Essex Boys, The New Generation (20 page)

There was genuine excitement amongst officers involved in the inquiry. It appeared that Alvin was lying about his whereabouts after leaving the Woodcutters Arms. He had said that he had gone straight home to drop off his car, but the police now had evidence that he had driven to Southend to pick up Boshell to commit a crime that involved the use of guns.

Osborne’s evidence – that he had heard three gunshots approximately two hours after Boshell had been seen leaving Southend alive – could have sealed Alvin’s fate had it not been for evidence given by Griffiths, Percival and Walsh. They had all given him an alibi from approximately 10.30 p.m. to midnight. Detectives believed that Alvin and those who had given him an alibi had to be lying, but despite their best efforts they could not disprove the witness statements. For a while, the investigation ground to a shuddering halt.

Six months after Boshell’s murder Alvin married his first love, Clair Sanders. It was a rather lavish affair, funded in part by sections of the local community. That is, Alvin’s drug clientele. Amongst the guests were the Percival family, Kevin Walsh and Alvin’s good friend Tony Staunton. When Staunton first heard about Alvin’s wedding plans, he asked Alvin to remember his invitation. Alvin laughed and replied, ‘You can have Boshell’s. He won’t be needing it!’

Guests at the event have all said they had never seen Alvin looking so happy. Having outfoxed the police, established his drug-dealing empire and married the girl of his dreams, Alvin probably never had been. After settling into married life, Alvin settled back into supplying his friends and associates with drugs. Darren Wall, a long-standing friend and customer of Alvin, asked him if he could supply large quantities of cannabis. Alvin had consulted Percival and he had said that he would be able to get as much cannabis as Wall required. Deliveries ranging from twenty to thirty kilos of the drug were later made to Wall by Alvin, via Percival, on at least four occasions. As is the norm in the world of business, Wall realised that by cutting Alvin out of the supply chain he would be able to purchase the cannabis at a far more attractive price and so he started dealing with Percival direct.

Having removed Alvin from the equation, Wall ordered 60 kilos of cannabis from Percival. After agreeing on a price, the handover was arranged to take place near Southend. According to Alvin, Percival had sourced the drugs from a notorious crime family in the North London area, whom he had not yet paid.

Wall and his partner in crime, a man named John Ling, met Percival as arranged and approximately 240 bars of cannabis were loaded into the boot of their car. Wall and Ling had not been required to pay for the drugs at this meeting, as payment was expected to be made within the following two days. Once the cannabis had been safely stored in their car, Wall and Ling drove to a safehouse in Leigh-on-Sea. Whilst they were checking the quantity and quality of the drugs in the kitchen, the police stormed the house. Wall and Ling were arrested and charged with possession of cannabis with intent to supply. Wall was sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment and Ling received a non-custodial sentence.

When Wall was released from prison, Percival demanded approximately £30,000 from him, which he said was owed for the cannabis. Wall had other ideas: he felt his imprisonment and the loss of the cannabis were Percival’s fault. The police had placed Percival under surveillance following Boshell’s murder – it was no secret that they were monitoring his every move – so Wall reasoned that he was responsible for the police becoming aware of their deal.

Fair play and understanding are not attributes embraced by those involved in the world of drugs; the rules the players live and often die by are hard and fast. ‘I give, you pay’ are all they appear to amount to.

Percival, unsurprisingly, didn’t see things in the same way as Wall. He argued that if he had been under surveillance that day surely the police, who appeared to be more than keen to see him behind bars, would have swooped on him whilst he was still in possession of the cannabis.

Out of prison, out of pocket and out of luck, Wall’s last attempt to negotiate a settlement involved him approaching his friend Alvin. After they had discussed the situation, Alvin asked Percival on Wall’s behalf if Wall could be given a discount in light of the circumstances. Wall was quite a passive person and certainly not the kind of man to stand up to Percival or give him grief and so it was agreed that because he had suffered, through no fault of his own, he could pay for the cannabis at cost price.

Despite this being an extremely reasonable offer, Alvin advised Wall not to pay Percival. He said that the drugs had only been in Wall’s possession for five minutes and if it had been him in that situation he would have refused to pay. Wall thought for a moment, looked Alvin up and down, and reminded himself that this was the man who used to bully Percival for fun. But all hope of salvation drained from Wall when he remembered that the North London crime family who had supplied Percival with the cannabis would probably be chasing him for their money also. Did Wall really want to fall out with them and Percival over cannabis that he was never realistically going to get out of paying for?

