Bouncers and Bodyguards

by Robin Barratt

  The name Loc19 came from the Manchester canal. There was a bar on the canal called The Canal Bar and behind it was lock number 19. Steve and I sat in the bar one night, and I asked him what we could call the company? We were thinking of names when he saw the sign on the lock and said let’s call it Loc19. The rest is history.

  We built the company on having bottle and balls, and the thing that made us strong was that we didn’t come from one particular area, unlike say the Gooch, who came from Moss Side. We were a central firm that didn’t have allegiance to any one area. We also dealt with situations as hard as we could, which rapidly built our reputation. But when we first started, we didn’t get any good venues, as the good venues didn’t need anyone like us. Also, most of them were controlled by firms outside town, so we only got the shit clubs. But over time we got a reputation for doing a good job and of keeping trouble out of clubs, and more and more venues therefore took us on. What we had back then was loyalty and friendship, which you don’t get now. Back then, we worked together, trained together, fought together. We all had a good bond. And we got involved in all sorts of things as well – lots of ‘behind the scenes’ stuff. People came to us wanting doormen to do this and that, and we kept things nice and tight and controlled things.

  We got put to the test a couple of times by a couple of different firms. One night, we got tested by the Gooch. We were running a venue called The Limits in Manchester, and the Gooch were coming to the door in big teams and putting my doormen under pressure. I had had enough of it all, so I told the doormen to let them all in. Once they were in the venue, I made a few phone calls and got as many guys together as I could. There were about 50 of us in all. We shut all the entrances and exits and went into the venue tooled up, and we really hurt some people. But it caused a massive stink, as it was another firm. Their head guys came down, and we respectfully put them in the picture: they could do whatever they wanted, but we were standing firm – we were up for it and had made our stand. The Gooch knew we were not going to the police and that we would fight fire with fire. Because of that, our reputation developed even further.

  We had guys from Salford who could sort the Salford side of things out and guys from Cheetham Hill who could sort the Cheetham Hill side of things out. As a result, there was a time in Manchester when most venues ended up using Loc19. We could control most clubs, especially raves and special events, which no one else could. We had allegiance to Loc19 from all quarters and areas of the city, even into Liverpool and Merseyside.

  Although Steve and I ran Loc19 and we had over 200 guys working for us, I always worked the doors myself. I wanted to be on the front line. I liked the job. There would be trouble at some of Manchester’s late-night venues after 2.30 a.m. once all the main clubs had closed. People would want to come into certain of our venues, but we had to turn them away, which would cause us big problems. There were times when I worked the door every night wearing a bulletproof vest, tooled up with coshes and CS gas. And there were times when I would even wear a vest going to the corner shop for a pint of milk.

  In actual fact, violence was rarely used, but it was the fear of who we were and what we could do that made us what we were. However, saying that, when violence was used, it was used in such a manner that you would never want it to be used on you again. Once you had had a taste of Loc19, you were a broken person, and that was well known.

  One night, we had a major confrontation on the door with another firm. One of our doormen, wearing a Loc19 jacket and badge, pulled out a gun and shot one of their firm twice, once in the chest and once in the leg. All hell broke loose, and Loc19 soon crumbled. Once the police got wind that Loc19 were using guns, they wanted to destroy us, and we lost venue after venue as pubs and clubs were told not to use us – we were animals and obviously any licensee or venue owner definitely didn’t want doormen working their venue who went around shooting people! Licensees, managers, club owners – everyone became afraid of Loc19, but as a gang our reputation soared. We were fearless; we were people that didn’t fuck about, and as a firm we were left to our own devices. However, Loc19 was slowly pushed to the outskirts of Manchester, because neither the police nor the licensees wanted us running doors in the city centre.

  The doorman who had shot someone really fucked our business, and club upon club let us go and found other companies to run their doors. Things really came to an end for Loc19 – as it was back then – at Applejacks nightclub. Applejacks brought in an outside firm called Platinum Security to run their door. One night, one of our lads tried to get into the club and got punched in the mouth by one of their doormen. He told me about it, so my brother Chris, Steve Brian, about 20 lads and I went down to sort things out. We were tooled up just in case, but I said to everyone not to resort to any violence unless I gave the nod. But when we arrived, the doormen wanted a confrontation – they wanted to make a statement. So, I gave the nod, and we annihilated them. It was a massacre that night, and we did some really serious injury, but we all walked away from it. As I turned to leave, I smashed the front door of the club with my fist.

  The police didn’t get involved straight away, but everything was on camera, including me giving the nod, and the manager had given the CCTV footage to the cops. Two weeks later, a police armed-response unit conducted a dawn raid, and I was arrested and charged with, amongst other things, attempted murder for stabbing a doorman in the chest. On camera, you couldn’t see who or what I smashed. At the trial, a bulletproof vest turned up with three stab marks in it, but, unfortunately for the prosecution, I was only seen banging the door, so the charge of attempted murder was eventually dropped.

  We were on remand for nine months, straight off the streets. We went to trial, and I was found guilty. Chris, Steve and I all got four and a half years. I was sent to Strangeways, which is another story . . .

