Fog on the Tyne

by Bernard O'Mahoney

  One imagines that Bowman would have considered a change of profession after so many costly mishaps, but just six months after his eventual release, in October 2001, he was arrested for armed robbery. After walking into a post office in Washington, Tyne and Wear, Bowman tricked the postmistress into opening the security screen by handing in a large parcel for posting. Armed with a nine-inch knife, Bowman had then jumped through the hatch and warned that he would stick it in her neck if she did not open the safe. He made off with £28,500 but was arrested after information about him was given to the police. Branded ‘an extremely dangerous man’ by the judge, Bowman was imprisoned for 16 years. Some people clearly do not feel deterred by the threat of prison. They consider it to be little more than an occupational hazard. Others, like Glover, would literally cut their throats rather than face years behind bars.

  Lowe and Glover claimed that they were on hunger strike because they were being locked in their cell for 23 hours per day and having to share their exercise period with sex offenders. The protest lasted a week, with the pair surviving on water alone, but when prison staff took little or no notice of them Glover’s resolve waned and he reached for not only the prison menu but also the phone to his masters in Northumbria Police.

  The Bull had never got over the death of Neil Conroy. Deep down, he thought that Paddy somehow held him responsible for what had happened, and so he carried the awful burden of guilt. The Bull’s mental health had deteriorated rapidly after he witnessed Neil die. He drank too much, embraced the use of illegal substances and would fight any man without regard for his own safety. It was as if the Bull had a death wish. His GP became so concerned about his mental health that he sent him to see a psychiatrist. The Bull told the consultant that he feared he was going to harm somebody, because he was embroiled in a feud with a rival Newcastle gang, he had access to legally held firearms, he was on medication and he felt extremely angry over the unnecessary death of Neil. ‘I am not safe to be on the streets. I need help,’ the Bull had said. Unfortunately, nobody appeared to be listening. The psychiatrist gave the Bull a prescription for antidepressants and sent him on his way.

  One night, a fight broke out in the Grainger pub between a few of Paddy’s associates and men loyal to the family of the pub’s landlord, Billy Thompson. Bad blood had surfaced between the opposing sides, because Thompson was David Glover junior’s father-in-law and it had become common knowledge on Tyneside that Glover was giving information to the police from his prison cell about the Conroys and others. The Bull, who had been drinking heavily all day, arrived at the Grainger in a taxi with three females just as the situation began to get heated. After paying his fare, the Bull and his friends walked straight into the bar. The ladies went to order a drink, and the Bull went to the toilet. When he walked out a minute or two later, two men were fighting in the pool room, and, unbeknown to the Bull, two other men were fighting in the bar. One of these men was Billy Thompson’s son. As the Bull paused to watch the fight in the pool room, Billy Thompson walked up to him and punched him in the face. The Bull immediately tore his jacket off and said to Thompson, ‘What did you hit me for? I’m going to do you.’

  Thompson told the Bull to get out of the pub and, rather foolishly, added, ‘Or I will have you shot.’

  The Bull turned, glared at Thompson and then began to laugh. ‘You will have me fucking shot? Wait there, you fucking idiot. I will be back.’

  The Bull strode out of the pub and returned ten minutes later cradling a powerful Lee–Enfield .303 rifle. As the Bull aimed the deadly weapon at the landlord, Thompson pleaded for his life and begged him to put down the gun. Others in the crowded bar shouted, ‘No, Bull, no!’ For a split second, the Bull snapped out of his murderous trance, realised what he had been about to do and lowered the weapon. Foolishly, Thompson thought the Bull had lost his nerve and sneered at him. Before the smile had left Thompson’s face, the Bull had raised the rifle and said, ‘You don’t think I will do it, do you? You daft cunt.’ A deafening explosion filled the bar, and Thompson fell as if he had been cut in half. Blood began to pump out over the bar floor from Thompson’s wounds, and people began to scream and run for safety. The Bull stood firm, glaring at Thompson as he writhed on the floor. He then calmly reloaded the rifle and pointed it once more at his target. Before the Bull could shoot Thompson a second time, a man named Kevin Best grabbed the rifle and ran out of the pub. Without saying another word, the Bull turned and walked away from the carnage that he had caused.