Wall bit his trembling lip and scraped together £10,000. His partner, Ling, also managed to come up with the same amount of cash. This £20,000 was then handed over to Alvin and he gave it to Percival, who in turn passed it on to his supplier. As far as everybody involved in the rather disastrous deal was concerned that was the end of the matter. To many people reading this, Percival may appear to have been a hard and difficult man to deal with. He doesn’t deny that he was – in the drug world he inhabited, one had to be to survive.

Being a bully, as Alvin undoubtedly was, is a world apart from being a hard man. A bully would have squeezed every possible penny out of Wall and Ling. A bully certainly wouldn’t have accepted a settlement that left him breaking even on a deal that had caused him untold grief. Percival was acutely aware that bullies do not survive in the Essex underworld. Tucker, Tate and Rolfe were testament to that.

Following the furore caused by the arrest and convictions of Wall and Ling, Percival decided to take a much-needed vacation. The pressure created by the Boshell murder inquiry had become more intense since suspicions of Alvin’s guilt had begun to circulate. Percival was a known associate of Alvin and was thought to be a purveyor of drugs and the madman who had blasted a house full of revellers with a shotgun. Common sense told him that the police were bound to focus their attention on him at some stage.

He had made a reasonable amount of money over the previous year but the activities going on around him would ensure that he would make very little more. The thought of lying on a beach in sunny Spain for a month or two suddenly sounded very appealing.

A few days before he departed, Percival bumped into an old friend of his named Kim Webber. He was in the company of a mature, grey-haired man whom Percival had not seen before. As soon as Percival made eye contact with Webber, he knew something was wrong.

‘Hello, Ricky,’ Webber said, almost shouting out, ‘this is an associate of mine, he is a copper and his name is John Moran.’

Percival was stunned at first – Moran was one of the detectives working on the Boshell murder inquiry. Fortunately for Percival, Webber had been prudent enough to blurt out the fact that Moran was a policeman before Percival had started talking about the mess his friend Alvin appeared to be in.

Sensing Percival wasn’t happy about conversing with a policeman, and perhaps less than happy that a friend was out strolling with one, Webber explained that he and Moran worked together on the board of a local football team. Relieved that his friend hadn’t crossed over to the other side, Percival excused himself, bidding both men goodbye, and continued on his way.

When he arrived in Spain, Percival met up with several nightclub doormen and faces from Essex who were out on the Costas soaking up the sun. One of these men was the legendary Frankie Wright, who is respected throughout Essex and the East End of London.

One evening, Percival and Frankie were enjoying a drink at a bar when a group of Liverpudlians entered. Cheap, vulgar and abrasive, the Scousers began glaring at Percival and making derogatory comments about cockneys and southerners. Choosing to ignore their juvenile behaviour, Percival continued his conversation with Frankie.

The waitress had been enjoying a bit of harmless flirting with Percival and Frankie up until this point, but as the Scousers got louder her mood changed. Percival and Frankie tried to reassure the terrified girl that there wouldn’t be any trouble, but she insisted that she was going to remain behind the bar until the men had gone.

Noticing this, one of the Scousers shouted across to Percival and Frankie that the waitress was with him and so they had better stop talking to her. Frankie Wright was no fool and he quite rightly took exception to the attitude of these people. He wanted to teach them a lesson in respect, but Percival, who had gone to Spain to avoid confrontation and stress, had sensed the situation was deteriorating rapidly and suggested to Frankie that they should leave.

As they walked out of the bar, one of the Scousers started walking behind Frankie, so Percival shoved him in the back and asked him what the fuck he thought he was doing. ‘He is an old man,’ Percival shouted. ‘Grow up, you fucking Scouse mug.’

As he was remonstrating with this individual, Percival felt a blow, as if he had been kicked in the backside. Turning quickly to face his attacker, Percival tried to grab the man but he was already fleeing in the opposite direction.

