Essex Boys, The New Generation (17 page)

Boshell declined to give a reason why his testicle was so grossly enlarged ‘that he had trouble walking’. His pain factor recorded by hospital staff on a rising scale from one for minimum pain to ten for extreme pain was ten. Testicular injuries of this magnitude are, I am informed, divided into three broad categories based on the mechanism of injury. These categories include 1) blunt trauma, 2) penetrating trauma, and 3) de-gloving trauma. Blunt trauma refers to injuries sustained from objects applied with any significant force to the testicles. This can occur with various types of activity, such as a kick to the groin or an injury sustained in a motor accident. Penetrating trauma refers to injuries sustained from sharp objects, such as gunshot and stab wounds. De-gloving (or avulsion) injuries are less common. One might occur if scrotal skin is sheared off, for example, when a testicle becomes trapped in heavy machinery.

Boshell was clearly not shot on this occasion nor had he been trapped in heavy machinery, so one must assume that Alvin’s playful tweak had the force of a hard kick. If Alvin’s explanation is to be believed, then Boshell’s behaviour when he was eventually released from hospital several days later can only be described as puzzling.

Instead of returning to his old haunts and continuing to work alongside Alvin, Boshell left Leigh-on-Sea and moved to Southend. He walked into a café on the seafront and asked the man behind the counter if he could offer him any work. The thousands of pounds worth of cocaine and the wad of money he had shown Lisa just weeks earlier were suspiciously absent.

‘I’ll do anything,’ Boshell pleaded. ‘I will wash up, clean the tables or cook the food.’

Halil Osman, the man Boshell had spoken to, knew that the café proprietor was short of staff. He was hired and given the menial task of washing up. While he worked his probationary period, he was paid cash in hand. The hours were long and extremely tedious. He would start his shift at 4 p.m. and wash dishes and cutlery until the café closed at 3 a.m. or 4 a.m. For working five nightshifts, Boshell was paid the princely sum of £70 – hardly the sort of money a one-time well-to-do drug dealer would toil all night, five times a week to earn. It cannot be denied that Dean Boshell was trying to make a completely new life for himself, free of drug dealing and the influence of Damon Alvin.

Halil Osman worked alongside Boshell for just six or seven days, but during this time Boshell confided in this relative stranger that he was interested in guns. When Halil asked him what he meant, Boshell claimed that he had recently acquired a gun.

‘Dean told me that he and his brother had gone to London to buy the gun,’ Halil said. ‘He had purchased two guns because it was cheaper to buy a pair. He’d paid £500 for them. He said, “Normally, a clean gun would cost £300 or £400 each.” Because he’d been kept waiting a long time, they had got them cheap. I asked him if he kept them at his home address and he said, “No, I’m not that stupid!” He said he’d bury it or keep it round someone else’s. I couldn’t make up my mind if Dean was actually telling the truth.’

There is no way of knowing if Boshell did buy a gun in London with ‘his brother’, but Halil is not the only person who claimed to have had a conversation with Boshell about guns.

After he had left the Leigh-on-Sea area, via Southend hospital, Boshell had moved into a flat at the rear of the café where he worked. Not really knowing anybody in the area, he would occasionally visit his old haunts along Southend seafront seeking out company. One day he bumped into a man I’ll call ‘Paul’ whom he had met whilst serving one of his many prison sentences. Through Paul, Boshell was introduced to a group of people that included Stacie Harris, her brother CJ McLaughlin and a man named Jason Spendiff-Smith. Boshell and Spendiff-Smith got on well and they began to go out drinking together.

Spendiff-Smith was experiencing a fairly low period in his life when he first encountered Boshell. After being asked to leave his family’s home because of irresolvable differences with his parents, Spendiff-Smith had drifted around Southend’s bedsit land and jumped from one disastrous relationship to the next. At the time he met Boshell, he was with Stacie Harris, but she had just announced that her ex-partner was due to be released from prison and that they were going to get back together.

