Bonded by Blood

by Bernard O'Mahoney

  Pam and Jack talked about starting a new life elsewhere, but it remained just talk until one afternoon when their eldest son nearly lost his life. Terry, then aged 11, was confronted by an Asian youth on his way home from school on the Barking Road in Canning Town and stabbed in the face. His parents decided enough was enough and moved out to rural Suffolk the very next weekend. Jack Whomes senior set up his own business as a motor mechanic and after two years the family purchased a property with thirteen acres of land in the village of Haughley Green.

  The family’s arrival was met with resentment by some members of the community: these locals felt their idyllic way of life was being threatened by East End migrants – or East End yobs, as they often referred to them. The parish magazine reported that Haughley Green was being targeted by families moving from London to escape city life. But the Whomes family soon settled in and eventually people in the village did warm to them. Children would flock to their house because Terry, Jack and John had motorbikes and old cars that they drove around the fields. This interest in cars and motorbikes developed as the Whomes brothers grew older, and they all became extremely good mechanics. Jack, in particular, was very proficient.

  In 1990, Suffolk Police arrested Jack and John Whomes in an early-morning raid. The brothers had two cars and a van, which had been stolen and their registrations and engine numbers changed. Jack and John denied any involvement in the thefts, so the police bailed them pending further inquiries. Those further inquiries dragged on for two years until eventually Jack and John were charged with conspiracy to obtain property by deception and handling stolen goods. The brothers stood trial at Ipswich Crown Court.

  After three weeks, they were convicted and bailed so that pre-sentence reports could be compiled. In February 1992, they returned to court, where they were both sentenced to 16 months’ imprisonment. It was, to say the least, a shock for the brothers, as it was the first time they had been in trouble. At Norwich prison, John and Jack were given the job of working on the servery at meal times, but, after just ten days, they were moved to an open prison called Hollesley Bay in Woodbridge, Suffolk.

  In 1887, Hollesley Bay was founded as a colonial college that trained people intending to emigrate. When the Whomes brothers arrived, its purpose was to provide different regimes for adult Category D offenders: life-sentence prisoners at the end of their custodial time and young offenders. It was the largest prison farm within the Prison Service and had a stud of Suffolk Punch horses, which were shown at local, county and national shows. Inmates were pretty much free to roam for up to two miles around the grounds, which included an area of the local beach. It was a prison to which inmates did not mind being sent.

  John and Jack were put into a wing called the Cosford Unit. One evening, while queuing for their meal, they got talking to a man who introduced himself as Darren Nicholls.

  Nicholls had appeared at Chelmsford Crown Court on a charge of distributing counterfeit currency and was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment. Eight months earlier, he had been invited to a meeting with two men he believed were faces from Basildon’s criminal fraternity. The two men dropped the names of Basildon hard men and claimed they wanted to get their hands on as much counterfeit money as possible, as they were planning to ‘pay’ for drugs off a rival gang with it. Nicholls, an impressionable loudmouth, told the men he could supply them with £250,000 worth of counterfeit £10 notes at a cost of £2 each. Nicholls was purchasing the notes for £1.50, so stood to earn £25,000. The deal was struck and the conversation turned towards the drug deal rip-off the two men said they were planning. One of the men asked Nicholls if he was concerned about getting ripped off himself. Nicholls laughed and said, ‘Listen, right, I’ve got a gun at home. If anyone ever tried to rip me off, I’d blow their fucking brains out.’

  Nicholls agreed he would meet the men at a hotel at the South Mimms service station on the M25 once he had got the counterfeit notes together. When Nicholls arrived at the hotel a few days later, he was surrounded by armed police and arrested. The two ‘Basildon faces’ he had done the deal with were undercover police officers.

