Essex Boys, The New Generation (12 page)

‘When I got home, I sorted out a pair of training shoes for Percival and then drove back to Pamela’s, with her dog in my car. When I arrived, Percival was talking to Pamela about being picked up by a guy named Pete Edwards. I think I just left at that point and said I’ll see you later.’

At ten past ten that morning, a number of officers from the Essex Police Force Support Unit set up a roadblock in order to seal off the road in which Percival lived. Satisfied that all exits and entrances were secured, PC Noel O’Hara knocked on Percival’s front door. When Percival answered it, he was formally arrested on suspicion of attempted murder. A mere six hours had elapsed since the blood-letting orgy in Locksley Close, so one would imagine that Percival and his clothing would have been a forensic scientist’s paradise. At that point, his DNA or fibres from the clothing he had worn would be in the getaway car. His fingerprints would be in a number of relevant places, and traces of white spirit would be on every inch of his body.

The shootings were common knowledge by this stage, as BBC Essex Radio had broadcast details of the incident on its ten o’clock news bulletin. Despite the shootings happening only a few hours earlier, the report was extremely accurate and detailed. The newsreader said that a woman and two men had been shot and seriously injured by two masked gunmen in the early hours of the morning at a house in Locksley Close, Southend. An update in the next news bulletin stated that the masked gunmen were, in fact, wearing balaclavas.

After all the talk and all the threats that had been made about avenging Malcolm Walsh’s death and the fact that the Trettons lived in Locksley Close, Percival didn’t have to be a super sleuth to work out that the shootings being talked about on the radio involved the Tretton family. He had made no reply when arrested by PC O’Hara, but when he was being handed over to other officers for transportation to Southend police station, he had asked, ‘Is this about the Trettons?’ One of the officers informed Percival that he was unable to discuss the reason for his arrest with him, to which Percival replied, ‘Are they dead?’ The officer ignored Percival’s comments and placed him in a vehicle.

As they made their way to Southend, Sergeant Caldwell, who was sitting alongside Percival, asked, ‘Are you all right, are those handcuffs a bit tight?’ Percival replied, ‘I’m all right, mate, I’ve got nothing to worry about.’

The sergeant advised Percival to lean forward in his seat so that he would be more comfortable. When Percival had done this, he asked Caldwell, ‘What’s this all about?’

The officer replied, ‘I don’t know, we are just the taxi drivers.’

Percival then said, ‘I knew this would happen. How are the Trettons? Trouble is, Malcolm knew so many people. One of your officers has already told me that I would be the first one to be nicked if anything like this happened.’

Sergeant Caldwell reminded Percival that he had been cautioned and therefore anything he said could be used in evidence against him, but Percival didn’t appear troubled. He asked what the penalty for attempted murder was and when the officer replied that it was life, Percival said, ‘I wouldn’t want to be the bloke who did it, then. I feel sorry for the bloke who gets caught.’

Whilst Percival was in police custody, officers searching the car that had been dumped outside Leonard Spencer’s home in Burgess Close discovered an open bottle of white spirit on the back seat. This information was relayed back to the officers dealing with Percival and they decided that specific forensic tests for traces of white spirit and other materials, such as gun residue, would be carried out on him. Percival’s outer clothing and underwear was seized, as were various other items from his home, such as a boilersuit and footwear. These were sent to the Forensic Science Service Laboratory in Chorley for examination.

Despite being arrested less than two hours after Alvin said that he had watched Percival douse himself in white spirit, not a trace of the solvent was found on him or his clothing and not a single shred of forensic evidence linked him to the stolen car, the crime scene or the crime itself.

Percival was not the only suspect police swooped on that day. Malcolm’s friend Robert Glover had also been arrested and taken into custody for questioning. He was released after friends and family members said that he had been at home at the time the Trettons had been shot.

