Essex Boys, The New Generation (18 page)

During my days with the Essex Boys firm, there were many occasions when we were trying to contact people about debts or grievances and out of fear they had acted in exactly the same way as Boshell. They duck, dive and avoid your calls, but when you lure them into talking to you, they become very compliant. Boshell’s nervousness and reckless visit to the probation office, knowing that he could be arrested and returned to prison, suggests to me that the last thing he wanted to do was meet Alvin that night. Why? We shall never know for sure, because Boshell did meet the man he had referred to as his brother that night, but he was found dead several hours later.

10

  GANGSTER’S PARADISE  

Colin Todd was employed at the
Manchester Drive allotments in Leigh-on-Sea as a general maintenance man. Apart from young people fornicating in the bushes or breaking into the numerous garden sheds that cover the ten-acre site and crops being stolen or damaged, very little of interest ever happened.

There had been one unusual problem during the spring of 2001 – a keen plot-holder had taken to racing along the tracks that divide the allotments on his tractor. This had caused his fellow gardeners to become so concerned that they had strategically placed metal spikes in an upright position along the track to prevent him from driving at speed. In a rage, the man had attempted to manoeuvre his machine through the slalom of spikes, but had failed miserably. The plot-holders had found the punctured tyres on the disabled tractor extremely amusing. Its owner, however, failed to see the funny side of the trap and had abandoned his plot in protest shortly afterwards.

On the morning of Wednesday, 28 February 2001 at approximately 9.20 Colin Todd and a colleague were walking along one of the spike-laden tracks when they came across the lifeless body of 24-year-old Dean Fergus Boshell. The blood-soaked corpse was lying with the right side of the face on the ground and the knees slightly drawn up. Todd could clearly see that the person on the ground was dead. He called the police and the paramedics, who arrived amidst a deafening chorus of wailing sirens and blue flashing lights. They too recognised that the body was lifeless and so summoned Dr Goodchild to the scene, who certified Boshell as being dead at 11.28 p.m.

It was clear from the amount of blood that had poured from the victim’s head that this death was, at the very least, suspicious and so the police erected an air tent around the body to contain and preserve any evidence that might have been present.

For reasons known only by the police, one of the metal spikes that had been used to slow the tractor driver down on the allotments was never forensically tested as a possible weapon. In the crime scene photos, it can be clearly seen lying close to Boshell’s head. A long, thin wound across the back of his head looks as if it could well have been made with this bar.

Boshell had been squirted in the face with a substance and shot. If he had also been beaten with a bar, it would suggest that two or more people had murdered him.

The body was examined by a coroner’s officer, who described the clothing worn as Adidas trainers, black trousers, a black anorak and a grey jumper. After the scene had been photographed, the body was placed onto a large plastic sheet, which was then sealed. When they raised the body to put it onto the sheet, an officer noticed a hole in the ground below the right side of the victim’s face. This hole was ‘probed’ by one of the men present, who eventually recovered from it a fired .38 calibre lead bullet.

At 5.05 p.m., the sealed sheet containing Boshell’s remains was put inside an undertaker’s body bag and taken to the mortuary at Southend hospital. That evening, between 7.55 p.m. and 9.56 p.m., Dr Rouse, a forensic pathologist, performed a post-mortem on Boshell’s body to determine the cause of death. Ten detectives, two coroner’s officers and a ballistic forensic specialist were also present to witness any findings. The doctor’s examination revealed that Boshell had been shot three times in the head. Two of the bullets were still in his head – one was lodged in the soft tissue of his right temple, the other had come to rest in his upper left nostril.

It was also noted that the entry wounds to the head were blackened, two wounds to the left of the skull more so than the one to the rear.

This was consistent with the gun being in contact with Boshell’s head when the shots to its side were fired and at close range when the shot from the rear was fired. Dr Rouse could not be certain, but he said that the likely scenario had been that Boshell was shot in the back of the head and then shot twice in the side of the head ‘to make sure’. The victim would have been on the ground when the second and third shots were fired.

Dr Rouse concluded his examination by stating, ‘What can be said with certainty is that this was not an accidental killing in the course of a struggle. This was an execution.’

