Wannabe in My Gang?

by Bernard O'Mahoney

  Two men wielding ammonia sprays allegedly attacked John Masterson, aged 47, from Peckham in south London, in the street on Monday night. There were reports of a shot being fired and he has not been seen since.

  Mr Masterson had been drinking in two local pubs, The Heaton Arms and The Montpelier Arms in the evening with Bernard O’Mahoney from Essex, who is also a friend and visitor of Ronnie Kray in Broadmoor Hospital.

  Mr O’Mahoney said that the two men were walking along Nutbrook Street at about 10.30 p.m. ‘The two chaps were aged about 30 to 35 and they sprayed ammonia into our faces. I fell to the floor and there was a loud bang.’ Mr O’Mahoney went into a nearby house and the police and ambulance service were called. He was unable to see for several hours and was treated in King’s College Hospital.

  Mr O’Mahoney said it was possible that Mr Masterson was bundled into a car. He was aware of no motive for the attack but inevitably there is speculation following the recent killings involving members of south London’s criminal fraternity. ‘He is always fighting everybody’s case for them,’ said Mr O’Mahoney, ‘maybe he had been asking too many questions.’

  Lord Longford said yesterday: ‘He liked poking his nose into things like I do. There is always a danger with that. One hopes and prays that he is all right.’

  Peckham CID is investigating the disappearance.

  The only harm that John may have suffered was the damage to his liver as he drank himself into a stupor with Alan up in Edinburgh.

  I spoke to Alan and John two or three times a day, keeping them up to date with the press interest in the story. As the Telegraph, Guardian and Daily Star had already reported the ‘incident’, we were confident that when John was ‘released by his captors’ he would be able to sell his story for a substantial amount of money.

  By the end of the first week, John had run out of beer money, so he decided that it was time to cash in on his ‘ordeal’. I thought John would telephone a journalist and say he had been released and then hope the journalist would ask him for his story. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

  When I heard what John had done, I must admit I could not stop laughing – he was certainly intent on making as much money as possible out of his ordeal. His ‘release’ was reported in several newspapers, but the most dramatic account appeared in The Guardian:

  John Masterson, a friend of the Kray twins and Lord Longford who had disappeared a week ago after an alleged attack in south London turned up doused in petrol at a Glasgow hospital over the weekend.

  Last night, Mr Masterson, who has convictions for robbery, said that he had been abducted because of a dispute over recent murders and attempted murders among criminals in south London.

  ‘I wasn’t the man they were after,’ said Masterson. He said that he had been abducted by two men who had approached him in Peckham, south London and sprayed ammonia in the eyes of his companion, Bernard O’Mahoney, with whom he had been drinking. ‘They fired a shotgun and put it to my head to make me get in the car,’ said Mr Masterson.

  Strathclyde Police confirmed that Mr Masterson had appeared in the casualty department at Glasgow Royal Infirmary late on Saturday night, saying that he had been abducted.

  Police interviewed Mr Masterson, but it is understood that apart from saying he had been seized by two Scotsmen in London he gave no details or names. Police in London began an investigation into his disappearance on 14 October after the reported attack.

  A Scotland Yard spokesman confirmed that Mr Masterson, who is originally from the west of Scotland, had been traced and interviewed.

  Mr Masterson said yesterday that he was already aware of everybody’s scepticism about his story. Mr Masterson is negotiating the sale of his story to a national newspaper.

  John telephoned me and asked if any newspapers had shown any interest in buying the story of his ‘ordeal’. I told him that he had fucked up any chance of making money because newspapers were only willing to pay large sums for exclusive stories and as he had been quoted in the Guardian article, he could hardly say he had an exclusive story to tell. John seemed disappointed and said he would get back to London as soon as possible.

