In October 2010, Errol Hay appeared in court for pistol-whipping John Scott, the young man who nearly died as a result of his injuries. Judge David Hodson told Hay, ‘You would normally be looking at a nine-year term for such an attack, but the agreement made with the Serious Organised Crime Agency entitles you to a two-thirds discount.’ Hay was then sentenced to three years’ imprisonment, but this was suspended for one year, meaning Hay was a free man. Sadly, John Scott will never be free from Hay’s attack; he suffered memory loss and insomnia and has been told that he can never return to work.
In November 2010, the Sayers brothers and Rowe stood trial at Woolwich Crown Court, in London. Sitting in the dock, they looked remarkably confident for men who were potentially facing life behind bars. Only three people were sitting in the public gallery, and each one commented on the almost cavalier attitudes of the defendants. An announcement was then made that seemed to explain their confidence. A week before the trial opened, Hay had stumbled and fallen. When somebody ran to his aid, they noticed that his speech was slurred and his hands were shaking violently. Concerned for his well-being, the Good Samaritan had telephoned for an ambulance, and Hay was rushed to hospital. Doctors there soon diagnosed Hay as suffering from a brain tumour, which may have affected his memory. Further examination revealed that his condition was terminal. Errol Hay had between three and eighteen months to live. Asked if he still wished to give evidence in the case, Hay said that he did, because he wanted justice for Freddie Knights’ family.
When Errol Hay entered the dock to give his evidence, he looked a shadow of his former self. Gaunt and unsteady on his feet, he did his best to avoid all eye contact in the courtroom. However, he soon showed that he was no shrinking violet and that the terrible disease that was slowly killing him hadn’t yet affected his memory or his almost gloating attitude as he attempted to send his former friends to prison for the rest of their lives. To give himself kudos in the eyes of the jury, Hay informed the court that he wished to reveal for the first time who had taken part in an armed robbery with him several years earlier. Hay said, ‘It was my father and my brother-in-law assisting me in the £7,000 Indian-shopkeeper job. My father’s now aged 70, but he was helping me. I wouldn’t tell the police before, but this is the first time I’ve come clean.’
Having earned a degree of credibility for such a breathtaking betrayal, Hay turned his attention to the Sayers brothers and Rowe. Hay claimed that he had attended the last three days of the Freddie Knights murder trial in Leeds, but Jonathan Goldberg QC, who was representing John Henry, pointed out that a covert operation by police to gather video evidence around the court had failed to capture him. Hay was adamant that he had attended the trial and said that John Henry had spoken to him through the glass of the dock, but a prison officer named Paul Richardson claimed that Sayers was flanked by guards and that there would not have been an opportunity for any such conversation to take place. Hay then claimed that after the trial he was driven to a phone box in Hetton-le-Hole, where he had put on an Irish accent to make the phone call to Robert Black. However, Black had made no mention of this to police, instead insisting that the caller had a strong Geordie accent. Finally, Hay, who was clearly becoming frustrated at being caught out, said that when he made the call he had offered Black £20,000, but the juror had told police that the figure was £10,000.
As Hay stood rooted to the floor of the dock in silence, Jonathan Goldberg QC stunned the court by saying, ‘If you did make the call, you did it on behalf of a rival crime family in Newcastle called the Conroys. Paddy Conroy would go to any length to get John Henry Sayers in trouble. Conroy was at Leeds Crown Court because he hates John Henry Sayers and wanted to see him go down. I’m going to suggest to you that, if there is any truth that you made that call, you did it to wreck an acquittal, because Sayers had done so well in the trial. The rivalry between Sayers and Conroy is the stuff of legends in Newcastle. Paddy Conroy was there not as a supporter; he was there because he hates John Henry Sayers.’
Hay mumbled that he was not working for the Conroy family at the trial, and added, ‘I was approached by Stephen Sayers to bring Mark Rowe along as backup. He was there for muscle. The Freddie Knights family had the Conroys with them on their side at the trial. Mark Rowe is a big man, and I was asked to bring him because he’s a good friend of mine. I’ve come here to tell the truth and cleanse my soul. I want justice for the family of Freddie Knights.’
The morning after Hay finished giving his evidence, he underwent life-saving brain surgery. Some say it was successful; others, who wish Hay ill, claim that it went tragically wrong. Regardless of anybody’s point of view, Errol Hay lived, but his illness remained terminal.
Jonathan Goldberg QC is considered to be ‘Premier League’ when it comes to barristers. He has defended Charlie Kray, the Brinks-MAT robbers, and Nicholas Jeffries, the civil engineer acquitted in 2006 of manslaughter and health-and-safety charges arising from the Hatfield rail disaster. Mr Goldberg also appeared in the House of Lords in the landmark 2005 human rights case of R vs Goldstein, which redefined the common-law offence of public nuisance. To put it mildly, he is a good man to have on your side when facing legal difficulties. There was little surprise, therefore, when he halted John Henry’s trial by revealing a sinister flaw in the prosecution’s case.