As he stepped towards the vehicle, Percival heard something fall to the floor. Looking down, he saw a blood-stained knife. He instinctively placed his hand where he thought that he had been kicked. It was at that moment that he realised he had, in fact, been stabbed. The knife had been plunged between his legs and had cut a gaping hole in his scrotum.

Sitting in the passenger seat of the car, Frankie was totally oblivious to what had just happened to Percival. That was until Percival, who was bleeding profusely, lowered himself into the driver’s seat and told Frankie that he had to get to the nearest hospital. Driving at speed away from the scene, Percival soon became weak because of the amount of blood he was losing. He thought he would be OK to make it to the hospital, but lost consciousness and collided head-on with an oncoming vehicle en route. Two Spanish locals and Percival were seriously injured in the accident, but, sadly, Frankie Wright lost his life.

As soon as Danny Percival heard the news, he flew out to Spain to be at his brother’s side and there he remained for several weeks. Throughout this period there was talk that the Spanish authorities were considering charging Percival with manslaughter, so, as soon as he was fit enough, Danny escorted his brother back to Essex.

Percival had endured several difficult years since the death of his friend Malcolm Walsh. His arrest for the Locksley Close shootings, the suspicion surrounding him regarding the murder of Dean Boshell, the botched cannabis deal with Ling and Wall, then being stabbed in Spain and the death of Frankie Wright had all been extremely stressful events. But compared to what the future held for Percival, I imagine he will look back on those traumatic times and think of them as the good old days.

11

  THE FOOL ON THE PILL(S)  

On April Fool’s Day 2003, Damon
Alvin was arrested at gunpoint in possession of a kilo of cocaine. And who said that the police don’t have a sense of humour? The arresting officers were members of the murder inquiry team rather than regular drug-squad officers. After informing Alvin of his rights, he was transported to Basildon police station, where he immediately contacted his solicitor. Several hours later, Alvin was interviewed, but he refused to answer any questions. Instead, he read out the following prepared statement:

‘I would like to confirm that I was in possession of a quantity of cocaine when I was arrested. I had fallen into debt with loan sharks from whom I had borrowed £15,000 to finish refurbishments at my house. I fell behind with the payments and pressure was put on me to pay the money back. Eventually, the loan sharks threatened that they would cause physical harm to both myself and Clair. My wife is pregnant and has a seven-month old baby; she knows nothing about my business activities.

‘Eventually, and in fear of our safety, I agreed to collect and deliver what I believed to be a quantity of cocaine on behalf of these loan sharks. I collected the drugs from a contact yesterday morning with directions to deliver it to Canvey Island. I was arrested with the drugs in my possession en route. The scales were with me to check the weight before delivery and were provided for me, with the money, which I received the night before. I have a cocaine habit, which I have suffered from for the past two years. Any drug paraphernalia found at my home address relates to my habit. My wife has no knowledge of my habit or of any drugs that may have been found at my home address.

‘The £31,420 found in my washing machine by police officers was cash given to me to pay for the cocaine once I had completed my delivery to Canvey Island. Other amounts of money found at my address relate to my wife’s savings, recent employment and monies I kept at home to pay for refurbishment material deliveries. I accept that the Taser gun found at my home is mine. I found it in a car I bought a few months ago. I realised it was a prohibited weapon and so I put it on top of my fridge freezer. I have since forgotten about it.’

Alvin would have known that the penalty for possessing and conspiring to supply such a large amount of cocaine was likely to attract a sentence of approximately six years’ imprisonment. The very thought of losing his liberty after getting married and having a child, and while his wife was expecting another, must have been too much to bear. Whatever it was going to take to get Alvin out of the predicament he faced, he knew that he was going to have to do it.

The problem for Alvin was that the police were aware of his state of mind and his dilemma. The evidence they had so far gathered had left them in no doubt whatsoever that Alvin was at least present at Boshell’s death. They had heard rumours that Percival might have pulled the trigger, but they needed leverage or some sort of trigger mechanism to get Alvin to start talking. When they had received intelligence that Alvin was going to be involved in the supply of a kilo of cocaine that morning, they knew that if they caught him with it, the threat of a lengthy prison sentence would provide the bargaining tool they needed. It was suggested to Alvin that if he was prepared to assist the police with their inquiries, they might be able to assist him with the jail term he now faced.