Nobody knows what Alvin was doing on the morning Percival was arrested or whom he was with. He claimed that he had gone to work, despite the fact that the Locksley Close shootings had taken place at approximately 4 a.m. He said that he received a telephone call from Danny Percival later that morning, who told him that his brother had been arrested for the shootings. According to Alvin, Danny also asked him if he still had his brother’s bag. How Percival managed to tell Danny from within the confines of his police cell that Alvin had a bag of clothing remains a mystery. Percival could not have telephoned anybody and nobody apart from his solicitor visited him at the police station. Make of that what you will.

Alvin says that ‘somehow’ he ended up meeting Danny later that morning and he took him to where he had supposedly hidden the bag.

At the police station, Percival told the investigating officers that he had spent the night at Pamela Walsh’s home. In the morning, his good friend Peter Edwards had given him a lift to his house in Leigh-on-Sea. When officers were dispatched to check out Percival’s alibi, both Walsh and Edwards denied seeing him. It looked as if the police had got their man and a very serious crime had been solved in record time. In the interview room, officers confronted Percival with their findings and told him that his friends had deserted him.

‘Your alibi has turned out to be false,’ they said. ‘You might as well tell us it was you who did the shootings in Locksley Close.’ Instead of refusing to answer further questions, as one would expect if Percival was guilty, he became frustrated and angry, insisting that he was telling the truth. He guessed that Walsh and Edwards were denying seeing him because they thought they might be protecting him. There was also the possibility that Pamela had denied he had slept at her home because she was in a relationship with a man who might have misinterpreted the situation. Whatever the reason, it is not uncommon for people involved with the criminal fraternity to tell police officers that they haven’t seen someone or heard anything. Percival asked the officers to talk to Pamela’s children because they would know he had spent the night at their home but, for reasons known only to the police, they refused.

Frustrated, angry and adamant that he was being honest, Percival began to lose patience with the police. Having answered the same questions in two previous interviews, Percival threatened the interviewing officer in his third: ‘I’m going to hit you in a minute because you’re fucking pissing me off. I’m trying to explain something. Turn this shit tape recorder off before I smash it up.’

After three days of intense questioning and being subjected to numerous forensic tests, the police released Percival on bail pending further inquiries.

Percival had been prosecuted for threatening and abusive behaviour during the altercation with the Trettons’ mother at Chelmsford prison. Percival had been the one who had been warned by a police officer following that prosecution that if there were any further incidents he would be the one that they would arrest. The police therefore, had sufficient grounds to arrest him for the shootings, but the truth is that Percival was at Pamela Walsh’s at the time of the incident. Upon his return from Cyprus, Percival had kept his promise and visited Pamela to check on her well-being. The sight he was greeted with was not pretty. It was the anniversary of Malcolm’s death that weekend and she had hit rock bottom. Finding Pamela in a terribly emotional state, Percival had agreed to sleep over to help her through what was a very traumatic time. He had spent the evening talking to Pamela and her children and when they retired for the night he had made up a bed on the sofa and went to sleep.

Alvin and others concede that it was fairly common practice for those in their circle to borrow one another’s cars. Percival worked as a mechanic for a local company and as a sideline he would buy second-hand cars, carry out any minor repairs that needed doing and sell them on at a profit. This meant that he often had several vehicles at his disposal. Percival says that on the day of the Locksley Close shootings Alvin had asked him to borrow a car to do ‘a bit of work’. Percival had told him that he could have the 4x4 Sierra that he had used to drive to Pamela’s house. He said he would leave the keys under the foot mat on the driver’s side because he had no idea what time Alvin was going to collect the car. If it was going to be late, he didn’t want Alvin to disturb Pamela or her children. After talking to Alvin, Percival had telephoned his friend Pete Edwards to ask him if he would give him a lift home the following morning because he knew that he would be going his way.