  Without me or Steve running things, Loc19 more or less fell apart. Once the company leadership had gone, it went to pieces – people helped themselves to our business, and venues found other door firms. We were left with just a couple of units and a handful of doormen.

  When I came out of prison, we had to form again, and over time we got things going. Now Loc19 is not as big as it was back in the late 1980s and early ’90s. Because of the new Security Industry Authority (SIA) rules and regulations, we have taken a step back from the doors, and the business has diversified and now has other interests. It is a different industry to what it was back then. All the guys we used to work with who had street cred can’t get a badge – they can’t work the doors anymore.

  When we were re-establishing ourselves, we looked at other places in the North West where we could run the doors, because we no longer ran as many venues in central Manchester. Chester was one city where Loc19 had a couple of doors but hadn’t yet developed a big presence.

  TALES FROM CHESTER BY STEVE, AREA MANAGER FOR LOC19

  I was working as a doorman in Chester on one of Mickey’s doors when, unbeknown to me, Mickey got called by another doorman – who already ran a couple of doors in Chester – to discuss some sort of sharing of the door at my venue, as apparently he had overheard that the owners were looking to get rid of Loc19 and pass the job over to him. Mickey agreed to a meeting at a service station on the motorway and, because I was in charge of the door, asked me to attend.

  The other doorman and I arranged to go to the meeting together. Apparently, he was a bit of a name in Chester, but once I told him about Loc19’s reputation he crumbled and was on his hands and knees, begging me not to leave him alone with Mickey. He genuinely thought that if Mickey pulled up in a van, he was going to get shot and dumped somewhere.

  We met Mickey and one of his colleagues at the service station, where we discussed this doorman’s discourtesy to Mickey and Loc19. Because of what he had said and done, it was agreed that he could no longer operate in Chester from that day onwards, and he agreed to hand all his doors over to Mickey and Loc19 as a punishment.

  I had been working the d
oors in the local area for many years and had a strong martial-arts background. I was quite well known, and Mickey asked if I would like to look after business for him in Chester – I agreed. The buzz quickly went round that Loc19 were fully in town. There were mixed emotions: a lot of people were happy that certain local characters would no longer rule the roost, whereas others were not so pleased. However, many of the local gangsters initially kept their heads down and remained out of sight.

  Loc19 were like a ghost; people were aware of the name and feared them, but no one had actually seen them, so I thought I’d ask Mickey if he could come down with a few lads and show his face. One night, we were doing a bit of a collection for one of our guys who had cancer. We were collecting at the door and had various fundraising things arranged for that evening, and I asked Mickey if he could come down. I was hoping that he would turn up with a few lads from Manchester as a bit of a show for our boys in Chester. Halfway through the evening as I was inside patrolling the club, one of the doormen rushed up to me and said I had better come to the front door pretty quick. Mickey had come down with about 50 doormen in the biggest black coach I have ever seen. That was the start of Chester police’s interest in Loc19. Mickey’s presence that night kept the lads safe – they knew they were part of a decent firm.

  Later that evening, we all decided to go to another club. I called the head doorman at a place about a mile up the road and told him we were coming – and that there would be a lot of us. I suppose ‘no’ wasn’t really an option, but he said no problem; we were all welcome as his guests. We didn’t think that there would be any trouble. We were all there as guests and were all behaving. A few of the lads, because they were new in town, had girls flocking around them. Mickey and I were in a raised area of the club keeping an eye on them all when all of a sudden a local lad from one of the estates smashed a champagne bottle over one of our lads’ heads. It immediately turned in on itself; it was like a feeding frenzy against the locals.

  The fight was eventually quelled, and the troublemakers were either ejected or sent off to hospital. The head doorman had seen exactly what had happened and was very apologetic, but about ten minutes after everything had died down he came rushing over to me again and told me that the chief constable was outside and wanted to talk to me urgently. I went to the front door and was introduced to a uniformed officer with all the pips and decorations everywhere. He knew my name and told me we had a problem: he knew who we had in there, he wasn’t comfortable with what was happening in the venue and all of our lads had to leave immediately. I replied by saying to him that there weren’t enough of them to evict us all, and he replied by saying, ‘Believe me, there are enough of us.’

  The copper told me that the general manager of the venue, who wasn’t working that night, had been told about what had just happened at his venue and wasn’t at all happy. He had also been told that the police were going to close his club. I couldn’t believe it and went over to Mickey and told him what was going on.

  So we knew who was who that evening, we were all wearing black. We were like a drilled army. We all stuck together, and within just a few minutes everyone filed quietly out of the venue. As we left the club, there was a big camera pointing at us, filming us as though we were on stage. As we walked back to the coach, which was about a mile up the road, you couldn’t see any pavement – it was a mass of black. There were helicopters in the air and police everywhere, and van doors were opened as we marched past, revealing snarling, barking dogs. Later, we had heard that they had even closed all the roads in and out of Chester.

  The chief constable and his entourage walked with me, and he told me to stay well away from Mickey and his firm, but I politely reminded him that they were not causing one jot of trouble. No one was being abusive to the police or causing problems. They were just filing out quietly and calmly.

