Wannabe in My Gang?

by Bernard O'Mahoney

  DC: What’s the information? What do you want me to say?

  AW: Just to say that Kim James and her friend were dealing cocaine and that the information was passed to me by you.

  DC: That is right . . . just in case this tape ever comes to light, this is fuck all to do with me. It’s to help my fucking pal, all right? Thank you very much.

  Pleased he had now covered himself, Courtney declared he was prepared to meet DI Latham and confirm he had supplied the information which could send an innocent mother to jail. A seemingly small sacrifice to ensure his secret life as a police informant would never be unearthed.

  At 11.15 a.m., DC Warnes telephoned DI Latham on his mobile and asked him if he would meet him at ‘the Jacobean Barn at the bottom of Gravel Hill near Bexleyheath’.

  At 12.37 a.m., Courtney and DC Warnes arrived and DI Latham got into the back of DC Warnes’s car. Introducing himself to Courtney, DI Latham explained that he was the officer ‘who controls all the people who help us like yourself’. He continued: ‘First off, can I say thank you for meeting me at such short notice.’ DI Latham told Courtney that when they found the drugs in Kim’s car, ‘she denied all knowledge of it, and said it’s down to someone else, down to her husband. But everyone makes allegations when they’re in it.’

  Courtney replied, ‘Yes, I know, absolutely.’

  DI Latham asked Courtney about the information DC Warnes had said he had supplied. Courtney, fearing Kim and Simon’s High Court child custody case involving information he was saying he had supplied could expose him, said to DI Latham, ‘All of this is a little bit more than I expected would happen out of this.’

  Trying to reassure Courtney, DI Latham replied, ‘My primary concern, as in all these situations, is about your security. I will tell you, at the end of the day, you will remain anonymous. You will always be ‘Tommy Mack’. Should anything ever arise which requires you to go to court for a case, we drop the court case rather than go ahead.’ Despite concerns he claims he had, Courtney signed the agreement concerning the information DC Warnes had credited to him and the measures the police were prepared to take to protect him.

  When pressed about the information produced regarding Kim James, Courtney told DI Latham:

  It’s just a little problem I had in a club. I own the place. Park Royal in Mitcham. I also supply doormen. Not that I am running the drugs myself, but because I have been at it a long time and I know how to stop the problem. People I have been catching in my club have been putting up the names of the people they have been working for. At least two different people I have caught selling gear in the past.

  The person they got the gear from, not that they were actually doing it for them but, as their supplier, you know, I would actually rather get rid of the supplier, then the dealers do not come. Them I will deal with myself. The two girls, I’m fucked. These are the people I have caught in the Park Royal in Mitcham High Street.

  Courtney then named Kim James and Lauren Manning as the ‘two girls he has caught’ and says he can’t remember their addresses but ‘I have got them at home on a piece of paper’.

  The conversation ended prematurely when DI Latham thought DC Warnes and Courtney suspected he was on to them. As DI Latham stepped out of earshot, a motorbike drove past and Courtney and DC Warnes feared they were about to be arrested. DC Warnes was recorded saying, ‘I swear to God he was a fucking 4-2-4-2 driver [police motorcyclist]. What the fuck are they doing around here?’

  Courtney replied, ‘They are looking at me and you, mate.’

  DC Warnes said, ‘They are looking at me. They are not looking at you.’

  Despite their fears, nothing happened. Months passed and it appeared as if DC Warnes had got away with fitting up Kim James and Courtney had got away with supplying DI Latham with false information. Then, in September 1999, officers from CIB3 swooped on Jonathon Rees, Austin Warnes, Simon James, Dave Courtney and James Cook.

  All were charged with offences relating to the conspiracy surrounding Kim James and in November 2000 the case was sent to the Old Bailey for trial. DC Austin Warnes pleaded guilty and was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment, which was later extended to five years when he appealed. Jonathon Rees and Simon James were both found guilty and were sentenced to six years’ imprisonment, later extended to seven when they appealed.

  James Cook told the jury when he was asked to plant ‘the gear’ in Kim James’s car by Rees he believed ‘the gear’ was surveillance equipment and not drugs. The jurors chose to believe Cook and he was found not guilty. Courtney was quite rightly found not guilty of conspiring to pervert the course of justice by supplying DC Warnes with false information concerning Kim James. DC Warnes admitted he credited the false information to his informant Dave Courtney and Courtney knew nothing of the initial plot to set up Kim James. The fact still remains that Dave ‘Tommy Mack’ Courtney was a registered police informant long before the matter concerning Kim James ever arose and he did tell DI Latham that the false information which could have sent a young mother to prison was genuine. However, since the case ended Courtney has refused to face reality, choosing instead to make up ridiculous stories about fake informants. The dodgy one has also claimed that the ‘not-guilty verdict was both for the charge I faced and the accusation I was a grass. I have never been an informer’. Sadly for ‘Tommy Mack’, we in the real world know he wasn’t on trial for being a police informant as it is not illegal to be one.