  Out in the street, the Bull met a friend who happened to be in possession of a large hunting knife. ‘Give me that blade,’ the Bull said. ‘I’m going to go back in the Grainger and finish Thompson off.’ His friend could see that the Bull was in some sort of deep, emotionless trance and refused to hand over the weapon. Rather than argue with the man, the Bull simply turned away and walked home.

  Early the following morning, the police raided Kevin Best’s home and arrested him and his brother Craig. Both were charged with causing an affray. They were later convicted and each sentenced to serve 20 months’ imprisonment. Both have always maintained their innocence. The Bull remained at large, but he knew that it would be only a matter of time before he was apprehended. The high-powered .303 bullet had hit Billy Thompson in the hip, which it obliterated, before exiting the other side of his body. He lost both his legs that night and owes his life to Kevin Best, but it’s unlikely, in light of Best’s conviction, that he will ever thank him.

  For 11 months, the Bull moved from one address to another in his efforts to evade capture. He would use public telephones in faraway towns to speak to family and friends just in case calls to his home back in Newcastle were being monitored. But, as time went on, the Bull became less security conscious, and he began making calls from the bed-and-breakfast accommodation he was staying in. The police traced the calls, and in an early-morning raid armed police arrested the Bull and charged him with attempted murder. At his trial, he was sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment. The judge told the Bull that if it had not been for the fact that he had warned a psychiatrist of his mental state prior to the shooting he would have sentenced him to life imprisonment.

  It didn’t take the Spanish authorities long to rubber-stamp Paddy Conroy’s deportation papers after officers from Interpol spoke to the judge presiding over his case. Two officers attached to Newcastle’s Serious Crime Squad flew out to Spain to ensure that Britain’s most wanted man was being placed on the correct plane home. Three club-class seats had been reserved for the prisoner and his two escorts. Paddy knew that he was going to be sitting in a prison cell later that night, and so he decided to make the most of his complimentary, lavish surroundings. The police are not allowed to leave prisoners handcuffed on an aeroplane just in case there is an accident or an emergency. So, once the doors had closed in preparation for take-off and Paddy’s handcuffs had been removed, he raised his hand and summoned the pretty young trolley dolly. ‘I’ll have a beer please, and keep them coming throughout the flight,’ Paddy said.

  As Paddy took his first mouthful, the policemen looked at each other and then back at their prisoner. ‘Sorry, Paddy, you can’t drink. You’re our responsibility,’ they said.

  Paddy laughed so much that he nearly spat his beer all over the back of the head of the man sitting in front. ‘Get to fuck, you pair of clowns,’ he said. ‘Either get me another drink now or I am going to kick off.’

  Without hesitating, one of the officers raised his hand and called out to the stewardess, ‘One large Bacardi and Coke over here, please.’

  Taking the drink, Paddy emptied the glass in one and said to the policemen, ‘Now just sit there and shut the fuck up, and we will all get along just fine.’

  By the time the plane had touched down at Gatwick, Paddy was mortal drunk. Barely able to stand up, he was helped off the plane by his two embarrassed escorts. ‘How the fuck are we going to explain this to the Governor?’ one of them said. On the flight from Gatwick to Newcastle, the po
lice officers did their best to sober Paddy up with cup after cup of black coffee, but he was still intoxicated when the plane touched down. However, as the aeroplane taxied towards the terminal, Paddy glanced out of the window and sobered up immediately. Land Rovers with armed men standing in the back were racing across the runway towards the aircraft. A bank of police vehicles with their blue lights flashing appeared to be blocking the aeroplane’s way. As the plane ground to a halt, the Land Rovers surrounded it and 30 or more policemen ran towards the steps, which the airport staff were trying to put in place. Turning to his escorts in astonishment, Paddy said, ‘The fucking Army? You’re joking, aren’t you? A taxi would have done, lads.’ Paddy was informed that an emergency hearing had been arranged for him at Newcastle Law Courts so that he could be remanded in custody to a top-security prison to await trial.

