Wannabe in My Gang?

by Bernard O'Mahoney

  Prior to my arrival at the club people had taken liberties all the time. By using excessive violence to combat violence, I had reduced the amount of trouble and people were thinking twice about starting anything in the club. It’s easy to say with hindsight now, but I should have realised that excess would eventually be met with excess.

  I told Tony Tucker about the problems I was having with poor door staff at Raquels and said I needed the back-up of a strong firm to get rid of the local trouble makers who had been dictating policy for too long. I told him I would run the door and he could reap whatever benefits there were from providing invoices and any other ‘commodities’ such as drugs, protection, debts and so on. I would not 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 I needed back-up. We shook hands and on 4 September 1993, Tony Tucker and I began our partnership at Raquels.

  6

  DEBT AND DESTRUCTION

  The agreement with Tucker brought new faces onto the Basildon scene. Men who had worked for him in London began to replace the local doormen Venables had employed. The door team were extremely firm, but fair. Mark Rothermel, who had worked for Tucker before being imprisoned in the case of the DJ who had his head and hands hacked off, was introduced to me and he agreed to come and work at Raquels. Chris Lombard, a giant of a man who had worked for Tucker at Hollywood’s in Romford, also joined us. Within a short period of time none of Venables’ old door staff were left. The new team had never heard of the local faces and so cared little about the reputations they had. ‘Somebodies’ and ‘nobodies’ were all treated in the same way and if they didn’t like it, they didn’t get in. Local hard men concerned about losing face began to go to other clubs and the violence in Raquels was dying a death. I became increasingly involved with Tucker, both socially and in his murky door-and-drug business. Everywhere we went, doors and opportunities were flung wide open for our benefit. Tucker told me he was having his birthday party at The Prince of Wales public house, near Grays. He asked all of the door staff who were working at Raquels if they would attend. The party was a real success. Doormen from across London and the south-east turned up in force. Most were out of their face on cocaine, a veterinary drug called ‘Special K’, Ecstasy or a cocktail of all three and more. Surrounded by such a large and powerful firm, Tucker was in his element.

  In the early hours of the morning I was sitting on the floor of an upstairs room in the pub talking to some people I knew from Bristol. A man in his mid-20s pushed open the door, striking me with some force.

  I was expecting an apology, but when none was forthcoming, I said, ‘You’ve just knocked the fucking door into me.’

  The man looked at me and said, ‘Well, you’re a doorman, aren’t you?’

  It was a stupid thing to say because he must have known it would cause trouble. I got up and walked after the man, who had turned his back and left the room. Friends of Tucker followed us. I grabbed the man, but before a fight could start we were separated. One of the doormen told me that the man was Tucker’s closest friend, Craig Rolfe, and that Rolfe was extremely possessive of his friendship with Tucker. I was warned to ‘watch my back’. I wasn’t really concerned. I told Rolfe that out of respect for Tucker, he shouldn’t cause trouble at his birthday party. Rolfe seemed OK afterwards, but he still had an attitude.

  It was Tucker who told me about Rolfe’s past a few days later, when I was explaining what had gone on. On Christmas Eve 1968 Rolfe’s father had been found murdered in a van near Basildon. On Boxing Day, a 19-year-old man named John Kennedy had been charged with the murder, together with 23-year-old Lorraine Rolfe, the wife of the murdered man. Lorraine was at that time the mother of three children and expecting a fourth. At their trial Kennedy was found guilty of murder and jailed for life. Lorraine Rolfe was found not guilty of murder, but was sent to prison for 18 months for making false statements to impede Kennedy’s arrest. While serving her sentence Lorraine gave birth to Craig in Holloway Prison. Little wonder he had a chip on his shoulder and he’d chosen a life of crime. Craig and I never really did see eye-to-eye after that first meeting. Our views clashed on most things. Fortunately, we rarely mixed socially, but we did have to meet most Friday afternoons on various pub car parks where he would deliver the door staff’s wages to me.

