Wannabe in My Gang?

by Bernard O'Mahoney

  It was becoming apparent to me that staying with my children was causing them to be unfairly tarnished. They were suffering for something none of us had done.

  Paul Betts’ vile allegations were causing the children so much upset that Debra suggested, and I agreed, that we should part for their sake. Debra and I had to look at the situation in a cold clinical manner and do what was best for them and not what suited us. We sold our home in Mayland, Debra moved to a home near her mother and I returned to Basildon. I did not arrive in the best of moods. I was in turmoil over my family and I was tired of being blamed for causing the death of a girl who had been foolish enough to take drugs. I felt Paul Betts’ allegations were as ridiculous as somebody blaming a pub landlord for getting them convicted of drunk driving. We all have choices in life and we all have to take responsibility for our actions. I was also sick of hearing about people who were supposed to want to kill me and of being advised where I should or should not go. So many people appeared to have fucking opinions on me, yet few knew me and none had ever had any dealings with me. If people didn’t like me moving back to Basildon, that was a matter for them, not me. I had been driven out of one home, I was not going to be driven out of another. I started drinking in my old haunts. Most people I met droned on and on about the murders of Tucker, Tate and Rolfe as few in the town believe the men accused of the murders were guilty. In fact many believe I had been instrumental in luring the trio to their deaths.

  Nobody said they had a problem with me personally and several had nothing but good memories of the trouble-free rave nights we had created at Raquels. The club had since closed down after the door team that had replaced us was unable to control the local villains who had swarmed back there after my departure.

  A few months after moving back to Basildon, I bumped into a girl named Emma Turner, whom I had first met at Raquels. Emma and I had always got on well and we began to see each other quite regularly. Before too long I gave up the flat I had rented and moved in with her. Since the catalogue of court appearances had ended, I had been able to take on a full-time job driving a tipper lorry. Within a short period of time I was given a managerial position and offered a post in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire.

  I didn’t want to move away from the children as being able to see them every other day had lessened the trauma of being separated from them. Instead, I chose to drive to Peterborough every day, leaving the house at 4.30 a.m and returning at 8 p.m. Being straight was a real strain and the rewards were hardly endearing.

  The small-time drug dealer who had bank-rolled Mark Murray after the police raid at Club UK in south London had been telling people in Essex that he was looking for me. John Rollinson, or ‘Gaffer’ as he liked to call himself, was apparently unhappy that I had named his drug-peddling friend Mark Murray at the Leah Betts trial.

  Rollinson would have been well advised to keep quiet about the fact he had helped finance the batch of drugs which lead to Leah’s death, but he wasn’t the brightest of people. He was the type who tried to make himself seem important by having views and opinions on villains others looked up to. Only the gullible and naive took any notice of the likes of Rollinson. It had been a good friend of his that had told me he had been bad-mouthing me, but I was not too concerned. I had never done anything wrong to Rollinson and so I reasoned that he had no right to have a grievance with me. ‘It’s Gaffer trying to involve his name in a high-profile case,’ I told his friend. ‘You know what he’s like, he just wants to feel important.’

  One evening, Emma and I went for a drink over at the Festival Leisure Park in Basildon. This is a large entertainment complex consisting of bars, nightclubs, a bowling alley, cinema and fast-food restaurants. Some of the more witty locals refer to it as ‘Bas Vegas’.

  We had a drink in a couple of the bars and ended up in a nightclub called Jumping Jacks. When we entered the club, a small, thin, drug-ravished man started shouting ‘fucking cunt’ at me. He threw his baseball cap on the floor and repeatedly spat, each time repeating ‘cunt, fucking cunt’. I thought the man may have been mentally challenged or was suffering from some sort of embarrassing disorder, so I decided it was best to ignore him.

  Emma, not used to witnessing such alarming behaviour, clutched my arm and asked me who he was. It was only when the man started shouting about ‘grassing Mark Murray up’ that I took a closer look and realised it was Gaffer. I hadn’t seen him since I had worked at Raquels and he had lost a lot of weight. He looked gaunt and thin – no doubt the result of a low-life existence, popping pills and feeding a cocaine habit.

