Essex Boys, The New Generation (3 page)

I parked my car in the quiet cul-de-sac where Beverley lives. Opening her wooden gate, I made my way along a path, through her well-kept garden. Before I could knock on the front door, Beverley opened it and invited me inside. Entering the lounge, I noticed three photographs of Dean – one on top of the television, one in a cabinet and one on the wall of him as a child. A greenfinch chirped and whistled as it flapped about in a cage near the door. Scattered all around the room were toy or ornamental polar bears. Beverley noticed me looking at them and said that she had been collecting them for years.

For the next five minutes, she talked non-stop about the polar bears, the greenfinch, any subject other than her son. I could tell that she was dreading discussing a subject that had already caused her so much anguish and pain. When she did eventually pause to take a breath, I asked her if she was up to talking about Dean.

‘This jumper that I am wearing was Dean’s,’ she replied. ‘I wear it now and again, to feel close to him.’ There was nothing I could say in response to such a statement and for a few moments we sat together in an uneasy silence.

Beverley kept looking up at a photograph of her son, as if she were seeking some sort of reassurance from him. Her hands opened and closed continuously, as she nervously turned and pulled at the numerous rings on her fingers. After clasping her hands tightly together, she inhaled deeply and began to talk.

‘The first thing I want to say is that the police have advised me not to assist you with the book you are writing. Why they said this to me, I don’t know. Perhaps the truth about my son’s murder is more terrible than I have been led to believe. I am in no doubt whatsoever that the whole truth about his death has never been told. There are too many loose ends and unanswered questions. I really hope that your book will help to answer them all.’

I agreed with Beverley’s sentiment and promised to do all I could to help her learn the truth in the hope that she could have some sort of closure. I explained that in order to do so I would need her to tell me everything she could remember about Dean’s life and the events that followed his death.

‘OK,’ Beverley replied, ‘I suppose the best place to start is at the beginning.

‘On Valentine’s Day, in 1975, I married Dean’s father, Fergus Paul Boshell. I still wonder why I went through with the marriage. We were far from compatible. Fergus was a drinker and would turn violent after consuming as little as a pint of cider. When I was seven months’ pregnant with Dean, Fergus got drunk and decided to use me as a punch bag. After hearing my screams for help, my brother telephoned the police. When they eventually arrived, they wrote down everything I said had happened and promised that it would be acted upon in the future if there was any further violence. I wasn’t impressed. The next assault could have resulted in the death of my unborn baby, or mine, or both of ours. I wanted them to take action that day, but they refused to do so.

‘On 13 April 1976, my son Dean Fergus Boshell was born in Basildon hospital. Life didn’t start off too well for him. I was discharged from hospital just six hours after his birth. It was a cold, foggy day, but his drunken father insisted on taking him out in a pram to visit relatives. When he eventually staggered home, I had to call the midwife out because Dean was having difficulty breathing.

‘I already had a son from a previous relationship named Wayne. Certain family members, whom I don’t wish to name, treated Dean’s arrival into the world with open hostility. I don’t know why, but Dean was never given the love and affection that was bestowed upon his brother by these individuals.

‘Fergus continued to drink and I grew increasingly fearful for not only my own safety but also the children’s and so I instigated divorce proceedings. As well as granting me a divorce, the court put a restraining order on Fergus, which meant that he couldn’t have any contact whatsoever with me or the children.

‘It’s hard to describe what Dean was like growing up. He used to get a buzz out of causing trouble, but he was also an extremely nervous person. There was no way that he would upset anybody unless he had a good head start and plenty of places to run and hide. I have known Dean fall out with people in our street and become so scared he wouldn’t answer the door for days. If I went out of the house for more than ten minutes, Dean would go mad at me for leaving him alone.

‘Whatever he did to people or whoever he upset, Dean had no sense of guilt whatsoever. If he got caught doing anything wrong, he would deny it regardless and act as if nothing had happened.