  After a short spell at Chelmsford prison, Nicholls was transferred to Hollesley Bay. Despite the relaxed regime and stress-free environment, he proved to be extremely unpopular with the other inmates. Many of them believed he was informing on them to the prison officers. This conclusion was reached because Nicholls seemed to spend more time trying to win favour with the officers than he did socialising with his fellow prisoners. However, a month after Nicholls began his sentence, his luck changed dramatically. There was a protest by the prisoners over the quality of the food they were being served. They insisted that it be replaced. They shouted, banged tables and refused to move until their demands were met. The prison officers listened to their grievances at first but eventually told the inmates that if they did not comply with their request to leave the canteen, they would have them shipped out to a closed prison where they would lose all of the privileges they enjoyed at Hollesley Bay.

  Nicholls and three other inmates were the only ones who refused to budge. Finally, the prison governor went to speak to Nicholls and his fellow protestors. The governor listened, examined the food they were complaining about and agreed he would look into the matter. As none of the four had eaten, he arranged to have fresh ham and cheese rolls prepared for them. When the men sat down together to enjoy their food and their victory over the prison officers, one of them, a large, intense-looking man, leaned towards Nicholls and held out his hand.

  ‘Michael Steele. But you can call me Mick,’ he said. From that moment on, Nicholls’s life in prison changed dramatically. Steele, who was well respected by the prison staff and other inmates, took Nicholls under his wing.

  Steele was serving a nine-year sentence for drug importation. In the early ’80s, he had purchased a 33-foot motor cruiser in which he would sail over to Ostend once every two weeks. Upon his arrival, he would purchase a large quantity of tobacco from a shop near the harbour, load it onto his boat and sail back to England. Once the route and technique were tried and tested, Steele switched to smuggling cannabis. It’s a fault of human nature, I suppose: whatever we have, we always want more. Mick Steele is no different. He used the profits from his trips to purchase a single-engine Cessna aircraft for £38,000. Soon, he was flying back and forth to the Continent, importing large loads of cannabis into England.

  Customs officers had been tipped off about Steele’s activities and mounted Operation Water-ski in an effort to catch him. But Steele, a very intelligent man, realised he was under surveillance and decided to outfox Customs officers rather than cease his smuggling operation. With financial restraints on their surveillance team, Customs couldn’t afford to follow Steele all of the time. They reasoned that if they just watched his plane, they would catch him red-handed importing drugs. Steele realised what Customs were up to and purchased a second aircraft, which he kept at a different airfield. Steele would drive out of his home and notice the Customs officers following at a discreet distance in his rear-view mirror. If Steele drove in the opposite direction to the airfield where his first plane was kept, Customs would pull over and leave him be. Within just a few hours, Steele could fly to Holland using the second aircraft, pick up the consignment of drugs, unload them and be back home with Customs thinking he had just popped out to do some shopping.

  But in May 1989 Steele’s luck ran out. He arrived at the Albert pub in Colchester to hand over his latest consignment, which he had transferred from his plane to a white Fiat van. Two Customs officers had followed him but didn’t have the back-up to arrest him. Steele noticed them and drove off at speed. In desperation, the Customs officers tried to ram Steele’s vehicle, but he managed to avoid them by crossing the central reservation and driving the wrong way down a dual carriageway.

  Steele laid low for weeks, but meanwhile his mother fell ill and the police knew Steele would risk everything to ensure she was OK. They put a surveillance team in the h
ospital where Mrs Steele was being cared for. When Steele walked onto the ward, one of the officers approached him and asked him who he was.

  ‘I’m Jeff,’ Steele replied, ‘I’m trying to find my wife.’

  For a moment, the policeman hesitated, but Steele looked so composed the officer thought he couldn’t possibly be the man they were looking for. ‘OK,’ the policeman said, ‘off you go, it’s not you we are looking for.’

  ‘I hope you catch him,’ Steele replied, before walking off towards the exit. Just as he was about to step outside, another officer shouted, ‘That’s Steele, you fucking idiots, grab him!’

  At his trial, Steele faced ten charges of smuggling. He pleaded guilty to one – the one he had been arrested for – and not guilty to the other nine. Those that had been accused of assisting Steele with the drug importation said they thought he was smuggling in tobacco. They were all acquitted. As the case unfolded, the jury were shown surveillance pictures which Customs claimed showed Steele and others unloading drugs. Steele pointed out that Customs were wrong. The pictures couldn’t have been taken where or when Customs said they had been. In fact, it looked as if several of the pictures had been taken at a later date than Customs had claimed. The evidence against Steele began to crumble, and eventually the prosecution case collapsed.