In the early hours, Percival had been awoken by somebody hammering on Pamela’s door. Fearing Pamela and her children would be disturbed, Percival opened the door and saw Alvin standing before him. He realised that he had forgotten to leave the keys to his car under the mat as arranged. Alvin immediately barged his way into Pamela’s house and when Percival looked outside to see what, if anything, was causing him to be in such an apparently agitated state he saw two men who appeared to be searching his car. He assumed that they were looking for the keys.

Percival asked Alvin what was going on and he replied, ‘If you don’t know, you can’t be accused of any wrongdoing. Keep your mouth shut and you will be all right.’

Alvin demanded the car keys, which Percival retrieved from inside one of his training shoes, and then left.

That morning, as arranged, Pete Edwards picked up Percival from Pamela’s house and dropped him off near his home, where he was arrested shortly afterwards.

Ricky Percival is, by his own admission, two wings and a halo short of being an angel. If he had attempted to murder four people and was then arrested less than six hours later, his best option would have been to remain silent when questioned. Likewise, he wouldn’t have asked the police to question Pamela’s children about his presence in their home after Pamela had denied that he had been there.

Both Pamela Walsh and Pete Edwards later offered to set the record straight, but they were warned that they could face criminal charges for making false statements and so Percival instructed his solicitor ‘not to risk causing them any further grief’ and they were not asked to testify at his trial.

The barbaric shootings at Locksley Close had a dramatic effect on Percival and those who knew him. He was catapulted overnight from being an 18-year-old petty criminal in the eyes of a few to being a psychopathic gun-toting madman in the eyes of many. Foolishly – very foolishly – Percival didn’t protest his innocence too loudly, if at all, when rumours of his arrest and assumed guilt began to circulate. He chose instead to let the gossip-mongers and the notoriously inaccurate Southend grapevine promote the view that he was guilty so that his reputation as a no-nonsense hard man would be enhanced. Percival ended up with more street credibility than Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich has got cash.

Whilst Percival was bowling around the streets of Southend, enjoying his new-found fame, Alvin was worrying himself sick, thinking the police were going to unearth evidence that would not only implicate him in the Locksley Close shootings but also his sidekick, gofer and occasional best friend, Dean Boshell.

Shortly after Percival was released on bail, Alvin and Boshell returned to Burgess Close to recover the shotgun that had been dropped down the drain. Alvin said that he and Boshell parked some distance from Burgess Close because they feared that the police might have already found the gun and put the area under surveillance. Not wanting to put himself at risk, Alvin indicated to Boshell down which drain the gun had been dropped and sent him to retrieve it. Boshell seemed to be taking his time, so when Alvin was confident police officers were not going to come running from behind the nearby bushes he walked up to join him.

Boshell told Alvin that he had looked in the correct drain, but he had been unable to lift the cover to carry out a thorough search. Together the two men managed to lift the heavy iron cover and then Alvin put his arm in the drain to see if he could feel the gun beneath the water. Still unable to locate the weapon, Alvin told Boshell that the police had probably retrieved it at the same time they had found the stolen vehicle. It’s difficult to understand why Alvin and Boshell would risk returning to remove a weapon that had been used in four attempted murders if they had not played any part in the shootings.

In a further twist, Boshell decided that he was going to burn the vehicle that had been stolen for use in the shootings. It had been returned to its rightful owner, but Boshell located it and torched it in the street. Despite Boshell’s attempts to destroy evidence that could link him to the shootings, he was arrested a few weeks later for the theft of the vehicle. The police had matched his fingerprints to a partial fingerprint they had lifted from the steering column prior to the car being burned.

Boshell’s arrest had caused Alvin to panic, but when Boshell was released supposedly without being questioned about the shootings, he did wonder if Boshell had made the story up.

Thirty days after the shootings, Alvin was left in no doubt that Boshell had been arrested because on this occasion he was handcuffed alongside him. The arrest had nothing to do with the Locksley Close shootings: Boshell and Alvin had been caught breaking into Jewson’s, the builders’ merchants.