  When you are out with your partner for a drink, you don’t really relish the thought of rolling round the floor with a drunk or loud-mouthed druggie. I apologised to Emma and told her we would have a drink at the other end of the bar, but if he continued to be abusive or offered violence, then I would have to give him a clip around the ear. Gaffer was not alone so his actions were despicable. What sort of man starts on another man who is out with his partner having a drink? No doubt Gaffer is another gangster who follows the criminal code – so much for showing women respect.

  Throughout the evening, Gaffer kept glaring down the bar at me and tipping his hat like some amusing clown. ‘Come on,’ I said to Emma, ‘I’ve had enough of this, let’s go.’ As I walked past Gaffer, the gutless coward squirted me in the eyes with ammonia. Gaffer had been telling everybody in Essex that he was after me. Now that I was temporarily blinded and standing in front of him he had the best chance he was ever going to get to do me.

  My vision began to clear and so I made my way to the front of the club. Gaffer and his friend followed us outside, which frightened Emma, so I turned and confronted them. I knew Gaffer was not capable of fighting, so I was expecting him to pull out a weapon. To his friend’s credit, he stepped back, making it obvious he wanted no part in any trouble. As Gaffer advanced, I grabbed his head and shoved him backwards.

  I was not the slightest bit concerned about what he might try to do or do it with because I had a double-bladed 12-inch combat knife down the back of my trousers. If he got within striking distance of me with a weapon, I was more than prepared to bury the knife deep in his head. When I had shoved him backwards, his cap fell off. As he approached me again I could see in his eyes that he was unsure of himself. He pulled out a Jif Lemon container and, after lunging forward, squirted ammonia in my eyes again. The red mist rose and at that moment, I wanted to end his miserable and pointless life. I pulled out the knife and raised it. He saw it, screamed hysterically and ran back into the club. ‘What the fuck am I doing?’ I thought. ‘How do I end up getting involved with these fools? I could end up serving a life sentence because some little nobody has chosen to attack me.’

  The bouncer came out and told me the police had been called. ‘You’re on CCTV as well, Bernie,’ he said. ‘You had better make yourself scarce.’ Emma and I tried to get in a taxi, but the driver refused to take us and the other taxis in the rank drove away empty. I could see Gaffer hiding in the club foyer behind the bouncers so I knew he wouldn’t be troubling us again that night. We didn’t live too far from the leisure park, so we decided to walk. We made our way across the car park to the main road, where two police cars pulled up.

  My mind was racing. I had a certain prison sentence tucked down the back of my trousers and I didn’t fancy being locked up for a loser like Gaffer. ‘The knife, the knife . . . How the fuck can I explain away the knife?’ I was thinking.

  I knew everybody had seen it and the CCTV had recorded me brandishing it, so I knew it was pointless denying its existence. There was only one thing for it, I thought, I would have to bluff my way out of it. I pulled out the knife and approached the police officers. ‘It’s OK, officers,’ I said, ‘I’ve got the knife.’

  ‘Drop the weapon! Drop the weapon!’ they shouted.

  I laughed and told them it was OK. ‘It’s not my weapon,’ I said. ‘I took it off a lunatic.’

  I threw the knife on the ground. One
of the police officers forced my hands behind my back and slapped a pair of handcuffs on. ‘You’re under arrest,’ he said, ‘for possessing an offensive weapon.’ I asked the police to make sure Emma got home all right. They said they would. They then put me in the back of the car and took me to Basildon police station.

  By this time, my eyes were becoming increasingly painful. They were red and swollen from the ammonia and now I had the handcuffs on, I was unable to wipe or try to clean them, so I asked the officers to remove the cuffs but they refused. At Basildon police station, I was put in front of the custody sergeant, whom I told I had been squirted with ammonia. I said I needed to wash my eyes out, but he said he wouldn’t allow me to do anything until I had seen a doctor. An argument developed and the mood became pretty hostile. Eventually, they agreed to remove my cuffs so I could wipe my eyes. I was then bundled into a cell by the arresting officers and the door was slammed shut. A police officer later came and told me that he would have to investigate the matter further and I would be held in custody until those investigations were complete.