‘Despite his numerous faults, Dean was very loving towards me and would do anything I asked of him. Wherever he was, he would always keep in touch and never forget my birthday or other special occasions.

‘Unfortunately, Dean did like to be associated with “hard men” and “faces”, but he was certainly not one himself. I suppose he liked the idea of people looking up to him, and he felt safe and secure in the company of so-called tough guys. I used to joke with him by saying that he was a whinger and not a ninja.

‘His problems began when he started at Nicholas School in Laindon, Basildon. Dean got involved with the wrong crowd and ended up falling out with them because they tended to bully him. Dean harboured an immense feeling of injustice following one particular incident at school and that remained with him. Somebody had deliberately loosened the nuts that held on the front wheel of a boy’s bicycle and, riding home, the boy was thrown in front of a vehicle when the wheel came off. Fortunately, he was not seriously injured. The police called at our house and initially blamed Dean, saying that he could be facing an attempted murder charge. They really did intimidate and scare Dean; he was sick with worry for days. A week later, the police were told that another boy was responsible, but they didn’t take the time to come and apologise to Dean. It may not seem like a big deal when you compare it to what goes on in the world these days, but it troubled Dean for as long as I can recall.

‘When Dean was growing up, he was always up to mischief. I can remember him as a young kid cooking chips for himself. He wouldn’t fry them in the chip pan; he used to put them in a saucepan with a whole tub of butter. When he had finished his culinary masterpiece, he would pour the whole pan of melted butter down the sink and I would spend the rest of the day trying to unblock it.

‘Dean absolutely loved the film
Grease
and would watch a video of the film he had over and over again. He would sing along with Olivia Newton John and John Travolta whilst prancing around the living room. If the film or any of the songs come on the television now, I have to switch it off. It really upsets me.

‘Dean’s greatest love – apart from pretty girls, that is – was always cars. When he was a young boy, I used to take him to the banger racing at Essex Arena. He used to get really excited watching the cars flash past and then crash into one another.

‘At the age of 14, Dean appeared in court for the first time after he had been caught attempting to steal a car which he had been intent on racing. The magistrate lectured Dean about the effect of his criminality on not only himself but also the long-suffering local community. He was conditionally discharged and given a £20 fine. Dean didn’t take any notice of the magistrate, his lecture or the plight of the wider community and continued to live his life as before.

‘I contacted social services because I had become increasingly concerned about Dean’s involvement in petty crime. As a result of me doing this, he was put into care for two months. I thought this course of action would succeed where the magistrate had previously failed and make him see the error of his ways. I couldn’t have been more wrong. When Dean returned home, he continued to commit crime as before and he ignored my pleas for him to behave.

‘After two further court appearances for burglary and theft, for which he was given supervision orders, Dean announced that he wanted to move out of the Basildon area and start his young life anew. I soon found out that this almost miraculous change of heart was not as a result of Dean seeing the light. To my dismay, I learned that I was not the only one who was tiring of my son’s disruptive and antisocial behaviour. Local teenagers had been beating him up and bullying him and he soon became too scared to leave home.

‘A local couple I had befriended told me that they too were fed up of life in Basildon and were moving to Leeds to run a pub. They were aware of the problems that my son had created for himself and suggested that Dean could, if he wished, move to Leeds with them. They offered to teach Dean the pub trade and said that when he was old enough they would employ him. Dean feared that some or all of the many people that he had upset in Basildon would soon catch up with him, so he jumped at the chance and almost pleaded to go. It was blatantly obvious that Dean had no future in Essex and so, reluctantly, I agreed to let him leave home.