Boshell confided in Spendiff-Smith that he was in need of money to honour a debt and invited him to go on a job that would have earned him about £1,000. ‘I cannot remember exactly what his words were,’ Spendiff-Smith said when trying to recall the conversation, ‘but he said that he and his brother were going to break into a house in Westcliffe and steal a load of drug plants. He said that the house was surrounded by fields and it would have to be done in the dark. He mentioned that the owners of the house were not very nice and not from around here. I assumed from that description that they were foreigners. Dean said he knew that the people were going to be away or out of the house at the time.

‘He told me that the job was planned to take place the following Thursday and that he would be getting paid at least £2,500 for doing it. I didn’t have any money or anything to do, so I said I’d think about it.

‘The following day Dean asked me if I’d go with his brother and him to drive past the house where they were going to do the job. I agreed because I was bored at home, but his brother never turned up. For some reason, the job didn’t take place the following Thursday, but on the Friday Dean told me that he was going to meet up with one of his mates to pick up a gun. I didn’t really think much of it; I just thought it was Dean being all mouth.

‘On Sunday, Dean and I went out to the White Horse pub for a drink. On the way, we called in at Dean’s flat because he said he wanted to show me something. Dean asked me to close the door and he lifted up his mattress. I could see that he had a gun and three bullets hidden underneath it. I was surprised to see a gun, as I thought it had just been talk from Dean. He said, “Go on, make a man of yourself and hold it. It’s not loaded.” I didn’t want to touch it and felt a bit uneasy seeing it.

‘After that we walked to the pub to have a drink. It’s quite a long walk from his flat and on the way I told Dean that I didn’t want to get involved in the job he had planned. “You’re such a pussy,” he said. I replied, “I don’t care, I don’t want to do it. I don’t care if it’s a thousand pounds or a million pounds, I’m still not going to get caught for that or go around killing people.”

‘I automatically thought Dean was going to use the gun on this job – for all I knew, he could have gone out and killed himself, or maybe killed me.

‘At some point during the evening he received a call from his brother, the one he always spoke to. He said he was going outside to meet him to get some money and make sure the job was still on. I assumed Dean was talking about the break-in.

‘When he came back in five or ten minutes later, he said something like, “I love my brother,” and took some money out of his pocket which I assumed he’d been given. He said the job was still on and told me to look out of the window at his brother’s car, a red Audi convertible. I couldn’t see the driver, but there was a blonde female in the passenger seat and I think a little girl in the rear. Dean then told me the job was going to be done on Tuesday, which was only two days away.’

The following day Boshell didn’t see Spendiff-Smith because he was working at the café. During his shift, Dean was working with Ishmael Mehmet, who was also employed to wash up in the kitchen. Ishmael recalled that during the evening Dean received a number of calls on his mobile phone. At eight o’clock, when Dean’s phone rang again, he appeared to recognise the caller and walked out of the café to continue his conversation. This was the only call that Boshell felt he needed to take out of earshot of Ishmael and the others. Analysis of phone records by the police later proved that this call was made from Alvin’s girlfriend’s phone.

Following this call, Boshell asked Ishmael if it would be OK to have a couple of hours off the following night. It wasn’t up to Ishmael but he told Boshell that he didn’t think their employer would mind if he asked.

Out of curiosity Ishmael asked Boshell why he needed the time off.

‘I need to do a job,’ Boshell replied. ‘I’m going to rob some drugs in Chelmsford that are worth around £100,000.’

Without any prompting, Boshell went on to elaborate. ‘Me and my brother are going to rob a house in Chelmsford. It’s in a little village. There’s a barn at the back. It’s full of skunk, and me and my brother are going to take the plants.’

Ishmael says, not wishing to become in any way involved in criminal activity, he didn’t press Boshell for any further information and quickly changed the subject.

At 4 a.m., Dean’s employer closed up the café and said goodbye to Boshell as he left. Turning, Boshell raised his hand and shouted out, ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, mate.’

Spendiff-Smith later told police that at about nine-thirty that same morning, he and Boshell visited the social security offices. ‘We had no money and so we were going to try and get what they call a “crisis loan”. Dean was refused the loan and so we went back to the flat. I asked Stacie to borrow me some money and although she had none herself she said she’d get some off her boyfriend to lend me. Stacie left the flat to find him and about ten minutes later Dean and I went to meet her in town.

