrass" Darren
Nicholls.Nicholls was a former friend who claimed
he had driven the pair to the scene and picked them
up after the killing.
The informant, who had been charged with conspiracy
to import cannabis, was later given credit for turning
Queen's Evidence and was sentenced to 15 months in
jail. He walked free in lieu of time he had served
on remand. But the families of the two convicted men,
and their solicitor, Chris Bowen, say new evidence
has undermined Nicholl's credibility and, without
him, the conviction is unsafe.
Steele's case has now been referred to the Criminal
Cases Review Commission (CCRC), which has the power
to refer it back to the Court of Appeal, and an application
from Whomes will be made in due course. Looking back
at the scenes of crime photographs, it is truly horrific
to see what a double-barrelled shotgun did to the
handsome, chiselled features of drug barons Tony Tucker,
Craig Rolfe and Pat Tate.
From their relaxed body language - Rolfe was still
holding the steering wheel - it is clear the killer
struck with the maximum degree of surprise. A month
after the killings an East End villain, Billy Jasper,
who had been arrested for an armed robbery, confessed
to having been the getaway driver.
'Taken out of the game'
He claimed another criminal, Jesse Gale, gave him £5,000
to drive an accomplice, referred to for legal reasons
as Mr D, to and from Workhouse Lane in Rettendon, Essex,
where he was going to carry out a cocaine deal with
the three men.
Jasper testified at the Old Bailey that he had agreed
to the plan, but had not spotted Mr D's 9mm Browning
pistol and a sawn-off shotgun when he first drove him
to Workhouse Lane. He said it was only on collecting
him that he saw the weapon and realised Tate, Tucker
and Rolfe had been killed.
But Jasper did not fit in with Essex Police's line of
enquiry - 54-year-old Michael Steele was already their
prime suspect - and Jasper was never charged in connection
with the murder. Four months later, Nicholls told police
he was the real getaway driver.
In January 1998 Steele and his friend, Jack Whomes,
36, were jailed for life for the murders. Nicholls,
like Jasper, claimed he was unaware of the true purpose
of the trip until afterwards. During the case, the trial
judge, Mr Justice Hidden, said in his summing up to
the jury: "Nicholls is a convicted criminal who
was engaged in drug abuse and the importation of drugs
into this country. You must bear in mind it was in his
own interest to become a prosecution witness... he hopes
to get less time to serve."
Long before the Rettendon murders Nicholls was a police
informant who worked with a handler, referred to in
court as Detective Constable A. DC A is suspended from
duty pending a disciplinary hearing, but Mr Bowen has
been refused permission to attend this hearing, to find
out whether it impinges on his clients' convictions.
Earlier this year one of Nicholls' fellow "supergrasses"
on the Protected Witness Programme in Woodhill prison
near Milton Keynes came forward and spoke to the Daily
Mail. The man, known for legal reasons as Mr P, said
Nicholls told him early in 1997 that the story he was
supposed to tell in court was "a pack of lies".
Nicholls asked Mr P if he should go through with it,
and he replied: "If you're telling lies you better
not get caught". Mr P said he assumed Steele and
Whomes were guilty and was not unduly bothered. "I
thought there were forensics, witnesses.
I could ignore Darren's perjury because I thought it
was just the cherry on the cake. Now I realise Darren
wasn't the cherry on the cake - he was the cake,"
he told the Mail. |
