Essex Boy (15 page)

A hundred miles away, in Essex, others were also considering how to rid their lives of shit, but rather than attempt to cure the sick animals responsible for the mess that had been made, they had decided to have them put down.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Tate, Tucker and Rolfe had been told that a million pounds’ worth of
cocaine was going to be flown into Essex using a small plane. It was due to land in a field near the village of Rettendon, which is situated on the A130, between Basildon and Chelmsford. Once the plane touched down, all the trio had to do was overpower the pilot and anybody else present and steal the cocaine. Veterans of robbing fellow drug dealers, Tate and Tucker had instructed Rolfe that they would administer the required violence and all he would have to do was drive them to and from the scene in his car.

They had been advised that recent bad weather had made it impossible to give a precise time and day when the plane would land but it would be in their interest to visit the landing strip so that they could rehearse the robbery. Blinded by greed, the three men did not hesitate in accepting the advice and unwittingly arranged to meet up with those who were actually planning their murders. The Range Rover containing Tate, Tucker, Rolfe and at least one of the conspirators made its way to Rettendon. Rolfe, who was driving, pushed his favourite cassette into the stereo.
Rhythm Nation 1814
by Janet Jackson began to boom out of the speakers. Ironically, the final song on that album, the last album that the three men were ever going to hear, was titled ‘Living in Complete Darkness’. Within the hour Tate, Tucker and Rolfe were all going to die in complete darkness.

As the vehicle made its way along the A130 the occupants were in high spirits. Tate was in the rear of the vehicle boasting about how he intended to use his share of the cash to expand his drug-dealing business and make even more money. Tucker, who was in the front passenger seat, talked about paying off all of his debts and building a gym at the home he had recently purchased. Rolfe said that he was going to pay off his mortgage and buy a flash car because the Range Rover that he was driving was still on finance. The man sitting next to Tate in the back of the vehicle smiled and reassured them that all of their worries would soon be over.

‘Just relax, lads. You will all get what’s due to you,’ he said.

As the vehicle passed through the village of Rettendon, it slowed on a sharp left-hand bend and Rolfe began to indicate. When a gap in the oncoming traffic appeared, Rolfe edged the vehicle into a farm track that was often used as a lovers’ lane or dumping ground by fly-tippers. As the Range Rover made its way in the darkness down the uneven track the occupants were tossed from side to side.

‘Are you sure about this?’ Tate had asked the man sitting beside him.

‘Yes, this track leads to the field where the plane’s going to land,’ the man replied.

The time was 1840 hrs and Tate’s phone began to ring. Glancing at his mobile Tate saw that the caller was Sarah. He answered it, apologised for his earlier bad behaviour and agreed to discuss the situation with her, but was unable to do so at that moment as he was with ‘some people’. Moments after the call ended, the Range Rover pulled up at a locked gate and the man sitting next to Tate said that he would get out of the car and unlock it. As he opened the rear door of the vehicle the interior light came on preventing those inside from seeing anything outside.

Once clear of the vehicle the man stood back as an accomplice, who had been hiding in a nearby ditch, approached the open door with a pump-action shotgun in each hand. One was given to the man who had been in the Range Rover and the other was raised into a firing position. Leaning into the vehicle, the man shot Rolfe in the back of the head just behind the ear. The lead shot blasted a 5 cm-diameter hole before exiting between his nose and eye, which was left hanging down onto his cheek. Rolfe’s facial skeleton was destroyed completely and this caused his features to collapse.

As Tucker flinched with the noise of the explosion, the gun was pointed at him and fired. The shot punched a 6.5 cm hole in his lower jaw before exiting through the left side of his mouth. The jaw and teeth were totally destroyed and pellets were later found lodged in his tongue.

In the rear of the vehicle Tate, on witnessing the bloodbath, had begun to scream and plead with the killers to spare his life. Grinning, the gunman showed no mercy and blasted Tate in the chest rather than the head. Tate had been the catalyst of all of the trouble and so it was deemed essential that he should witness the gruesome murder of his friends before he too was executed. The gunmen had to work quickly because the shot had broken Tate’s sixth and ninth ribs and had lacerated his liver. The 6 cm hole in his chest was pouring with blood.