At 8.32 p.m. on 2 April 2003, having already been charged with the possession of a kilo of cocaine with intent to supply, Alvin agreed to give an intelligence interview to DS Carter and DC Staff on the condition that the judge sentencing him for the drugs would credit him for his cooperation.

There is absolutely nothing wrong in law or police procedure with these types of agreements; however, the credibility of anybody giving evidence or intelligence in return for any type of reward has to be, I would suggest, at best questionable. It was explained to Alvin that he was not under caution or arrest and he was not under any obligation to say anything at all. He was then reminded that the charge he faced in relation to the cocaine was a serious one and that it was likely to be dealt with by means of a lengthy prison sentence when he finally appeared in court. In plain English, Alvin had been told: ‘Help us, or face six years inside.’

DS Carter told Alvin, ‘There are a number of things that we can do to assist you in relation to that prison sentence that are governed by the judiciary. Basically, the judiciary agrees that if anybody turns to assist the police and we go along to court and behind closed doors say to the judge, “This person has assisted us,” the judge is then duty-bound to reduce the sentence. That is written in the judiciary. Whatever help you give us, a decision will be made on what help we can give you and there are a number of options open. But again, it’s down to you to decide whether you want to speak to us or not.’

I cannot imagine Alvin agonising over the decision he was going to make for too long. Shall I serve six years in prison and risk losing everything, or shall I give these people a load of bullshit information and secure a reduced sentence? He did refuse to talk initially, but only because he didn’t want what he had to say being recorded. After being reassured by the officers that the tapes would never be used, Alvin agreed to tell his story.

Having read the transcripts of the interview tapes, it is apparent to me that Alvin was not concerned about the finer details of his story, his safety or the pursuit of justice. His main concern appears to have been that the authorities were going to try to seize his home under the Proceeds of Crime Act. This legislation was introduced to show criminals that crime really does not pay, even if they are not caught initially; any money or assets that a criminal cannot prove he has earned or funded legitimately can be seized by the courts at any time.

It would have been fairly clear to the officers who had arrested Alvin and found £31,420 in his washing machine that the vast majority of his sizeable income was anything but legitimate.

‘What guarantees can be made that my wife will be able to keep the house?’ Alvin had asked.

‘No guarantees at the moment,’ DS Carter replied, ‘because I don’t know what you are going to tell us. The bottom line is you will go to court tomorrow and you will be remanded in custody. We can then get you out of prison on a production order so that we can sit down and talk in more depth. I can’t give you any promises whatsoever; we can only help you if you help us.’

Alvin paused. Images of his home, his car and his pretty wife must have been flashing through his mind.

‘OK,’ he eventually said. ‘There is an officer at Rayleigh police station giving out information to people close to me about certain crimes that have been committed. I’m not sure of his whole name – I think it is Strongholm. He is about to retire and is on the board of governors at Brentwood Football Club. I’ve never actually seen him and I can’t describe him, but he shouldn’t be hard to find. All I know is that he works on the murder squad. He is known to me through a person called Kim Webber, who also sits on the board of governors at the football club.

‘Strongholm received a payment for information from one of my friends, who I cannot name, for an offence that occurred a few weeks back. Someone was charged with possession of 60 kilos of cannabis and my friend was advised to leave the country because he was going to be arrested on the 29th of this month. Darren Wall and John Ling are the guys who were arrested with the 60 kilos of cannabis and my friend was supposed to have been videoed by the police delivering it from the boot of his car to Darren Wall’s.’

The detectives pressed Alvin for his friend’s name because they wanted to identify the officer he was alleging was corrupt, but Alvin repeatedly refused to do so. Alvin told them, ‘I can’t name him because he is in with the people that I owe money to.’

The officers reminded Alvin that unless he was prepared to assist them, they would not be able to help him when he appeared in court for sentencing.

‘It all relates back to Kim Webber,’ Alvin said. ‘He’s the supplier of the stuff. And the people that I owe the money to – I don’t know their names, I only know where they work. There’s a car showroom up in Hadleigh. It’s run by Carlton Leach and some pikeys. They were meant to go to Spain to meet some Liverpool people out there. An incident occurred between the Liverpool drug dealers and them. Somebody got stabbed up; I think one may have died. That was two weeks ago, I believe. A shipment of about a ton of cocaine was meant to come into the country within the next three weeks. I don’t know everybody involved; I just know Leach and Webber were. They are the ones who are making me pick up the drugs and drop them off.’