The doctor’s examination also revealed that Boshell had suffered lacerations behind his left ear and on his forearm and wrist. There was also an area of skin rash with some skin loss around the left side of the face and neck.

A forensic toxicologist took various blood, urine and tissue samples from the body to determine whether or not Boshell had been intoxicated or under the influence of drugs at the time of his death. These all proved to be negative. Ballistic tests carried out by the firearms’ expert found that the weapon used to fire all three bullets was most probably a Colt revolver. At the conclusion of the post-mortem, the body was reconstructed, cleaned and placed in the mortuary storage facility.

The allotments where Boshell’s body was discovered are surrounded by houses, and so the police decided to conduct door-to-door inquiries to find out if any of the residents had seen or heard anything of significance the night before.

Number 94 Randolph Close, approximately 300 metres from where Boshell’s body had been discovered, was the home of Gordon Osborne. When the police called at his home, Osborne told them, ‘Half of me thinks that I might have heard a bang, but I couldn’t be sure.’ He added that he didn’t know what time he might have heard this noise, but it was ‘possibly between 11 p.m. and 11.30 p.m.’

The only other person in the neighbourhood who recalled hearing anything of note was a lady named Hansel Andrayas. Her home backed onto the crime scene and was less than 100 metres from the spot where Boshell’s body had been found. If anybody had heard anything significant, the likelihood was that it would have been Andrayas or one of her neighbours.

Andrayas told the police that around 2 a.m. she recalled hearing ‘a loud bang and echo, then further noises, like a fence being climbed or broken’, which she said woke her youngest daughter. Andrayas then described hearing a van driving at speed. She said that it had made skidding noises a few minutes later, as it disappeared down the road.

With so little evidence to work on, detectives turned their attention towards locating and interviewing Boshell’s family, friends and associates.

At 6.30 the morning after Boshell’s body had been found, Damon Alvin says that he was awoken by his phone ringing. The caller, Boshell’s friend Sean Buckley, said that he had arrived home earlier that morning and found the police standing outside his flat and his front door kicked off its hinges. After asking the police what they were up to, Buckley was told that instead of forcing an entry into Boshell’s old flat, in error they had kicked in Buckley’s door. Even if the police had raided the correct flat, they would have found that Boshell had vacated the premises three or four weeks earlier. When the police did eventually find and search Boshell’s flat in Southend, they didn’t find much of significance other than his address book, which contained four different telephone numbers for Alvin and one for his girlfriend, Clair. There was none for Percival. The police hadn’t had the greatest start to the investigation and their luck appeared to deteriorate the longer it went on.

Officers had advised Buckley to go to the police station and register the mistake and damage to his front door. However, Alvin claimed that Buckley had phoned him en route to the police station and asked him to repair the door instead. Another pressing problem Buckley had faced that morning was that Alvin had left several thousand pounds at his flat in a carrier bag and he wanted to know what to say if the police discovered it. Buckley was told by Alvin to say that the money was his.

At approximately 10.30 a.m., Alvin arrived at Buckley’s flat. As he climbed the stairs, he was confronted by several police officers whom he claims recognised him immediately. The officers said that they were investigating the murder of Dean Boshell and asked Alvin for a contact number because he was a known associate of the deceased and they wanted him to make a witness statement. Alvin explained that he had a new mobile number, which he couldn’t recall or retrieve from his handset, and so he gave them his wife’s number.

The officers asked Alvin where he had been on the night Boshell had died and he told them that he had been in the company of Kevin Walsh, Kate Griffiths and Ricky Percival. A brief note was made of this information and an officer advised Alvin that there was no need for him to repair the door as they were going to contact a contractor themselves.

Because Alvin said that he had been in Percival’s company on the night Boshell died, the police asked Percival to make a formal statement. He felt he had nothing to hide and so he agreed. Percival told the police that in 1999 Alvin had introduced Boshell to him as a friend, but their acquaintance had been short-lived because Boshell had been sent to prison.