  Before too long, the heavy-handed door policy I was implementing at Raquels made the club trouble-free. Any violence that did occur was behind the scenes or away from the premises. The rave scene, which had just taken off at that time, had no place for violence: all the kids were into the peace-and-happiness thing that went with their recreational drug taking. It wasn’t long before the management at Raquels were approached by a rave promotions company. They said they were currently hiring out a club in the Southend area, which didn’t hold enough people to fulfil their demand. They were looking for larger premises and had heard about the change ‘in clientele’ at Raquels. The management agreed to let them hire the club for their rave nights and a date was set for their opening night.

  One evening, a drug dealer named Mark Murray came into Raquels and asked to speak to me. He told me that he sold most of the drugs in the clubs around the Basildon and Southend area and he had heard that the promotions team from Southend were due to start putting on raves at Raquels. Murray said the nights would be very lucrative and asked me if we could strike up a deal where he would be allowed to sell his drugs exclusively at the rave nights. I called Tucker, as I had agreed to let him profit from any illicit business at the club, and he told me to let Murray start. The fee Tucker wanted in return would depend upon the amount of drugs sold per night. It was going to be my job to ensure there was no trouble from other dealers and to ensure an early warning was given to Murray if any police entered the club. When the rave nights started at Raquels, the demand for drugs such as Ecstasy was phenomenal. In order to meet the demand, Murray had to employ additional dealers, who would fan out through the club asking people if they were ‘sorted’. Money poured into ‘the firm’, as we had become known locally, and I was earning more in an evening than I had previously made in a week.

  Everyone, it seemed, was happy. The management had a club filled to capacity, the police had a trouble-free venue and the revellers were guaranteed a good night out. Unfortunately, where there are drugs there is money and where there is money there is trouble and where there is trouble you will find violence. Villains who got to hear about the success of Raquels soon wanted a part of it. Instead of fighting drunks or jealous boyfriends, we found ourselves confronted by villains from out of town who wanted their dealers in the club or their door team on the door. The violence that surrounded the firm became more extreme and I soon found myself carrying a gun. Associating with Darren Pearman, Tony Tucker and other villains I had met whilst working at various clubs catapulted me into a world of gang warfare, punishment beatings, debt collection and countless incidents of mindless violence which left men blind, scarred for life or horribly disfigured. I knew the path I was taking was not only wrong but life threatening, but I was in so deep there could be no turning back.

  Not long after my partnership with Tucker began, a man named Pat Tate was released from prison after serving four years of a six-year sentence. In December 1988 Tate had robbed a local restaurant. Tate was arrested and on 29 December 1988 appeared at Billericay Magistrates’ Court where it was decided that he would see the New Year in at 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 prison officer who was trying to restrain Tate, but he still managed to break free and run out into the street. One WPC received a black eye and another police officer was kicked in the face as they tried to block Tate’s escape. Once outside, Tate jumped onto an awaiting motorcycle and roared off up the road. Several days later, Tate surfaced in Spain.

  He remained there for a year, but then made the mistake of crossing over to Gibraltar where he was arreste
d by the British authorities. Everybody in Basildon had a good word for Tate, but after he had become a drug user in prison there was a marked change in his character.

  When Pat Tate left prison all he had was his drug habit and a bad attitude. He wanted the world to know he was out and not happy about the way he had been treated. Tony Tucker warmed to men like Tate, the sort of man he deemed ‘useful’. Tate was 6 ft 2 in., extremely broad, 18 stone and fearless. He also had a glamorous bit of history. His escape from the court on the motorbike and his fight with the police in court were talking points in criminal circles. Tucker soon befriended and recruited him for the firm, but a few members met Tate’s arrival with resentment. A man named Chris Wheatley had returned from America some time before Tate’s release. Tucker had latched on to him, becoming a ‘close’ friend and giving him control of one of his venues, Club Art, in Southend. However, when Tate came out, he dropped Chris as if he didn’t exist. He also began to badmouth Chris to other doormen, casting doubt on Chris’s ability and sneering at the way he handled incidents which arose inside the club. I really liked Chris Wheatley and couldn’t understand why Tucker turned on him. There was no room for sentiment in the firm though: Chris had fallen from grace and Pat Tate was to take his place.