  Steele was cleared of nine charges, but he still had to be sentenced for the one to which he had pleaded guilty. The judge sentenced him to nine years’ imprisonment and ordered that the courts seize £120,000 of his money, half of his former marital home, £15,000 from his mother’s home, his 33-foot motor cruiser, his £38,000 aircraft and his Toyota Land Cruiser. To Steele, it may have seemed like a harsh sentence: little did he know his association with drug smuggling was going to cost him even more in the future.

  The man who was going to use his knowledge of drug smuggling against him was using Steele from the day he met him. Darren Nicholls, boosted by his ‘friendship’ with Steele, bragged to the Whomes brothers about the clout he had in the prison. He told them if they wanted anything, whether it be alcohol, drugs or bodybuilding steroids, he was the man to see. Nicholls was not the type of person the Whomes brothers wished to be associated with. Jack was vehemently against the use of drugs. Some considered him an oddball because he did not drink or smoke, but it was just the way he was. Despite this, the Whomes brothers did not ignore Nicholls because after a few days they noticed he was constantly on the phone to his wife, crying about not being able to cope with prison life. They realised his boasts about being a big drug dealer in prison were a mask for the fact he was weak and unable to do his time. In short, they felt sorry for him.

  Mick Steele’s cell was opposite the Whomes brothers’ and inevitably they would exchange pleasantries. After a short period of time, Steele learned that Jack, like him, was fascinated by anything mechanical and the pair soon became good friends. John, Jack, Steele and Nicholls began to spend more time together. Steele would often talk about a good friend of his named Pat Tate, whom he had met at Swaleside prison on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent earlier in his sentence. Tate’s then girlfriend, Sarah Saunders, used to visit him there and on one occasion recognised a fellow visitor, Jackie Street, in the waiting room. Jackie used to own Longwood riding stables in Basildon where Sarah had once kept her horse. The two got chatting and both were surprised to find their partners, Tate and Steele, had become friends in the prison. After that first meeting, Sarah and Jackie would meet up before each visit and spend an hour or so outside the prison talking to each other. The two couples soon became friends. Eventually, Tate and Steele were moved to HMP Blantyre House, an old country home in Goudhurst, Kent. They shared a cell, and Steele had taught Tate how to use computers.

  Steele told the Whomes brothers and Nicholls that Tate had been going through a difficult time and Steele had written to him urging him to apply for a transfer to Hollesley Bay. Tate, he said, had now done this and had been accepted, so he would be joining him there soon.

  When Tate arrived, Steele introduced him to John, Jack and Nicholls, and they all began to socialise together. Tate worked as the prison gym orderly and he would supply inmates not only with steroids but also heroin, crack cocaine, speed and cannabis. Nicholls, an unfit, podgy man, was encouraged by Tate to work out and soon he had acquired a steroid-enhanced muscle-bound frame. This new look, combined with the stature of associating with Tate and Steele, gave Nicholls confidence and he began to talk and act like some sort of gangster. Nicholls and Tate became particularly close, training at the gym together and spending time in each other’s cells. Tate told Nicholls that he had been in trouble for as long as he could remember. At the age of 12, Tate said, he had found a wallet with more than £300 in it on the roof of a parked car. It turned out that the money was intended for a Christmas party being held by the local police. Tate spent the money on a leather coat, a record player and taxis and restaurants with his friends during trips to Cambridge.

  When the police caught up with Tate, he was charged with theft and sent to an approved school. Tate confided in Nicholls that his time there and his childhood in general had been pretty awful. He felt aggrieved about the way he had been treated, and so vowed to dedicate the rest of his life to waging war on the law-abiding members of society.