  Now I’ve written this book I must prepare myself for the backlash. I have no doubt whatsoever it will come. To be honest, I couldn’t care less what these so-called hard men say or do. They can see me or sue me, I don’t give a fuck, because the facts cannot be denied. I now live in the real world where hard cases are people who fight adversity, sickness and disease, where respect is earned and not given to some drugged-up bully because he carries a knife or a gun. Here people are judged by their deeds rather than their ability to intimidate people with threatening words and behaviour. Dave Courtney managed to turn the words of intimidation and violence he had gleaned from crime books and films into a lucrative industry, but like so many of his underworld cronies in this book, those words have returned to haunt him.

  In Stop the Ride, I Want to Get Off, he wrote:

  Fifteen years ago, if someone was a grass he would have had the shit kicked out of him when he was in prison. Now you go to prison you have whole wing-loads of grasses. If the first supergrass had been shot, like he fucking should have been, it would never have become a trend.

  And now everyone’s at it. If you had told me 15 years ago that there would be a programme on prime-time telly for grasses, I’d never have believed it. But you watch Crimewatch and they say, ‘If you know anyone who’s done anything, give us a call and we’ll nick them and give you loads of money.’ For people like me, it’s like trying to imagine that in 15 years there will be a programme just for paedophiles, that’s how disgusting it is.

  Courtney wouldn’t have known at the time that his admirable underworld spiel was going to unmask him as a hypocritical fake. The strange thing is, the impressionable young people who read the drivel the media publish about the dodgy one refuse to accept the fact he is an odd, disturbed character who lives in a fantasy world.

  In Manchester recently, his gullible fans were invited to fork out up to £190 to hear him talk about his life of crime. Included in the price were accommodation, tickets, T-shirts, a signed photo and a bottle of champagne. Those in the media who hype this man and others as successful criminals should take a long hard look at themselves and hope none of their children ever meet the Dave Courtney wannabes of this world created by their irresponsible reporting. They should be reporting the facts and not the fiction, highlighting the plight of victims of crime and not glamorising the attention-seeking idiots who think they are gangsters. A life of crime is in reality a life of fucking misery; trust me, I know, I’ve been there. If you don’t believe me, visit the Essex graveyards littered with the debris of
our firm’s reign or talk to the mothers who have lost their sons and daughters through the drugs my associates imported. Seek out the maimed and emotionally scarred young men whose lives were left in ruins because they were deemed guilty by some power-crazy bully of committing some alleged, petty misdemeanour. Visit the prisons awash with my former friends and so-called enemies and then ask yourself: Do you still wannabe in my gang?

  EPILOGUE

  Nobody can say for certain what the future holds. I would like to think that my problems with the law are over, but since moving to Peterborough I have been arrested, clubbed by overzealous policemen with batons, locked up overnight and then released in the morning without charge. In an effort to ‘escape’ before things got out of hand, I moved to a place where I thought nobody would bother me.

  One Sunday afternoon, I was sitting in my own home watching football on the TV when the phone rang. The caller said he was a policeman and asked me if everything was OK as they had received a report of a disturbance. I laughed and said, ‘It’s a wind up, isn’t it?’, but the policeman was adamant.

  He asked if anybody else was in the house and I told him Emma was asleep upstairs as we had both been out late the night before. The policeman insisted on talking to her, so I called up to Emma and she picked up the phone in the bedroom and confirmed to the police that there was no problem or disturbance in or around our home. The policeman said OK and put the phone down.

  Ten minutes later there was a loud knock at the door. I had ordered a pizza and assumed it was the delivery boy, so I sorted out some money and went to the front door. When I opened it, approximately eight police officers were standing there looking very, very agitated. Three of them took their extendable batons out and flicked them open.

  A WPC said she wanted to come into my home and when I asked why, she said, ‘There’s been a disturbance.’

  I laughed and said, ‘We’ve just had your people on the phone saying the same thing. My partner’s in bed, I’m watching a good game of football on the TV and waiting for a pizza. What is disturbing about that?’

  The WPC tried to push her way in and I told her that she was not welcome in my home and as she had no warrant she wasn’t getting in. I shut the door. Somewhat bewildered, I walked back towards the lounge. Moments later, there was an extremely loud crash. I guessed it wasn’t the pizza delivery boy and turned to see that the police had kicked my front door off its hinges. They ran up the hallway towards me and without saying a word sprayed me several times full in the face with CS spray.