  I arranged to meet him outside the House of Lords where we had agreed to meet his friend Lord Longford, known to John as Frank, for a drink. As we waited outside for the good Lord, a Daily Star photographer took our picture. This seemed to perk John up as it convinced him that there was still press interest in the story, which meant that he would still be able to make money out of it. We spent the evening drinking with Lord Longford in the House of Lords bar. I was pretty certain he knew the ‘incident’ was not genuine. He kept joking about how well John looked and asked if he had enjoyed his holiday.

  Lord Longford knew that a tabloid newspaper had tried to get John to set him up by bringing a prostitute into the House of Lords and so may have guessed this was how John had intended to turn the tables on them. To my knowledge, John never did get paid for his story, but the ‘incident’ has taken on a life of its own. I have since met journalists who claim they know who abducted John and why.

  The story has also been repeated in true crime books, Gangland by James Morton being one. The publicity the incident generated created more problems for me than it did John. A couple of days after going to the House of Lords and my photo appearing in the Daily Star, I was arrested for the non-payment of the fine that had been imposed when I was late for the Darley trial and bailed to appear at Basildon Magistrates Court.

  When I appeared in court, I was asked why I had not paid my fine and when I intended to pay it. I told the magistrates that I was unable to pay until I received the expenses I was owed by the courts. ‘You give me my money and I’ll give you yours,’ I told them. The magistrates were having none of it. I was told my costs and my fine were two separate issues and despite the fact I was owed approximately £500 by the court, they decided to imprison me for one day for failing to pay them £50.

  Sometimes I get the feeling that there are laws for some and not for others – it was certainly one of the most bizarre cases I have ever had the misfortune to endure and I’ve endured a few. The local evening newspaper agreed, reporting the story under the headline:

  CRAZY COURT SAGA

  A former Codsall man is saying that he is still waiting for £500 court costs that he is owed nearly a year after being cleared of an assault charge, but this week Bernard O’Mahoney was sent to prison for a day in lieu of a £50 fine for breaching bail conditions in the case. Mr O’Mahoney today said that the ‘judicial system was completely crazy and it was unfair that the other matter had been pursued’.

  Mr O’Mahoney claims that he is still awaiting costs after he was cleared of the charge at Stafford Crown Court in October last year. Before his acquittal, he found himself on a further charge of breaching his bail conditions after he failed to attend court on time for the original assault hearing.

  The bail offence was transferred to Basildon Magistrates’ Court near his home. A spokesman for Cannock Magistrates’ court, with whom Mr O’Mahoney has been in touch, said he should submit a claim in writing via a solicitor.

  A month after being imprisoned and more than a year after being found not guilty of assaulting Stuart Darley, my £500 costs arrived. I was tempted to pursue the court for the interest, but I’d had enough of their mind-numbing rules, regulations and procedures for the time being. I also had other, more pressing matters on my mind. My new occupation as nightclub bouncer was taking up more and more of my time. I was involving myself in situations I should have avoided. I was doing what I always do, taking things personally, rising to a challenge and refusing to accept the way things are.

  Little did I know, I was walking blindly and unintentionally, deeper and deeper into a fucking nightmare.

  5

  CONSPIRACY TO MURDER

  There was no unity amongst the door staff at Raquels. Most were like me, turning up to earn a bit of extra money. They were certainly not a gang or firm as many nightcl
ub security teams are. In the days before door staff were registered, it was all about being able to counter the efforts of the most violent and disruptive elements in your particular venue. The only way to do this was to bring in an even more violent team of men who were feared (or ‘respected’, as villains prefer to say) by the locals. Inevitably, this ‘team’ would all know each other and mix socially when not at work, so they were a ‘gang’ or ‘firm’, whichever way you tried to dress up their status.