  Tate brought with him ideas of grandeur. He had met lots of useful contacts in prison that he thought we could work with or exploit. Tucker and Tate began to talk about lorries bringing in drugs from the continent and small aircraft dropping shipments in the fields around Essex. However many times I told them it was risky, they wouldn’t listen. Being king of your own backyard is one thing, but going on an international crusade with the kind of attitude and regard for other people they had was a recipe for disaster.

  Tucker and Tate embarked on a journey of drug-fuelled madness. Instead of just living it up at the weekends, they were taking drugs from early in the morning until late at night, seven days a week. It was apparent to everybody who knew them that their drug habits were out of control. Both were using ridiculous amounts of steroids, which they mixed with a lethal cocktail of cocaine, Ecstasy and Special K. The latter is a drug generally used to sedate horses, but it did little to calm the drug-crazed duo that were stampeding around Essex causing mayhem. Tate also dabbled with heroin, which made him sometimes depressed, occasionally euphoric, but always on the brink of a violent outburst. Tucker, once level-headed, had also become irrational and unpredictable. The drugs were really fucking up their heads but they couldn’t see it – or didn’t want to admit it. Occasionally Tucker would emerge from his chemical-induced gangster’s paradise and say he was going to give up drugs and start training again. I wouldn’t see him for a couple of weeks, but soon he would be back in the club and back on the gear. When Tucker and Tate were together they considered everyone to be a fool. They took liberties with people and, more often than not, with the wrong people. The adoration being piled on them from the wannabes who hung about with the firm was driving them on and on.

  I could see through the ‘gang groupies’ gathered in the club, shaking Tucker’s hand, hugging Tate and buying them both drinks. I could see how easy it was for Tucker and Tate to believe they were kings of the heap, untouchable and all-powerful. I could also see that they were fooling themselves, pissing off the wrong sort of people and ignoring the subtle warnings offered. Everybody on the firm knew that our reign was not going to last. Tucker and Tate were going to end up getting us all locked up in prison or buried in an early grave.

  I had started visiting Reggie Kray after he asked me to take part in a documentary which was being made about his family. I politely declined as I believed taking part in a programme that glorified the crimes he had committed would damage the slim chance he had of securing parole. Reg accepted my reasons and asked me if I would help instead to organise a ‘Free the Krays’ concert at Docklands Arena in east London. He gave me the address of U2’s manager and asked me to invite the band to play, but the response I got was brief and to the point: unsurprisingly, the band were not interested in getting involved. The concert never did happen.

  Reg was totally unlike Ron. He certainly wasn’t intimidating, nor was he unapproachable. He struck me as the kind of man who would give someone chance after chance before exploding when he finally accepted he was being mugged off. I’ve no idea why people say he had a good business brain – everything he got involved in failed because of his ‘good nature’.

  Even the murder Reg committed was a bloody mess, executed in a moment of madness with little planning. He was destined to be caught. McVitie had let Reggie do him favour after favour and repaid him with humiliating remarks, disloyalty and disrespect. It’s not uncommon in the underworld, where many men take a favour as a sign of another man’s weakness. Ron Kray was cold and ruthless, while Reg, who was forgiving and weak, would never do anything that might have upset his twin, even if it was to cost him his life.

  At their trial, the Krays would have received a far more lenient sentence if they had allowed their defence team to use the fact that Ron had been certified insane and was a dangerous paranoid schizophrenic. Ron would have been found guilty of murder but with diminished responsibility. In mitigation, Reg could have used the fact he was drunk, drugged, on the verge of a nervous breakdown following his wife’s suicide and dominated by his homicidal twin. Ronnie’s counsel, John Platts-Mills, and Reggie’s, Paul Wrightson, had wanted to introduce these facts but the twins would not hear of it. Reg said he felt like he would be betraying his brother, despite the fact Ron had urged him to save himself. The truth was the twins didn’t want to destroy the legend the trial had created. They couldn’t bear the thought of their Mafia-type deeds being reduced to the uncontrollable outbursts of a homosexual madman and his weaker twin.