  That night, a doctor did attend and after examining my eyes, told the police that I would have to go to hospital immediately. The two officers assigned the task of taking me there were the same two officers with whom I’d had the altercation earlier. On the way to the hospital they were making sarcastic remarks, until I told them both that they ought to be careful. ‘What do you mean, be careful?’ they asked.

  I said, ‘Just be fucking careful, because that uniform won’t save you.’

  From there on in, things deteriorated rapidly.

  The accident and emergency department was full of people – not unusual around closing time in Basildon. The officers said they wouldn’t let me into the hospital until they had handcuffed me for the safety of others. I told them it was fucking ludicrous and that I wasn’t going to walk around in a public place with handcuffs on. They insisted that they wouldn’t let me go into the hospital unless I was handcuffed. There was a brief struggle and eventually they managed to get them on me.

  They then took me into the public waiting-room and I was told to sit down while they went to fetch a nurse. I was extremely embarrassed and continued to demand that the officers remove the handcuffs, but they refused. One officer went to talk to one of the nurses and when he returned he said we were going back to the police station. I reminded him that nobody had examined my eyes, which the doctor had insisted needed medical attention. The officers ignored me and repeated that we were going back to the police station. With my hands cuffed behind my back, there was little or nothing I could do. Half an hour after being sent to hospital, I was back in the cell. By this time, my eyes were extremely swollen and sore.

  ‘Fuck them,’ I thought. I decided I would lie down, close my burning eyes and hopefully sleep for the remainder of the night.

  The following morning I used tea, which had been brought to me for breakfast, to wash my eyes out. It helped but they remained painful and my vision was impaired. At 3 p.m., a detective came to my cell to take me to the interview room. I had a rough idea of what I was going to say, but I was unaware of how much evidence the police had on me. I decided I would wait to hear what the detective had to say before telling my side of the story. The officer interviewing me told me a member of the staff at the club had called the police after a man had run inside screaming that I had brandished a knife outside the premises. He told me they had seized the CCTV footage and it clearly showed me lunging at this man with a large combat knife. I asked the officer if they had the video footage from inside the club, and he said he hadn’t as the video inside the club had not been working.

  As soon as he said that, I knew I was home and dry. I said to him that he only had half of the story.

  ‘What do you mean?’ he asked.

  ‘That man attacked me inside the club, sprayed me with ammonia and pulled out a knife when we started to struggle,’ I replied. ‘When he tried to stab me, I took the knife off him and fearing for my safety, went outside. The man followed me outside and was asking me to give him back the knife. I didn’t want to, as I thought he was going to stab me, so I refused. When he came towards me, I pushed him away, but then he attacked me with a container full of ammonia. Having been temporarily blinded, I feared for my safety, I pulled out his knife, which I had secreted down the back of my trousers, and he ran away screaming. I had pulled out his knife purely to defend myself. When he ran back into the club, I didn’t run inside after him as the danger had passed.

  ‘I stood outside for five or ten minutes. No taxis would take Emma and me home, so we walked across the car park where you arrested me approximately 15 minutes after the incident.

  ‘If you ask the arresting officers, they will tell you I said, “It’s OK, I’ve got the knife, I took it off a lunatic.”’

  ‘But that’s not what other people are saying,’ the interviewing officer said, ‘they’re saying it’s your knife.’

  ‘Well, you had better get these people to make statements, because it’s not my knife. It belongs to the man who attacked me, he owns the knife,’ I said.

  The detective said he had spoken to Gaffer and he did not want to make a statement.

  I knew Gaffer wouldn’t give evidence against me so my defence was safe. I told the detective that Gaffer didn’t want to make a statement because he had the knife in the first place and he was the one who attacked me. The officer insisted he had other witnesses and therefore I would be charged.

  ‘Fair enough,’ I said, ‘fucking charge me.’