Percival said: ‘Damon told me that he was keeping in touch with Dean in the jail. Boshell had asked him if he could get any weight-training supplements. I didn’t mind getting them for Alvin to give to him because he was the friend of a friend. I was aware that Boshell was released from prison around the end of 2000. He turned up at a couple of places where I was socialising, such as the Woodcutters Arms. We didn’t say a great deal to one another as we had little or nothing in common. He thanked me for getting the protein supplements for him. I would describe Boshell as a bit of a ponce: he was always borrowing, not from me but from others. He would always drink but never buy his round. I referred to him as “Dopey Dean”.

‘There was nothing nasty about Boshell; he was never offensive or rude. On the night Boshell died, I went to visit my friend Kevin Walsh at his flat. It was around seven or eight o’clock when I arrived. Alvin and a man named Sean Buckley were already there. We all left the flat shortly afterwards and went to the Woodcutters Arms. I went there in my car and the others travelled to the pub in Alvin’s red Audi convertible. After an hour or two, Alvin and I left the pub. I went home, had something to eat and then drove to Alvin’s house in Rochford to give him a lift to Kevin’s flat. He had gone home to drop his car off because his partner doesn’t like him to drink and drive. I left Kevin’s flat alone around 11.30 p.m. because Alvin said his girlfriend was going to pick him up later.’

The police thanked Percival for his assistance and told him that they would be in touch if they had any further questions.

The following day the police asked Alvin to make his witness statement concerning his knowledge and relationship with Boshell. He told them that he had first heard that a body had been found on the allotments after it had been reported in the local newspaper and on the radio and that it wasn’t until Kate Griffiths had telephoned him that he learned the body was Boshell’s.

‘I was quite upset when I heard this,’ Alvin said. ‘I know of no reason why someone would want to kill him. I would describe Dean as a friend – he was friendlier towards me than I was to him. He would confide in me if he was in trouble. The last time I spoke to him he was quite happy; he didn’t appear to be worried about anything. Dean would contact me on my mobile. I can’t remember the number, as I’ve misplaced it since the weekend and bought a new phone, but I can’t remember that number either.

‘I’ve let it be known in the area that I will pay £500, as will Ricky Percival and Dean’s friend Lester, to any person who can help catch the person responsible.’

After completing his statement, Alvin offered the police a possible ‘off-the-record’ motive for the murder. Doing his best to sound concerned and looking to appear helpful he informed them, ‘There’s a possibility that Dean was having an affair with a married woman or sleeping with someone’s underage daughter, he was like that.’

Percival’s and Alvin’s statements led officers to the door of Kate Griffiths, who was also asked to detail her knowledge of Boshell and her movements on the night that he died. Without realising the severity of the situation she was walking into, Griffiths agreed to make a statement.

She told the officers that she had spent the day of the murder working at the launderette that she and her father owned. At around 7 p.m., she said she had locked the premises up and caught a taxi to her mother’s house.

‘I sat down with my dad and sorted out the paperwork for the takings for that day,’ she said. ‘After having my dinner, I went to the Woodcutters pub, where I met Damon Alvin, Ricky Percival, Sean Buckley and my boyfriend Kevin Walsh. It was really quiet in the pub that night. I can’t recall what time it was, perhaps quarter past, half past nine, but Damon and Ricky left the pub before Kevin and me.

‘About ten o’clock, we decided to buy a few takeaway beers and go home to watch the television because the pub was really quiet. Half an hour after we arrived at the flat, Damon and Ricky turned up in Ricky’s car. They came in and we all just sat watching the television and chatting. Everything was really normal, as far as I was concerned. Around midnight Ricky went home. Roughly half an hour later Damon’s girlfriend Clair beeped the car horn outside the flat. Kevin went to the kitchen window and told Damon that Clair was outside. Clair was driving Damon’s red Audi. He got into it and they disappeared.

‘It wasn’t unusual for Clair to pick Damon up from our flat. Clair would do it when she had finished work because she didn’t like him drinking and driving.

‘At approximately 1 a.m., Kevin and I went to bed.’

Griffiths, an honest girl of impeccable character, was very fond of Boshell and had absolutely no reason whatsoever to lie to the police. Little did she know that her willingness to assist would later result in her facing ruin.