Hay had told the jury that, after making his initial call to the juror, he travelled to a second phone box, less than two miles away in Hetton-le-Hole, to ring a different number, in Leeds. But it emerged that the police had launched an investigation to analyse call records from the second box identified by Hay. The evidence gathered by the detectives showed the call could not have been made from any of the 14 phone boxes in Hetton-le-Hole. When a further forty-eight phone boxes were checked in a three-mile radius around the area, they too drew a blank for any calls made to Leeds. The police handed the evidence over to the prosecution, who realised that it did not support Errol Hay’s story. As a result, it was not disclosed to the defence. Highly respected Crown Prosecution Service solicitor David Kingsley Hyland OBE, the head of Northumbria Police’s complex casework unit, claimed that he had simply taken his eye off the ball, and insisted he had intended to pass the information on to the defence during the course of the trial. But the judge, Mr Justice Cooke, ridiculed the prosecution, claiming they had failed to be ‘full and frank’ in disclosing key evidence that would damage their case. He said, ‘I have no doubt that Mr Hyland was looking to minimise the damage to Errol Hay’s credibility and to the prosecution case by making as limited an admission as possible.’ He added, ‘The material was undoubtedly damaging to the prosecution and assisted the case of the defendants in what is essentially, from the prosecution’s perspective, a one-witness case. The defendants knew that the police had been unable to trace a kiosk from which the second call was made but had not appreciated that the police inquiries revealed that the second call could not have been made from the box identified by Errol Hay nor that the billing information established that the call could not have come from any phone box in the area. In my judgement, Mr Hyland was always looking to avoid disclosure by giving an admission in as limited a form as the documents allowed.’ He concluded, ‘For all these reasons, therefore, the indictment is stayed on the grounds of abuse of process.’
John Henry, his brother Stephen and their co-defendant Mark Rowe sat impassively while their accusers squirmed in their seats. They knew they were going home to their families for Christmas.
Outside the court, Jonathan Goldberg QC told reporters from the Newcastle Evening Chronicle that the allegations against his client would never have reached trial if it had not been for the Sayers family’s notoriety in Newcastle: ‘This long, complex and ridiculously expensive police investigation seems somehow to have lost sight of the fact that their horse was lame from the off. It was always a surprising decision for the CPS to bring these serious charges on the wholly uncorroborated word of a man like Errol Hay. He was a career criminal and drug deal
er who had fallen penniless in Thailand, where he was washed up and unemployed and living off the earnings of prostitution from his Thai wife. He had the idea of phoning an old contact in Northumbria Police and offering to sell his evidence against John Henry Sayers in exchange for a substantial reward. What is worse, the CPS lawyer Mr Hyland failed to dampen the police enthusiasm for the case, let alone his own. If Mr Sayers had been a plain and simple Mr Smith, we do not believe this case would ever have come to trial on such poor evidence.’
The honourable Mr Goldberg was undoubtedly correct about the Sayers name resulting in their facing such serious charges on such flimsy evidence. But, like all villains, Sayers, Conroy and others do little or nothing to talk down their names or their reputations when it suits them. To have a name is to be a Somebody, and to be a Somebody in this world is deemed an achievement. But once you have a name linked to criminal notoriety, like it or not, it is impossible to live down. Even if these two powerful families do ever decide to retire, it is unlikely they will ever be able to do so in peace. The cruel finger of suspicion will forever be levelled at them whenever anything happens in Newcastle, regardless of their innocence or guilt. Michael ‘the Bull’ Bullock and Paddy Conroy have effectively retired from crime but remain inseparable friends. John Henry Sayers is trying to rebuild his life following his release from prison. His brother Stephen is doing likewise.
No doubt they all consider themselves to be decent men who love their wives and children, but all men who carry the responsibility of fatherhood should look closely at themselves and ask if they would be happy for their children to follow in their footsteps. For most old-school villains who know about the misery a life of crime brings, the answer would be ‘No,’ and so the members of these notorious families should remove themselves and their loved ones from the environment they have been immersed in, make peace with themselves and one another and enjoy whatever time they have left on this earth, because ultimately nobody wins and we will all end up with ‘names’ in any event – albeit on a headstone in the graveyard.
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION Conroy
CHAPTER ONE Once Upon a Tyne
CHAPTER TWO And Pigs Might Fly
CHAPTER THREE Fuck Roger Rabbit
CHAPTER FOUR In the Name of His Father
CHAPTER FIVE Viv No More in ’94
CHAPTER SIX The Enemy Within
CHAPTER SEVEN Y Viva España
CHAPTER EIGHT Judas
CHAPTER NINE Trial and Retribution
CHAPTER TEN Homeward Bound
CHAPTER ELEVEN Knightmare on Ella’s Street
CHAPTER TWELVE Judgement Day
Fog on the Tyne Page 28