Tucker’s injuries, although terrible, had not damaged any vital organs and he had begun to groan loudly so the gunman shot him once more in the face. The hot lead tore a 4.2 cm hole in Tucker’s head, just in front of the right ear. This destroyed the right side of his brain, killing him instantly.

Having incapacitated everybody in the vehicle, the gunman turned to his accomplice and invited him to shoot them. Stepping forward the trembling man pointed a shotgun at the back of Rolfe’s head, closed his eyes and fired. The blast tore a gaping wound in Rolfe’s neck, which left his back teeth and lower jaw exposed. Turning his weapon on Tate, who was by now curled up in a foetal position and crying uncontrollably, the gunman mocked the man that he had grown to hate before opening fire.

Tate ducked instinctively before the trigger was pulled, resulting in the shot causing an 8.5 cm graze across the top of his head before smashing the passenger door window. The gunman who had initially opened fire on the men walked around to the broken window and began taunting Tate.

‘Fucking hard man, look at you now. Stop crying like a baby and take what’s coming to you like a man.’

Before Tate could reply the gunman blasted him in the back of the head just behind the left ear. This shot caused Tate’s skull to splinter, resulting in extensive destruction of the brain. His work almost done, the gunman opened the front passenger door of the Range Rover, pressed the barrel of the shotgun against the base of Tucker’s head and fired. The force of that blast snapped Tucker’s neck and destroyed the lower part of his skull. The shot was so powerful it blew bone fragments out through his scalp, leaving a hole the size of a fist just above his ear. Their grisly task complete, the gunmen surveyed the carnage before closing the doors of the vehicle and calmly walking away.

Six months later, Darren Nicholls was arrested in possession of a large quantity of cannabis and questioned for hours about his possible involvement in the murders. Initially, he refused to make any comment, but when detectives revealed that mobile phone records could prove that he had been in the area that night, he came up with a story that vindicated him but implicated his friend Mick Steele, and an associate named Jack Whomes.

I am not going to speculate about who may have been responsible for executing Tate, Tucker and Rolfe. However, I would like to publicly thank them as I am of the opinion that they did the world a favour. I am in no doubt that Jack Whomes and Michael Steele, the two men who were later convicted of the crimes, were innocent. They were just two more of Tate, Tucker and Rolfe’s countless victims.

The persistent sound of the house phone ringing awoke me from my deep slumber. I had been up most of the night attending to Bleep the Labrador and his incontinent arse. Opening one eye, the face on my bedside clock appeared to be just a blur, but when I managed to focus I saw that it wasn’t quite yet ten o’clock in the morning.

‘This better be fucking good,’ I groaned as I lifted the receiver.

‘They’re dead. They’re fucking dead, Nipper,’ my friend shouted down the phone.

‘Who’s dead? Who’s fucking dead?’ I asked.

‘Tucker and Tate, they have been found in a Range Rover with their heads blown off,’ my friend replied laughing.

I refused to believe him and so he urged me to get out of bed and turn on the television. Sitting on the sofa in my pants with my eyes glued to the BBC news channel, I honestly cannot recall a more memorable experience in my entire life.

‘The three men found murdered in a Range Rover were known criminals from south Essex and could have been victims of a gangland killing. One of the dead men was Patrick Tate, 37, from Basildon. He had convictions for possessing cocaine with intent to supply and robbery. The others were Craig Rolfe, 26, from Chafford Hundred, and Anthony Tucker, 38, from Fobbing. Tucker was a former bodyguard to boxer Nigel Benn. Murder inquiry detectives were keeping an open mind on the possibility that the men, who were discovered near the village of Rettendon, were shot point-blank by someone from the criminal underworld. Detective Superintendant Dibley, who was leading the murder investigation said, “It is a possibility. But there are a number of other possibilities. This was no ordinary murder. These men were enticed to their deaths.”’