  Weaker is not an insulting term. Reg was simply more understanding than Ron, reasonable even. Reggie used to ring me on a regular basis, and I used to go and visit him a couple of times each month, first at Blundestone Prison in Suffolk, then at Maidstone Prison in Kent.

  The lucrative drug market created by the new rave culture had infected every part of the criminal fraternity like a cancer. From dodgy second-hand car dealers laundering drug money to nightclub bouncers taking rent from dealers, everyone appeared to be making something out of the illicit trade. Even Reg, who I believed epitomised the old school, was taking drugs and looking at the money that could be made in deals. Reggie was using Ecstasy, cocaine and cannabis and was always asking what was going on in the clubs regarding drugs. When I expressed my surprise, Reg laughed and said he was a villain not a vicar. ‘If there’s money in it,’ he said, ‘then we want to be a part of it.’

  Reg said that he and his brothers had always taken money from the drug trade and he couldn’t understand why people refused to believe it because in Our Story they admitted the fact. When describing the murder of Jack McVitie, Reg had written:

  McVitie did a crazy thing. He cheated Ron out of some money he owed on some purple hearts. It was only a hundred quid but it upset Ron. He felt that if you let one villain cheat you and get away with it, then others would start fancying their chances and start taking liberties.

  Murdering somebody because that person owed money for drugs was something I was destined to learn a lot about in the near future. Reg asked me if I could arrange a meeting for him with Tucker. He said he had a man in Hull whom he thought we could do business with. I said I would speak to him and try to arrange it. When I did mention it to Tucker he said he had no interest in Reggie Kray’s plans. He said Reggie was a has-been. Tate, he said, had met far more useful people during his time inside. The firm was moving into the importation market and Tucker said we wouldn’t be needing the likes of Reggie Kray. However, he did say he would meet him, out of interest, but as far as business was concerned, Kray was to be excluded.

  On Reggie’s birthday, Tucker decided to send him in a parcel of Ecstasy and cocaine. I’d often taken Reggie bottles of Napoleon brandy on visits. It was quite easy getting th
ings into Maidstone, but they were tightening up. One of the firm’s dealers was appointed to come with me to smuggle in the drugs. He was quite nervous about being searched and so before going into the prison he went into the toilets of a pub opposite the main gate to ensure the parcel was securely secreted. He put the bag of Ecstasy and cocaine in his underpants and then joined me at the bar for a drink.

  Just before it was time to go into the prison, he said he had to go to the toilet again. He went in, took down his trousers, sat on the toilet and when he had finished he pulled up his trousers and flushed the chain. When he returned to the bar he suddenly turned pale and dashed back into the toilets. I thought he was ill but when he returned he told me he had dropped his trousers as he went to sit down and the package had fallen out of his pants and into the toilet. He was unaware this had happened and when he had completed his ablutions he had flushed Reggie’s birthday present away. The parcel was worth approximately £350. That was probably the most expensive visit that man will ever make to a toilet.

  Tucker, Tate and Craig Rolfe turned up at Raquels one evening with a man they introduced as ‘Nipper’. His real name was Steve Ellis. Nipper, from Southend, was a very likeable man and in time I got to know him well. He was inoffensive and very funny. Everybody seemed to like him and it wasn’t long before he became established on the scene. Everywhere the firm went, Nipper was there.

  One evening Tate, Tucker, Rolfe and Nipper went into a 7-Eleven store in Southend. Nipper threw a bread roll at Tate and Tate retaliated by throwing a cake at Nipper. They were all high-spirited and were soon engaged in a full-blown food fight. The shop assistant kept telling them to stop, but they just got more and more carried away. Eventually the assistant said he was going to call the police. Tate ripped the phone out of the wall and told the man, ‘You shouldn’t say things like that.’ Tate said he would pay for the damage but as they were talking, the police arrived. Tucker, Tate and Rolfe walked off and Nipper was arrested. It was no big deal. In fact everyone thought it was rather funny.