Bonded by Blood (25 page)

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 the ‘legendary’ 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 around on the floor with a drunk or a loud-mouthed druggie, so I apologised to Emma and told her we would have a drink at the other end of the bar, but if Gaffer continued to be abusive or offered violence, 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 he 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 second-rate performing 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. I was temporarily blinded, so Emma opened the door for me and I stepped outside. Gaffer had been telling everybody in Essex that he was going to ‘do’ 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 carry out his threat. My vision began to clear, so I made my way to the taxi rank outside the club. Gaffer and his friend followed us, 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 Gaffer’s 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 may try to do, or what he may try to do it with, because, unknown to him, 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 Gaffer backwards, his cap had fallen 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 me once more in the eyes with ammonia. 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 like a hysterical girl and ran back into the club calling for help.

‘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 low-life nobody has chosen to attack me.’ A 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. The other taxis in the rank drove away empty. I could see Gaffer hiding in the club foyer behind the bouncers. It looked as though he was crying, 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 because of 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 I knew the CCTV had recorded me brandishing it, so it was pointless denying its existence. There was only one thing for it, I thought: I was going to 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 for possessing an offensive weapon,’ he said.

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.

At the police station, I mentioned again that I had been squirted with ammonia. I said I needed to wash my eyes out, but was told I was not allowed to do so until I had seen a doctor. An argument developed and the mood became pretty hostile. Eventually, they agreed to remove my cuffs. I was then bundled into a cell by the arresting officers and the door was slammed shut.

The following morning, I washed my eyes out with the tea that had been brought to me for breakfast. It helped, but they remained painful and my vision was impaired. Eventually, 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, so decided I would wait to hear what the detective had to say before telling my side of the story.

The interviewing officer told me a member of 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. He said he hadn’t because the video inside the club wasn’t working. As soon as he said that, I knew I was home and dry. I told 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 from him and, fearing for my safety, went outside. The man followed me and was asking me to give him back the knife. I didn’t want to because 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 Jif lemon 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 did not 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 I was arrested approximately fifteen 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 investigating 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.’

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’s 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 read the following charge to me: ‘That without lawful authority or reasonable excuse, I had with me 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 personal safety. When he told me I had caused a person of reasonable firmness present at the scene to fear for his personal safety, I started laughing.

‘How can you call a person reasonable when they are 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. 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-peddling peasant, who took it upon himself to try to attack you in the presence of your girlfriend and for no reason blinded you with ammonia. His motive? You assisted the police, who then lock you up and charge you for resisting his attack. Your attacker, meanwhile, walks free. It is absolutely sickening. I can fully understand why some people end up serving life sentences for murdering this type of sub-human. The law tells you to turn the other cheek and walk away from it, but what is the point of walking away when these lowlifes 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.

Chapter 15

In early 1997, Dr Robert Fox compiled a report on Sandra Nicholls as
part of a bail application for her husband, Darren. He had spent his first Christmas away from his wife and children and he was beginning to show doubts about going through with assisting the police. Similarly, Sandra began talking about moving back to Essex and divorcing her husband since their marriage was all but over. As tensions mounted, Nicholls spent his time arguing with the police, saying that the only way to save his family was to allow him to live with them. At first, the police refused point-blank, but when Nicholls made it clear that he was prepared to withdraw his statements, they agreed to refer Sandra to Dr Robert Fox and place the decision in his hands.

Dr Fox reported that Sandra felt lonely and miserable without her husband and had neither been sleeping nor eating properly. He concluded that it would be best if the family was reunited as soon as possible.

On 24 February 1997, Darren Nicholls was granted bail on condition that he reside at the safe house with his family and adhere to strict guidelines. There was to be a curfew, which meant he could only leave his house between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., he was not permitted to travel more than 25 miles from his front door and he was not allowed to seek any form of employment. Any breach of these conditions would result in Nicholls being returned to prison immediately.

At first, Nicholls and Sandra were happy to be back together. But soon Nicholls’s behaviour caused a rift between the couple. Sandra said that because her husband was unable to work he was around the house 24 hours a day and was growing increasingly frustrated. Once a week the police would call to check on them and give them the equivalent amount of money they would receive if they were on the dole. As soon as the police left, Nicholls would take the money and go to the pub to get drunk.

‘We never expected much,’ said Sandra. ‘It wasn’t like we were expecting a foreign villa and a life of luxury, but they gave us nothing. Less than nothing.’

The police were absolutely terrified of being accused of bribing their main witness. If there was any hint of someone benefiting in some way after being made a supergrass, the defence would jump all over it and the case would collapse. What the police love best is being able to stand in front of a judge and say, ‘Look, your Honour, we did absolutely nothing for this bloke and he still gave evidence. In fact, we made his life much worse than it was before and he still turned up. He must be telling the truth.’ And that’s just what they wanted to do with Nicholls.

Whatever Sandra thought and whatever the police wanted to do, Darren Nicholls, as usual, had other plans. In September that year, the trial opened in Court 2 at the Old Bailey in London. The first suspicions that the police may have arrested the wrong men came soon after Nicholls was called to give his evidence.

Through the auspices of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) 1984, there are strict guidelines that prevent officers from discussing any evidence or aspect of a case with someone in custody except during formal recorded interviews. Officers are allowed to make ‘welfare visits’ to ensure the person in custody is being properly cared for. Ideally, the officers responsible for such visits should not be the same officers responsible for conducting the interviews with the person in custody. The two officers who had been interviewing Nicholls were DC Michael Brown and DC Christopher Winstone. As the evidence unfolded in court it emerged that during his first week in custody DC Winstone and DC Brown had made some 36 hours’ worth of ‘welfare visits’ to Nicholls between them, including one that lasted 7 hours and 43 minutes.

Steele’s barrister, Graham Parkins QC, explained to the jury exactly what the defence thought had happened. He alleged that Essex Police, desperate to convict Steele, had used the visits to give Nicholls a ‘script’ detailing what would later become his ‘evidence’. The entire story Nicholls had been given to recite was in fact a fabrication and Nicholls was prepared to play along purely to save himself from more serious charges. Essex Police strenuously denied this allegation.

Mr Parkins accused DC Winstone of helping Nicholls, prompting him and suggesting things that he hadn’t said in order to make his story sound more convincing. Mr Parkins was able to show that during one interview the tape was turned off for 20 minutes while Nicholls visited the toilet. When Nicholls returned, his solicitor confirmed that no discussions had taken place while the tape had been switched off. In fact, Nicholls’s solicitor had been out of the room making telephone calls at the time and had no idea whatsoever what may or may not have been discussed.