  The detective said, ‘OK,’ and read the following charge to me: ‘That without lawful authority or reasonable excuse, you had with you in a public place an offensive weapon, namely a knife.’ He also alleged that I had used or threatened unlawful violence towards another, and my conduct was such as would cause a person of reasonable firmness present at the scene to fear for his or her personal safety.

  I started laughing. ‘How can you call a person reasonable when he’s trying to blind you with ammonia?’

  The officer just looked at me and said, ‘Those are the charges, have you anything to say?’ I did not reply, but the officer wrote on the charge sheet that I had replied, ‘Guilty.’ Fortunately for me, the interview was also being recorded on tape. I decided to say nothing about his error because I knew I would be able to use it against the police when the case was heard in court.

  I was bailed to appear at Basildon Magistrates’ Court and then released. It’s hard to explain how depressing an incident like this can be. You go out for a drink with your partner and you end up being locked up for the best part of 24 hours. After your release, you spend months agonising over whether or not you will receive a prison sentence.

  And for what? For some drug-pedalling peasant who took it upon himself to try and attack you in the presence of your girlfriend and blind you with ammonia for no reason. His motive? You had assisted the police, who then lock you up and charge you for resisting the attack. Your attacker, meanwhile, walks free. It is absolutely sickening and I can fully understand why some people end up serving life-sentences for murdering this type of subhuman. The law tells you to turn your cheek and walk away from it, but what is the point of walking away when these low-lifes will just stab you in the back, cut you, maim you or try to blind you? It is pointless walking away. I should have left him lying in the gutter where he belonged. Once more, the never-ending trauma of going back and forth to court became part of my life.

  The uncertainty of my future and the pressure of preparing for yet another trial left me marking time in complete misery.

  In January 1999, a journalist from the Observer newspaper contacted me. He wanted to know what I thought about ex-Raquels doorman Mark Rothermel breaking out of custody in Congo–Brazzaville.

  I was surprised Mark had been locked up in the Congo, but not surprised he had escaped. I had no idea where Mark had got to after the firm had self-destructed and so I asked the journalist what it was all abo
ut. He told me that Mark had been arrested in Brazzaville in November 1998 on suspicion of spying. He said that some time during the last week, Mark had escaped during a fierce gun battle from a police station where he was being held with 40 other people. The British Consul in Brazzaville was helping the local police search for him.

  Mark had told friends that he had agreed to do voluntary work for Mission Aid, but checks with the Charity Commission had revealed that Mission Aid had ceased to exist two years previously. It also emerged that Mark had made a trip to the Congo two years earlier and had recently visited Russia and California, supposedly in connection with charity work. I thought the survival skills Mark had employed whilst hiding out in the woods after hacking off Bernie Burns’s head and hands would be coming in useful now that he was trying to avoid the Brazzaville police. The journalist said he still had no idea of Mark’s whereabouts or why he had been held without charge for two months. ‘It’s not very clear what is behind this,’ he said. ‘There is a civil war there and the authorities are very sensitive about people he may have had contact with.’

  A few days later, Mark contacted the Foreign Office and told them he was alive and well, but he would not give them his location. It was later reported in the press that Mark had been sentenced to death in his absence by a court in the Congo. Wherever Mark was, I was sure he would not be hanging around there. Mark is an extremely adventurous, up-for-it man. Intelligent, fit and quick to spot an earner, many of his exploits seem somewhat eccentric to those who meet him.

  In 1985, Mark had wanted to find a descendant of the dinosaurs called Mokele-mbembe, an African version of the Loch Ness monster, which is said to inhabit uncharted swamps. Together with another man, Bill Gibbons, he set up Operation Congo in the hope of gaining financial sponsorship. Mark did eventually go on the trip but failed to find the creature.

  Bill Gibbons was greatly influenced by an American missionary couple he met, and according to a relative of another member of the expedition, he found God in the jungle. I suppose finding God is a better result than finding the African Loch Ness monster. Only Mark knows what he found in the jungle and why he chose to return there 14 years later. I have a sneaking suspicion it was not God or he would have brought him down to meet me at Raquels.