  Once we got onto the bus, we decided to go to another venue that we all knew in Ellesmere Port. I called the manager and asked if we could all come in. He said by all means and agreed to meet us at the gate. We drove off under police escort, like we were royalty! But the manager was then contacted by the police, who were obviously listening in to our calls, telling him we were on the way to his venue and he was to close up and turn all the lights out. He refused, telling the police that we were his security company and that he could have whomever he wanted in his venue, and he kept the club open for us. Most of the police convoy left us once we had turned off the motorway, apart from a few vehicles, which were placed strategically around the venue.

  What really infuriated me were the headlines in the local papers the next day and for about two weeks thereafter. ‘Marauding gang of Manchester doormen wreck Chester after bursting through the doors of Rosie’s nightclub’ was one example. We were accused of attacking the doorstaff, turning tables and chairs over, and only being in town with the intention of causing mayhem. It was reported that the local police sorted us all out and removed us from the town under police escort. It was a complete fabrication, and it lost us a couple of doors. We were even accused of supplying drugs and being drug lords. When I told Mickey about the headlines, he just laughed and said, ‘Welcome to the real world.’

  Chester is a tourist town and a place for entertainment; for example, we have the very famous Chester races, which are attended by people from all over the country. We have visitors from Manchester, Liverpool and London. Admittedly, they don’t always get on with one another, but when most serious players see the Loc19 badge that all our doormen and security staff wear they behave and show us respect. And that is how we have gained a lot of doors and venues, as the managers see this too. Loc19 is not afraid of taking anybody on.

  There are a couple of big estates just outside Chester. Some of the lads who live there have held siege to our venue on a couple of occasions, surrounding us and throwing bricks through the windows. The police didn’t really want to know, so after the second time we had to sort things out ourselves and make sure that it didn’t happen again. We visited one particular estate, where we knew the main players were based, and spent an evening walking into pubs, asking around. We made sure people knew who we were, that we were in the area and exactly what we wanted – in other words, we made sure that the word got about. Later that night, I got a call from one of the head lads asking for a meeting. We arranged to meet in one of our bars in Chester on a Tuesday afternoon at 2 p.m. There were about six heads of the area plus a few of their soldiers. I arrived first and was just about to buy everyone a round of drinks before we got talking when the whole place was flooded with police. They had blocked the road at either end and took everyone outside and lined them up against the wall, apart from me and my driver. The police had heard that we had been looking around the estate, and they told the locals that we were very dangerous people. Anyway, we assured the police that we were just having a meeting and that nothing was going down. Things eventually died down (although one person got carted away for non-payment of a fine), and the police left. We had our meeting and told the heads of the estate that Loc19 wanted them to work with us; we wanted them behind us, not against us. By the end of the meeting, they were all beaming – they could go back to their communities proud.

  When they went to pick up their lad who had got nicked, the police wanted to know what had been said and what was going down. They told the coppers that in those few hours Loc19 had done more for their community than the police had done in years. All the cops had done was to chase kids around and nick them for this and that, whereas Loc19 gave them respect.

  Of course, we understand that because the police have their hands tied they can’t do what we can do. We can go and sort out these problems in our own way, but we have never been bullies. As a company, we have never taken a fight to anybody first; we have always responded. If the police could only work with us and other firms like us, there would be a lot less trouble.

  Not long after, we took on a club on the outskirts of Chester in Ellesmere Port, a tough reside
ntial community with some tough people living there. No one wanted to run the bar. It was a really rough place, a bit like something from the Wild West. One particular family had a reputation as being one of the worst in the area, and within that family there were twins who for some reason thought that they were the Krays.

  One night, these twins caused a bit of mischief at our venue. They were pissed up and having an argument with what seemed like another member of their family. A couple of my lads and I tried to settle things down, but the twins took the piss a bit. I really didn’t want the story getting back to Mickey, as the fight was eventually quelled and things were sorted out, but the manager was adamant that Mickey was told.

  Mickey was in the area at that time, so he suggested we give the twins a visit. To be honest, I didn’t think it was a good idea – there was only me, Mickey and Mickey’s driver! Anyway, we went to the twins’ house and rang the doorbell. As soon as one of them answered the door, Mickey said, ‘All right, mate?’ and punched him straight in the face. Mickey then said, ‘Listen, you took the piss with the doormen at our venue. Because you disrespected Steve, you have to pay him £1,000 by next Friday for his discomforts, and if I have to come back to your fucking house, I won’t be talking to you.’ The guy looked nothing like the hard man he was supposed to be. On the Monday, he paid me, and we never heard from him again.

  I have to say that Loc19 is one of the best firms I have ever worked for. The employees have huge respect for the company, something rarely seen in other door firms. The doormen covet their badges more than anything. For instance, one of our doormen had a £700 coat stolen that his wife had bought him one Christmas, and he was nearly crying because his badge was on it. Lads want to work for us because of the firm’s reputation. For most of them, working for Loc19 is a big honour.