  These days, the council and the police issue door staff with licences, which cannot be obtained without meeting certain criteria. Most men capable of doing the job fall at the first hurdle because they cannot have a licence if they have a conviction for violence or any other crime remotely related to violence. If they have spent their formative years fighting and have been fortunate enough never to have been convicted of an offence, they still have to attend a ‘door registration training course’. On this course they learn about fire drills, licensing laws, how to suck up to people who are threatening them, self defence, and of course, first aid. The latter, presumably, for keeping themselves alive whilst awaiting an ambulance after having learned they cannot be taught how to deal with drugged-up psychos in six hours over three evenings in a classroom. My fellow doormen were decent enough people but none of the morons that drank themselves into a stupor in Raquels had an ounce of ‘respect’ for them. A customer who had glassed somebody or caused mayhem in the club would walk back through the doors the following night without a word being said.

  I didn’t think it was the right way to run a door, but being the ‘new kid in town’ I thought it best to keep my opinions to myself. One Saturday night, I was working on the door at Raquels with a man named Larry Johnston – one of the few doormen I felt safe working with. If a fight broke out I knew instinctively that Larry would be alongside me in the thick of it. The problem with Larry was he always had to go the extra mile. When the fight was over, he couldn’t resist one last spiteful kick or a stamp on one of the bruised and bloodied bodies that lay motionless on the floor. I was convinced that one day Larry’s over-enthusiasm for the job would result in somebody’s death.

  One evening, a group of men who had left the club minutes earlier approached the door and asked to be let back in. The club was due to close and so I told them that wouldn’t be possible. The men were very drunk and became abusive. I wasn’t particularly bothered because if you work on the door you endure that kind of nonsense all the time. You have to accept that it goes with the territory. I stood watching them in silence. People were standing around listening to the men giving us abuse and it wasn’t doing much for the door team’s image, so I thought the best thing to do would be to go inside and close the door for a while. I was hoping they would grow tired of their game and walk away, but they seemed to get more and more hyped up. As soon as we went inside, the men, obviously getting braver because of our lack of response, started kicking and banging on the door. Larry smiled, pushed the door open and we both ran outside. The men began to run. Neither Larry nor myself were built for jogging around Basildon town centre so we stopped and stood in the road. The fleeing men, desperate for a fight moments earlier, also stopped running and stood facing us several yards away.

  They started shouting, calling us ‘wankers’ and chanting, ‘Kill the fucking bouncers! Kill the fucking bouncers!’ Rather surprisingly (or unsurprisingly in Basildon), they were joined by several other men from a nearby burger bar queue. This group, who had no grievance with us whatsoever, began to hurl pallets and the iron bars that were used to make up the market stalls adjacent to the club. Bottles, stones and anything else the men could lay their hands on rained down on us. It was pretty pointless standing there waiting for their aim to improve so Larry and I went back into the club and closed the doors. Whenever a fight broke out in the club, either bar staff, the DJ or those in the reception area activated an alarm. A light on the DJ’s console would tell him which alarm button had been struck so he could then announce over the PA system: ‘Door to reception, please’ or ‘Door to wherever’. Nine times out of ten it was ‘Door to the dance floor’ because a jealous boyfriend was attacking somebody who had dared to look at his girlfriend. When we walked into the foyer the siren was blaring, the blue light on the ceiling was flashing and all of the other doormen had arrived from upstairs. There were eight of us in total. Everyone armed themselves, some with pickaxe handles and washing-up bottles filled with industrial ammonia – family-size, of course. Others chose smaller weapons such as knuckle-dusters or coshes, which were easier to conceal should the police turn up. I had a sheath knife I always carried and an Irish hurling stick – a bit like a hockey stick but with a broader striking area. When everybody was ready, we opened the door and ran back into the street. One of the men ran towards us with an iron bar, screaming hysterically. I swung the hurling stick, bringing it crashing down across the top of his head; he fell to the floor where he lay bleeding but motionless. Larry ran over and kicked the man in the head and body several times.