Alvin’s dramatic story regarding the importation of a ton of cocaine, an alleged corrupt detective selling information to villains, and Kim Webber and Carlton Leach forcing him to work as a drug courier was not initially received with the enthusiastic response Alvin had hoped for. DS Carter remained silent for quite some time; it was as if he was gathering his thoughts.

‘What we are going to be looking at is this,’ he said finally. ‘If we go down the road of you helping us, you’re going to have to be 100 per cent honest. We cannot work on half-truths.’

Unfortunately for DC Carter and his colleague, who were undoubtedly doing their utmost to spell out the need for Alvin to be truthful, he was already trying to weave together half-truths and lies. He was thinking up a story that would not only reduce his prison sentence but also save him from losing his home.

‘I don’t hear names. It’s hard to,’ Alvin lied. ‘You can’t blatantly ask these sort of people who they are and where they are from. If you do, it looks suspicious. It’s all on a need-to-know basis. They’re not idiots, they’re all serious people. There’s nothing that I can tell you that I know is 100 per cent true, apart from the information about the corrupt police officer. That is 100 per cent.’

Alvin repeated that he had never actually met the officer, but his friend had told him that he had been ‘open to losing evidence’ in relation to the 60 kilos of cannabis that Darren Wall had been arrested with. The evidence Alvin’s friend was allegedly hoping to have lost was a police video of a bag containing cannabis being transferred from his car boot to Darren Wall’s. Just what use such evidence, if indeed it ever did exist, would be to the police is highly debatable. A man putting a sports bag into somebody else’s car would hardly be sufficient evidence to prosecute. One might ask why the police didn’t stop and search the man and his bag at the time, instead of just videoing the event, if they thought it was important.

Alvin’s credibility as an informant was fading fast. Not one of his remarkable stories had a shred of concrete evidence to support it. The mystery detective, who he said was bent but whom he had never actually met, might have been called Strongholm, ‘or something like that’. He owed money to people, yet he didn’t know their names. And he had mentioned a friend, whose name he couldn’t give, who was hoping the insignificant camcorder evidence would be lost. This was all Alvin had so far divulged.

Losing patience with Alvin, DS Carter pressed him for information that he and his colleagues could act on or at least investigate. ‘I am going to ask you who your friend is, not because I am looking to go and nick him, but it could help to identify the police officer. If I know who your friend is, I can work out who his associates are. If there is a corrupt officer, then we want to get him off the force because he is no good for us and no good for you. If we have people playing both sides of the fence, it becomes very difficult.’

Alvin still refused to name his friend. It was as if he was stalling the detectives, trying hard to rack his brains for a name, a face, anybody who would fit the tales he had invented and was preparing to tell. No credible story and no information would mean no deal and that would result in a long prison sentence for Alvin and the possibility of losing his home. Whatever else happened, that disastrous scenario could not possibly be allowed to happen.

‘You’re talking about something we know nothing about. If your friend is on video, he will get nicked anyway,’ said DS Carter. ‘We would never use what you are saying here in evidence because this is an intelligence interview. If we know who your friend is, we can then work out who the detective is because there will have been contact between the two.’

‘So this won’t be used?’ Alvin asked.

‘No, you will never give evidence against anybody. The only people who are going to know are us three in here and a couple of our bosses.’

‘Straight?’

‘Yeah.’

Alvin began to talk without giving the consequences of doing so much thought. The next two words out of Alvin’s mouth were to set in motion a chain of events that would result in his saving his own skin but losing everything and having to flee to a place of refuge never to return again.

Alvin named his friend Ricky Percival.

Alvin said that Percival was the man who had been videoed handing over the 60 kilos of cannabis to Darren Wall and it was Percival who was involved with the alleged corrupt detective apparently named Strongholm.

Alvin was confident that he was entering into a deal that he could not lose. He had been given complete assurances that he would never have to give evidence against anybody and whichever friend he named would never be prosecuted.

Percival was on holiday in Spain at the time and therefore out of harm’s reach in any event. Alvin was fulfilling his part of the deal, which would reward him with a reduced prison sentence and prevent his house from being seized.