  I was pushed to the floor, handcuffed and four officers then sat on me. One of them struck me across the ribs with his extendable metal baton despite the fact I had not said a word or offered any form of resistance. Emma came downstairs and asked what was going on. The police said that they had been told I had assaulted somebody and I was under arrest for it. At no stage had they asked my name, but they certainly knew it.

  Emma was in shock. She repeatedly told them they were talking total nonsense, that she had been in bed since the early hours of the morning and nobody had fallen out, let alone been assaulted. Fearful of their true intentions, Emma plugged in a cassette recorder and taped herself, telling the officers they were talking rubbish, but their only response was to radio their headquarters and inform control that they were being recorded. After 15 minutes of being sat on by four burly officers who were not quite sure what to do next, I was frogmarched out into the street where five police vehicles and one ambulance were parked with their blue lights flashing. I was put in a van, taken to a police station 15 miles away (there’s one half a mile from my home), locked up until 3 a.m. and then released without charge. When I left Peterborough, I didn’t move to Iraq or Palestine – this diabolical incident occurred in sleepy Lincolnshire.

  I am not saying I am a saint and that I deserve to be treated well, I am just saying this is the way you are treated if you have behaved like a bastard all of your life.

  I have spoken to a senior police officer since and I have emphasised the fact that my past is in the past and there is no need for ‘extra vigilance’ where I am concerned. Only time will tell if he was listening.

  One evening I was sitting in the local pub with Emma when two young musicians walked in, set up their equipment and began to play. I could not believe what I was hearing. I have loved music all of my life and have seen most, if not all, of the major artists play live, but these boys were something else. I asked the landlord who they were and he said the guitarist and vocalist was Adam Mezzatesta, and the keyboard player was a guy named Anthony Shiels. ‘They call themselves Mesh 29,’ he said. When they were packing up their equipment, I introduced myself to them and said I thought they were wasting their talent playing in village pubs in front of a dozen or so people. I offered to manage them free of charge for a year and if at the end of that period we were not getting anywhere we could go our separate ways. Adam and Shielsie said that they would ‘give it a go’. We shook hands and from that moment on I threw myself into getting them as much exposure as possible. Within weeks they had performed at The Cavern in Liverpool, The Rock Garden and The Borderline in London and supported ex-Carter USM star Jim Bob at The Shed in Leicester. An American record company has shown an interest in the band and two German TV stations have featured them in programmes. I know it is only a matter of time before somebody offers them a recording contract. It is extremely rewarding to see my efforts helping two decent young men fulfil their dream.

  Listening to them talk about the future with such hope and excitement makes me realise the true cost of my wasted years. I can never take back the pain and misery I have caused those I love, those I thought I hated, or myself. I can only try to make amends.

  How can anybody who has joined me on this journey say that crime is glamorous or gangster equals chic? If being a gangster is all about being clever and streetwise, why do so many of them end up living their entire life in the gutter?

  The men and women who write these books about events they have made up or who lie to show themselves in a better light are inadequate social misfits crying out for attention. They are sad, lonely individuals who want people to admire them, like them and think they are somebodies. They surround themselves with fools they publicly call ‘a firm’ and privately call friends, but they know deep down nobody really gives a shit about them.

  That is not a criticism, it is a fact. When the individuals in this book have finished telling people they are going to shoot, stab or murder me for what I have said, they will go home, reflect and know everything I have said is true. I have no doubt their loved ones will have been telling them the same thing for years, so it shouldn’t come as that much of a shock to them.

  When they sat down to write an account of their lives they may have thought that they were producing a book which people would admire them for. They were obviously so ashamed of telling the truth they turned to fantasy for inspiration. Stuck for genuine material, they probably believe that their lives have only been worthy of filling one book, but if they were prepared to unburden themselves of this gangster, I’m-so-fucking-hard nonsense, they would have another, more useful and important story to tell.

  Tony Lambrianou, always keen to point out that he can walk around with his head held high, may be able to really walk tall if he knew that by being honest he had prevented an impressionable young man from spending his life in jail. If he told young people how he had been treated by the Krays, that gangs are no good, that the Krays were selfish, seedy bullies and there can never be loyalty amongst people who have devoted their lives to breaking rules and laws, he may be able to look at himself with pride. These days, the former ‘Kray gang boss’ must wonder what side of the mirror he is really on.

  I am sure Gaffer, who I know endured the misery of spending an unhappy childhood in a home through no fault of his own, could give a boy in a similar situation hope and a will to make something of his life. Instead of writing a book about how hard he is, he could write about how m
uch pain his anger, stupidity and recklessness have caused him and those he loves.

  As for the Frayne brothers and Dave Courtney . . . Well, I suppose everybody is entitled to dream.