  Driving away from the airport, all Paddy could see were armed men in a convoy of vehicles behind and in front of him. A helicopter hovered above the vehicle he was in, and when the cavalcade reached the courthouse, which faces the River Tyne, Paddy noticed a rigid police boat and several inflatables bobbing about on the waves. Within the hour, Paddy had been remanded in custody and was on his way to HMP Liverpool. Upon Paddy’s arrival, the prison governor explained to him that the prison was not equipped to house double Category A prisoners, and so he had to spend the first four months of his incarceration in solitary confinement. Double Category A prisoners make up a very small minority of Britain’s huge prison population. They are deemed to be so dangerous that they are not only kept in a prison within a prison but they cannot even visit the toilet without being given an escort.

  One morning, Paddy’s cell door opened and he was told to gather his belongings as he was being moved to the Special Secure Unit (SSU) at HMP Durham, which is only 18 miles from Newcastle. Paddy was pleased with the move, because he would be nearer his family, and many of the Geordie faces he knew were also imprisoned there. When Paddy arrived at HMP Durham, he was put in a cell next to a Londoner named John Kendall. Kendall was a well-respected villain whose escape from custody several years earlier had been far more dramatic than Paddy’s and Glover’s flight from the prison van.

  At 3.16 p.m. on 10 December 1987, John Kendall and another man, Sydney Draper, had been airlifted from the sports field at HMP Gartree, in Leicestershire, by a helicopter that had earlier been hijacked. Kendall was serving eight years for breaking into cash-and-carry warehouses, and Draper was serving life for murder. It was the first successful escape by Category-A prisoners from a dispersal prison and the only escape in the UK using a helicopter. The helicopter had been hijacked by an associate of Kendall named Andy Russell. After boarding the helicopter, Kendall and Draper disembarked just a short distance from the prison and made good their escape by road.

  A month after the escape, Kendall and Russell committed a £25,000 robbery in the Archway area of north London. During the heist, a security guard was shot and wounded. Kendall and Russell were arrested shortly afterwards. Draper was recaptured after 18 months.

  Paddy’s other neighbour in prison was a fellow Geordie named Bob Stokoe, who was awaiting trial for shooting John Sayers senior in the mouth on the Quayside in Newcastle. Sayers survived the shooting. A Newcastle-based tycoon, whose identity is protected, had been blackmailed by Michael and Stephen Sayers and a man named Nigel Abadom. (It was Abadom’s brother Philip whom Glover and others had beaten unconscious outside the Oz nightclub in South Shields several years earlier.)

  During a terrifying ordeal, the businessman had been told that he would be shot if he did not pay £50,000 in used £20 notes. Nigel Abadom had been recruited by the Sayers brothers to carry out the extortion as part of a widespread protection racket. He made a series of chilling phone calls to the man claiming that the Sayers firm had been responsible for fifteen shootings and three murders, one of which was the execution of Viv Graham. In an effort to convince the businessman that the threats were serious, shots were fired through the windows of his home. However, the intended victim refused to give in to their demands and contacted the police. When Abadom and Stephen Sayers arrived to collect the cash that they had demanded, armed police were lying in wait and arrested them.

  The eventual trial of the Sayers brothers and Abadom was moved five times in a bid to find a jury that was not familiar with their reputation. It finally took place at Doncaster Crown Court, and all three were found guilty. Michael was sentenced to twelve years’ imprisonment, Stephen to ten years and Abadom to four. Prior to the trial, John Sayers senior had arranged to meet Bob Stokoe in the hope that he could assist his sons. Nobody knows for sure how Stokoe could have helped or how the discussion deteriorated, but John Sayers senior was shot and drove himself to hospital. He survived the attack and was called to give evidence at Stokoe’s old-style committal hearing, which is in effect a dry run of a Crown Court trial before a magistrate.

  The hearing was held behind closed doors, because the prosecution and the police did not want ‘sensitive material’ becoming known to the public. John Sayers senior had been the victim of a shooting, and so nobody could understand what possible sensitive material there could be. It wasn’t long before totally unfounded rumours began to circulate on Tyneside that the hearing had taken place in private because John Sayers had been assisting the police for a number of years. Paddy Conroy was far from fond of the Sayers family, and so he added fuel to the fire by repeating the allegations about John Sayers senior to anybody who cared to listen. According to Paddy Conroy, the mighty Sayers firm, whose members told all and sundry that they adhered to the criminal code, was not quite what it said on the tin.