‘Stacie never did arrive at the place we had agreed to meet and so we didn’t get any money. As we were walking around town, Dean said, “I’ve not been to see my probation officer for ages.” I didn’t think much of this at first and so said nothing as we walked down towards the Probation Service offices.

‘Standing outside, Dean announced that he had a warrant out for his arrest. He hadn’t kept the terms and conditions of his probation, so he could have and should have been arrested as soon as he set foot in there. He obviously knew this, but he didn’t seem bothered. I haven’t got a clue if he was trying to get himself arrested on purpose or not. He said, “I want to make sure that I’m wanted by the police.” I think he was trying to look big in front of me.

‘I would say Dean was in the probation office for only a few minutes before coming out. He said his probation officer had been surprised to see him because he’d missed a number of previous appointments. A warrant had been issued recalling him back to prison, but other than that, he said no more about it. We then returned home.

‘Dean needed to borrow some dark clothing for doing the break-in, so I sorted him out with Adidas trainers, a dark-blue puffa jacket and a pair of blue jogging bottoms. He then left the flat, saying he was going home to get changed and get something to eat. About 15 minutes later, he came back and told me he was expecting his brother to phone and said if he dozed off not to answer the call but to wake him. We began to watch the Brit Awards on TV, but Dean soon fell asleep.

‘At about 8.45 Dean’s mobile rang and I nudged him awake. I could hear him talking – he was asking the caller what time he was going to meet him. Nine o’clock was mentioned. As soon as the conversation ended, Dean got up, saying he had to go and meet his brother, who was picking him up at Lidl’s supermarket.

‘Just before he left, I was having a laugh with him, saying, make sure you bring back loads of fags, loads of food and things, and he replied that he would. He then left with his phone and I never saw him again.’

Nobody can say what was going through the mind of Dean Boshell that day. What is known is that he appeared to be extremely concerned about something.

If Boshell was planning to commit a crime that night for which he was to be paid £2,500, why would he apply for a £70 crisis loan at 9.40 a.m., and why would he hand himself in to his probation officer at 3.39 p.m. knowing that there was an outstanding warrant for his arrest?

Boshell’s behaviour had changed dramatically after he was admitted to hospital suffering from injuries to his testicle caused by Alvin’s alleged ‘playful prank’. He had abandoned his flat in haste shortly after being discharged and left Leigh-on-Sea, severing all contact with his friends there. He had given up selling drugs and labouring for Alvin and to substitute that income he had taken a menial job washing up at night in a café. On the 8th, 14th and 27th of February, he had pleaded with the social security department to grant him crisis loans, as he was desperate for cash. Nobody can say what he was going to do with this money, but he had talked about returning to Leeds.

Alvin had been in contact with Boshell by phone on a sporadic basis and Boshell had talked about doing a job with him. However, Boshell had wept whilst explaining a situation that he was in to Nicole Kidman lookalike Lisa. He had told her that there was no way out of it and that he wanted to get a gun because he was really frightened.

I would suggest that Boshell had been dealing drugs, and the large amounts of cocaine seen by Lisa would support this theory. The fact that his flat was ransacked and he ended up in hospital would suggest that Boshell had upset somebody. Fleeing Leigh-on-Sea and associating with an entirely new circle of friends adds weight to this possible version of events. Boshell gave no explanation as to why the theft of the drugs from the barn had been cancelled – perhaps he had agreed to do it to work off a debt and then changed his mind at the last moment?

What is interesting is that Alvin phoned him using his girlfriend’s mobile. Boshell took the call out of earshot of his colleagues when he realised whom he was speaking to. A friend of Boshell’s who was interviewed during the police investigation said that Dean rarely got calls but a week or two before his death he was receiving several each day. This, to me, indicates that Boshell had been trying to avoid Alvin, who then used his partner’s phone to call him. Dean would have recognised Clair’s number and, having no reason to fear talking to her, answered it. Realising it was Alvin and not Clair on the phone, Boshell had then taken the call outside the café to prevent anybody overhearing what was being said. Once he had spoken to Alvin, Boshell immediately asked his employer for time off to do ‘the job’.