Photographs of the deceased and footage of the Range Rover being removed from the crime scene on the back of a lorry were being shown as the news was read. I accept that some people may consider me sick but I honestly burst out laughing and began dancing around the lounge. Despite the fact that I had heard it with my own ears, seen their faces and their vehicle on television, I still found the news hard to believe.

I rang my father and he burst into tears with relief. I could hear my sisters cheering in the background as my father kept repeating,

‘They’re dead, girls. It’s over at last. Those three bastards are dead.’

My father suggested that I should return from exile immediately but I knew that Tucker’s firm would think that I had killed them, so I decided to remain where I was until things had calmed down.

Over the next few days, a lot of the people who were connected to Tucker’s firm, and several who were not, appeared in newspapers and on television programmes describing their experiences and knowledge of the dead men. Most portrayed Tucker and Tate as Mafia dons. I had to laugh; Tate and Tucker couldn’t run a bath, never mind a criminal empire. They were too busy stealing what they could to feed their drug habits and ensuring that number one – themselves – was OK. In my opinion, the vast majority of the people who sold stories to the press in the aftermath of the murders talked complete rubbish: a large percentage of them didn’t even know Tucker or his firm, and others told half-truths in order to distance themselves from their own involvement in criminality.

The war that Tucker and Tate had waged against me was finally over but it had cost me dear. I had lost my home, the contents of my home, my car, my girlfriend, regular contact with my family and I had been beaten and imprisoned. It’s fair to say that they owed me. It wasn’t all doom and gloom. Unlike them, I can hold my head high and say that throughout my ordeal I retained my dignity. My father said that I should jump on the bandwagon and sell my story but, to be honest, the last thing I felt like talking about were the horrors that I had been forced to live through.

It was only when I started reading the usual nonsense that people come out with when talking about the likes of the Krays, that I changed my mind.

‘They may have been violent, but they only ever hurt other villains.’

‘They were no angels but they were loyal and always looked after their own.’

What complete bullshit! The girl whose car Tucker had crushed, and Sarah Saunders may hold a different opinion.

When Tate’s body was released for burial, the fortune that his friends said he had made from drug dealing in these newspaper stories could not be found. There wasn’t even enough money to fund a cheap funeral and not one of these so-called friends offered to pay. As in life, it was Sarah, the woman he had bullied and thrown onto the streets, who came to Tate’s rescue. Sarah had swallowed her pride and gone cap in hand to one of her friends in Kent to borrow the money to bury him. Frustrated and angered by the praise being heaped on those three bullies, I rang a tabloid newspaper and was offered a substantial fee for what can only be described as a sensational story. I had decided that I wasn’t going to tell the truth about the fear and violence that I had endured, because I knew some wannabe reading the story would warm to the perpetrators. Instead, I invented a story that portrayed the trio as cowards who had soiled themselves with fear as they prepared to meet their deaths. The headline read; ‘How do you want to die? A single shot, or piece by piece with an axe?’

I told the journalist, ‘They were given two options. They could be taken apart with an axe, starting with their fingers, moving on to their hands and then their legs. Or they could opt for the quick way out; an execution shot through the back of the head. They were told, “Either way, you’re going to get it. There’s no escape.” Tucker and Tate messed their trousers first, then took the shots.’

It was, of course, complete nonsense because I had no knowledge of the murders nor who carried them out. It was a sensational case, a sensational story, and I was paid a sensational fee for dispelling a myth that was rapidly growing. I cannot see any harm in that. After interviewing me, the journalist had contacted Essex police for a quote and DS Dibley issued the following statement.

‘Because of a previous incident involving the deceased and Steven Ellis, it is in our interest and his to eliminate him from this inquiry. I would like to urge him to come forward.’

I was signing on every day at Swanage police station because of the garage burglary, so I couldn’t understand why the police were urging me to come forward. I was hardly hiding from them. I rang Chelmsford police station and after explaining who I was they asked for my location and a contact telephone number and said that they would send somebody to interview me as soon as possible.