  Chapter Eight

  JUDAS

  ON 4 SEPTEMBER 1994, as dawn broke over Falmouth Harbour, the 25 waiting customs officers were visibly excited. After months of surveillance and investigations, their drug-laden target had arrived: the Melanie, a 42-ft schooner, was ending its voyage from Senegal in an inlet known as Smugglers Creek. Phil Berriman and two crew members were arrested as soon as they stepped ashore. On board the Melanie, customs officers soon discovered 3.5 tonnes of Afghan cannabis with an estimated value of £15 million. ‘If ever a case looked bang to rights,’ said one customs investigator, ‘this one was it.’

  Following his arrest, Berriman was interviewed by a customs officer and Crime Squad Detective Constable William McDougall. Berriman claims that halfway through this interview he was asked if Paddy Conroy was behind the importation of the cannabis, to which Berriman says he replied, ‘Look, you know who it is, but I won’t tell you.’ Berriman was then charged and remanded in custody under maximum-security conditions at Horfield Prison, Bristol.

  When Berriman’s legal team went to visit him, he asked them how far could he go in court concerning ‘dropping Paddy Conroy in it’. Berriman claims that his barrister explained that anything he used in his defence could not be used against any other person. Believing this to be true, when actually it’s not, Berriman applied for all the case papers concerning Collier’s kidnap and torture. As part of the application process, Berriman had to explain in some detail why he wanted the documents. He said that Paddy Conroy had forced him to import the cannabis and he needed the case papers to show why not only he but anybody would be in fear if they were being threatened by such a man. The documents were disclosed to Berriman, but soon afterwards he received a visit from Northumbria Police, who said that they were considering charging him with helping Conroy to flee the country. According to Berriman, he was offered a deal: six years’ imprisonment if he pleaded guilty to all offences. He declined.

  By this time, Berriman had heard that David Glover was in custody and giving information to the police about people, and so he altered his story slightly. Berriman told detectives, ‘Glover threatened to shoot me if I did not take Paddy on my boat. Nobody else in my crew knew who Paddy was. I helped him escape, but I did so under duress.’ Berriman still maintained that Paddy had forced him to import the cannabis on his boat, but
again he said he had done so only under duress. ‘When Paddy escaped from the prison van, the next thing I knew he was demanding my boat,’ Berriman said. ‘That is my motorboat, the 46-ft Michelle Louise.’ Berriman explained that the vessel was not seaworthy and Paddy had ‘got shitty’ when he had told him this.

  Berriman claims that he travelled to Hartlepool and told his father to get the boat sorted out, as he wanted to go to Majorca. He said that he had recently sold his salvage business and was sick of crime and ‘all the shit that went with it’, and so he just wanted to get away. At that stage, customs officers already had Berriman under surveillance and were photographing everybody that he met. The boat was made seaworthy within two days, and the crew sailed immediately from Hartlepool. Berriman says that Paddy arrived in his yard at 3 a.m. that morning and demanded to know where the boat was. It’s unclear what was said, but it is not in dispute that Berriman and Conroy drove to Torquay to meet the boat the following day. When they arrived, customs officers photographed Paddy and Berriman boarding the Michelle Louise. Later, when the photographs were developed and produced as evidence, the title underneath the photograph of Britain’s most wanted man surprisingly read, ‘Unidentified’.

  Berriman is adamant that customs officers knew throughout their operation that Paddy Conroy was involved with him. Paddy, according to Berriman, had been involved with a gang who were importing huge amounts of cannabis into the UK, but Paddy felt that they were trying to oust him, and so he had ordered Berriman to go to Spain, as he wanted him to use his boat to import the drugs. Berriman said, ‘I had a boat organised that was harboured in Gibraltar, the Melanie. I put my own boat up as security for it. Patrick, the guy Paddy had chosen to skipper the Melanie, was a fisherman from Alnwick, in Northumberland. Patrick was really game when I spoke to him, but when he arrived in Gibraltar he was a different bloke. He was late, extremely quiet and looked gutted. I formed the opinion that his bottle had gone.