  Larry’s spiteful act incited the crowd and they ran at us. Within minutes, the street had turned into a battleground and was strewn with debris and bodies. Unbeknown to me at the time, there were actually three separate groups fighting. The men that had wanted to re-enter the club had wanted to do so in order to fight another group of men who had earlier assaulted one of their friends. When the alleged assailants had walked out of the club at closing time and into the disturbance that was going on in the street, the group we had originally refused entry to had attacked them. We didn’t know who was who and so resorted to hitting everybody who appeared to be involved in the fighting.

  Within a few minutes the police arrived on the scene, but rather than restore order, their presence seemed to make matters worse. The crowd backed off at first but then regrouped and started throwing missiles again. The baying mob was now about 100-strong, their number having been swelled by passers-by, revellers turning out of a nearby club and people queuing for taxis. Nobody could see much point in standing in the street and being used as target practice, so the police and ourselves retreated into the club foyer to await reinforcements. As we did so, two officers stumbled on a wooden pallet that had been thrown into the middle of the road and the crowd charged. Soon they were surrounded and were being kicked and struck with weapons. Their colleagues inside the foyer asked us to help them so we all went outside and managed to retrieve the two police officers from the crowd. It wasn’t long before police reinforcements arrived, their blue flashing lights and wailing sirens creating panic amongst the crowd, who began to run in all directions. I still had the blood-stained hurling stick in my hand. ‘You’d better lose that,’ one of the officers said.

  I wasn’t surprised he had chosen to advise me rather than arrest me, as it had been an extremely dangerous situation we had faced together; the officers who had fallen could easily have died. On Monday the local newspaper published a story about the incident.

  POLICEMAN INJURED AS YOUTHS FIGHT

  A policeman was taken to hospital after a disturbance outside a nightclub in Basildon. Acting Inspector Ian Frazer was injured when youths turned on police as they tried to break up a string of fights in the town square near Raquels disco.

  Scuffles broke out among 100 people at 2.15 a.m. yesterday and back-up police crews were called from Basildon, Billericay, Wickford, Southend and Grays.

  Mr Frazer was treated in Basildon Hospital for cuts and bruises but not held overnight. A man charged with assault is due before magistrates today.

  It was not an exceptionally violent incident for Raquels. The lunatics who got drunk out of their tiny minds in there thought nothing of stabbing, cutting, glassing or even shooting those who displeased them. I can recall one unfortunate man who was out on his stag night being pushed into a fire exit where he was repeatedly slashed with a Stanley knife. His crime? He had unwittingly shown a local idiot ‘disrespect’ by bumping into him and then having the audacity to deny
that he had a problem. The would-be groom needed 160 stitches – a lesson in ‘respect’ he will undoubtedly never forget.

  Dave Venables had been working Wednesday nights at an Essex venue called Epping Forest Country Club, frequented by footballers, soap stars, page-three girls, the rich and famous and the rich and infamous. Dave asked me if I would cover his shift at the Country Club as he had other commitments and I agreed.

  It was whilst working at Epping that I first met David Done, a fanatical bodybuilder from Romford. We got on really well and it was not long before he agreed to come and work with me at Raquels.

  He did his job well at first but after a few weeks started arriving late or leaving early, relying on our friendship to ensure no questions were asked – or if they were that I would make excuses for him. Larry Johnston took exception to the favours being showered on David and began making comments about him being a ‘part-time doorman on a full-time doorman’s pay’. The atmosphere between the two became quite hostile.

  One evening, as David prepared to leave early, Larry asked if he would give him a lift home. David said he couldn’t as he was going the opposite way, so Larry kicked the door panel of his car. David jumped out and started shouting. Larry responded by pulling out a knife. I couldn’t believe how quickly it was escalating. I told Larry to put the knife away but he told me to fuck off and keep out of it. I see very little or no point in holding talks with a deranged man wielding a knife so I took out my bottle of industrial ammonia and squirted him in the face. Larry was temporarily blinded and then sacked. David Done remained. I was annoyed we had fallen out because I liked Larry, but what choice did I have? I couldn’t stand by and watch one of my friends kill another friend.