  In December 1988, Tate had robbed a Happy Eater restaurant in Basildon. He had arrived there off his face after a weekend of non-stop clubbing with Sarah Saunders. After the couple had eaten, Tate got into a dispute with the staff about his bill. To compensate himself, he punched the cashier and snatched £800 from the till. When he was arrested, Tate was found to be in possession of small amounts of cocaine, cannabis and speed which he said were for his personal use.

  On 29 December 1988, 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 onto his back, but he broke free and ran off. One WPC received a black eye and another officer was kicked in the face, as they tried to block Tate’s escape. He ploughed his way out of the court to an awaiting motorcycle. Roadblocks, which were immediately set up, failed to trap him. His escape was so speedy, the police couldn’t say what type of motorcycle it was, or whether he was alone or had travelled as a passenger.

  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 the British authorities and later sent to prison.

  Since Hollesley Bay was an open prison, there was no shortage of contraband. Alcohol and drugs, even sex with visiting females, were readily available. Steele, Tate, Nicholls and the Whomes brothers would often have alcohol and Chinese takeaways smuggled in to them and sit up late into the night eating, drinking and having a laugh.

  One afternoon, Tate and John Whomes were walking back to the unit after meeting John’s brother, Terry, who had dropped off new T-shirts and a couple of bottles of whisky. John had put on the T-shirts and hidden the whisky in his jacket pockets. Tate and John had then given Terry an order for Chinese food, which he was going to deliver later that evening when it got dark. As Tate and John neared the unit, a prison officer came out and asked, ‘What have you got on you?’

  ‘We haven’t got anything,’ Tate and John replied.

  The officer said that he had watched them meet somebody, and therefore if they did not come clean, he was going to search them. John took his prison sweater off, then the T-shirts his brother had given to him. ‘Here,’ he said, throwing them at the officer to catch. ‘That’s all I was given – T-shirts, which we are allowed to have anyway.’

  The officer said that without prior permission nothing was allowed to be handed in, therefore John would be charged. He told Tate and John to follow him before turning and marching off towards the unit.

  ‘You can’t nick John for those T-shirts,’ Tate said.

  ‘I can, and I’m g
oing to,’ replied the officer.

  ‘You don’t understand. I’m telling you that you can’t and won’t nick John for those T-shirts, or I will fucking kill you.’

  The officer did not reply, he just continued walking. When John entered the unit, he took his jacket off and gave it and the whisky to another inmate. John and Tate were then called into the office, where Tate began to tell the senior officer what he could and couldn’t do regarding John and the T-shirts. ‘He’s just a young boy,’ he said. ‘If you nick him for that, it will increase tension on the unit and there will be trouble. Serious fucking trouble.’

  The senior officer said that the matter would be considered and they would be informed of any decision in due course. Tate and John left the office and went up to their rooms. Later that night, Terry arrived outside the rear of Cosford Unit with the Chinese meal. Jack leapt over the balcony, ran over to Terry, collected the meal and made his way back to John, Tate, Steele and Nicholls, who were already busy consuming the smuggled bottles of whisky.

  The next morning, John was working at the prison stables when two officers arrived and told him that he was being taken to the punishment block. A few minutes after being placed in a cell, John heard shouting and realised Tate was also going to be put in a cell. Unlike John, six officers were escorting Tate because he was being uncooperative, calling them wankers and arseholes. Tate and John spent the night in the punishment block but were able to talk when let out of their cells for meals and showers.

  Tate told John that nothing would happen, that they would only be reprimanded. But the following morning they were told they were being sent to HMP Camp Hill on the Isle of Wight. Tate told John that he was going to feign a back injury so they would diagnose him as unfit to travel. He lay on the cell floor, writhed about and screamed in agony while clutching his back. John alerted the prison officers and they called for the prison gym orderly, who was trained in first aid. The orderly entered Tate’s cell and, after five minutes, emerged saying that Tate was unfit to travel to Camp Hill. The only prison Tate could be sent to was one with a prison hospital. HMP Highpoint, which they were told was just as relaxed as Hollesley Bay, had a hospital and was just down the road in Newmarket. The following morning Tate and John were handcuffed and taken from Hollesley Bay in a van.