‘Within a fortnight of moving, Dean was assaulted by my friend’s husband. The couple had been quarrelling and Dean had become distressed and tried to step in to calm things down. In a rage, the husband had then attacked and strangled Dean, who was later taken to a child-protection unit by police. The following morning I was contacted by social services, who told me what had happened. I wanted Dean to return home, but they said that he had indicated that he wished to remain in Leeds. Approximately one week later, I was informed that Dean had been placed in a foster home. I was told that the man who Dean had gone to live with had a son of his own and was deeply religious. After all that had happened to Dean, I wanted to know that he was happy and safe, so I travelled to Yorkshire and stayed with him for two weeks.

‘Free from any threat of violence, Dean appeared to be really happy. He told me that despite initial concerns about his foster parent being a devout Christian he had turned out to be really OK. He said that the man didn’t preach religion to him and generally treated him well. I asked Dean to return to Essex with me, but he was adamant that he wished to remain in Yorkshire. Once a month, Dean would travel down to Basildon to visit me.

‘Occasionally, he would be alone, but more often than not he would have other lads or a female “friend” in tow. One time, he arrived with a young girl named Sam, who was heavily pregnant. Dean told me that he was the father and the girl was too scared of her parents to return home. He begged me to let her stay until he had sorted out accommodation for his new family. Thinking this was my future daughter-in-law and grandchild, I was more than happy to welcome her into my home. As soon as the girl had unpacked her bag, Dean disappeared back to Leeds to “sort things out”. Within a few days, the girl, who was very timid, told me that Dean wasn’t, in fact, the father, but he had promised to help her. I was naturally shocked and annoyed, but I soon mellowed. That was Dean all over; he had agreed to help the girl after hearing about her situation, even though it really wasn’t his problem. Sam remained at my home until she gave birth to a son and then she returned to live in Leeds.

‘Dean moved from one address and from one female to another whilst in Yorkshire. His unquestionable good nature was only tarnished by his inability to keep out of trouble, most of which was motor-vehicle related. By the time he was 18, Dean had accumulated no less than 22 criminal convictions and inevitably was sent to jail.

‘He was sentenced to serve 15 months in a young offenders’ institute, but like all previous punishments, it failed to have the desired effect.

‘I wasn’t aware that Dean had been imprisoned; he would never talk to me about any trouble that he was in because he said he didn’t want to worry me. I would learn about his exploits second-hand, or by the appearance of police officers on my doorstep who were trying to trace him. As soon as Dean was released from custody he returned to his old ways, using other people’s cars as taxis and committing the occasional burglary when he ran short of money. Like a lot of young boys, I guess he thought he was being clever, or a bit of a Jack the Lad. He came to visit me in a stolen car on one occasion. As he climbed back into it to leave with his three friends, a police car turned into the road where I live. Thinking the police were in pursuit of him, Dean jumped out of the car and ran, followed closely by his friends. The police officers realised something was not quite right, radioed for assistance and quickly rounded up all four of them. Dean was put into the back of the police car, so I went out to speak to him. It was snowing heavily, and I had no shoes or socks on, but I was desperate to check that he was OK. A female friend of Dean’s, who had also been arrested, was in the car with him and she was protesting loudly about her treatment. She told the officers that they had no right to arrest her as she had not been driving and she had left her baby alone at her home in Leeds. One of the officers turned to me and said, “You’re the grandmother – get yourself on a train up to Leeds and sort her baby out now!” I laughed and told him that, as far as I knew, I wasn’t anybody’s grandmother! I had enough problems of my own without adopting the waifs and strays of Leeds.

‘I offered to go down to the police station to make sure Dean was OK, but he insisted I should remain at home, adding, “I will sort things myself, Mum, and let you know the outcome.”

‘I didn’t see or hear from Dean for approximately two months. I assumed he had either been imprisoned or had returned to Leeds with his friends. Then one day, out of the blue, Dean knocked on my front door, said that he had left Leeds for good and wanted to move back in with me. Things between us were OK at first, but we fell out when Dean stole a brand-new stack-system stereo from my home. I had only just purchased it; in fact, it was still in the box. I put it in my lounge, popped out to the shops and when I returned it had gone.