Heavy Duty Attitude (14 page)
‘Yeah well. It’s not like I’ve got much of a choice it seems.’
‘Well that’s the price you pay isn’t it?’
‘Price I pay for what?’ I asked.
‘Getting onside with them of course.’
‘Who, The Brethren?’
‘Yes.’
‘Yeah, well, maybe you’re right,’ I conceded. I would have to be a bit careful about that, ‘but it’s like, once he’d offered it to me it was a bit difficult to refuse, you know?’
‘Which given my job isn’t really an option is it?’
‘No I suppose not.’
Which brought me round to why I had called him. I was after an update. ‘So how’s the war going from your side?’ I asked.
‘Well it’s much what you would expect really at this stage,’ he said, and filled me in on what the cops were seeing.
According to Bob, it was simple. The two sides were out hunting for each other.
‘They’re all in lockdown. All the full patches have gone underground, club houses, safe houses, you name it. They’ve got tagalongs and prospects patrolling the streets around each club house on the look out for raiding parties and each one is even more of a fortress than they were before, if you can believe it.
‘No one gets into a car without looking underneath it with a mirror on a stick to check for booby traps and they’re wearing Kevlar under their colours in case someone takes a pot shot.
‘At the same time they all feel they have to keep up a presence, fly the clubs’ colours, demonstrate that they’re not taking any shit. So they’re each determined to make a show of going on runs, like these funerals. But it means that if they do go out, they do it in strength and anytime they do, you can be pretty sure there’s some bloody serious back-up close by. They’re having cars go ahead to sweep the route and there’ll be a van or two lurking in the background with God knows what inside.
‘Meanwhile though, they’re each out looking to see who they can pick off from the other side, so they’ll set out in small groups, twos, threes or fours, probably including a striker or a tagalong to act as a spotter since there’s more of a chance that they won’t be recognised if they’re seen. They’re checking out known bars and hang-outs, just trying to see if they can find someone on their own that they can take out.
‘I’m telling you, it’s fucking dangerous for them out there at the moment.’ ‘Christ!’ I said, ‘can’t you stop it?’
‘Stop it? How?’ he asked, ‘and why? If they’re all barricaded inside their club houses as far as some of our lads are concerned it just saves us the bother of locking them up ourselves.’
‘Yes, see you there,’ I replied.
‘Oh I doubt that sunshine,’ he laughed.
‘Why?’
‘I’m running the surveillance operation,’ he said offhandedly, ‘So be sure you give a nice big smile for the piccies when you’re on candid camera. I do like a nice happy snap for the album.’
‘What rights?’ he asked, ‘You’ll be with the bikers won’t you? And worse, you’re a journalist. What right do you think you lot would have not to be snapped as and when we feel like it?’
‘You’re a right twat sometimes, you know that?’ I said.
‘Careful sunshine. Bit of respect for Her Majesty’s Constabulary now.’
The Guardian
Tuesday 11 August 2009
Four Funerals And A War
Iain Parke, Crime Correspondent
As outlaw motorcycle clubs The Brethren and The Rebels prepare to bury their dead at what are expected to be highly charged funerals on Saturday, police sources confirm that they believe a full blown biker war has now broken out between the two clubs and the newly formed Mohawks MC.
Police are making preparations for the funerals which will be going ahead in an atmosphere of tight security, both from the authorities and by the bikers themselves. The events are expected to attract large attendances from outlaw bikers and their supporters and police are not ruling out the possibility that any of the events which will be taking place in London, Birmingham and Liverpool may act as a catalyst for further violence.
‘At the moment we are seeing relatively little violence, but mainly because we believe other than at large events such as these funerals, most members of the clubs have gone underground for their own protection, however this may not continue and it’s unclear how this situation will unfold. We don’t yet know how it will end and we would appeal to all parties involved to co-operate with the ongoing police enquiry.’
‘This is all just crap that people say about us to sell newspapers. We’re just going to bury our brothers and then have a wake to remember them by.’
Saturday 15 August 2009
It was to be a full dress funeral.
I had heard about a patch funeral from Damage.
I had read about them in my research.
I had even written about them before now.
The one thing I’d never done was actually participate in one. But Wibble had made it perfectly clear that whatever my personal agenda or preferences might be, I had no choice but to go to this one. And I had to admit to myself, Bob had been right in his taunts, at least to a degree. It was part of the ongoing web of obligations to The Brethren I had let myself in for in accepting and then flying a Brethren support patch from Wibble.
You wear The Brethren’s flash, in whatever capacity, you represent the Brethren was the rule. I knew that, I’d heard it from Damage, sitting across the chipped Formica prison table long before the idea of actually doing so had ever crossed my mind.
It was a mark of how times had changed over only the past fortnight that there was a small Rebel contingent, flashes of blue and white amongst the red and black gathered at the head of the milling crowd of bikers assembling as I rode up.
As I joined them, Wibble and the lead Rebel rep, the club VP no less, were in a quiet discussion about what position the Rebels wanted to ride in. In an unprecedented move Wibble had offered that they could ride up front, in parallel with the lead Brethren riders, an offer that the Rebel’s VP, whose name was Tank I discovered, politely declined.
‘Thanks but no,’ he said, shaking Wibble’s hand, ‘we appreciate the invitation but we shouldn’t. It’s your show, they’re your brothers, it wouldn’t be right. We’ll ride behind you.’ Then they embraced, diplomatic niceties observed.
Stu wasn’t there of course. The Rebels had their own funeral to hold today up on Merseyside to which Wibble had despatched Bung as his personal representative, together with a selection of Brethren chosen to stand for all of the UK charters. I didn’t see Danny anywhere about so I guessed as Bung’s tagalong he was probably making his way up to Liverpool behind his sponsor.
With the size of the event and number of bikes present, it was difficult to tell numbers. I guessed at a couple of hundred full patch Brethren including representatives of European charters, as well as some from further afield, I saw South African, Australian and American state bottom rockers amongst the crowd, who had obviously flown in to be there.
As Bob had indicated when we spoke, The Brethren had obviously also put the word out widely. This was going to be a high profile event and they were determined that it would be a good show. They wanted to send out a strong message. And they wanted a demonstration of loyalty from all those who were onside.
So, in addition to The Rebels, there were packs who had ridden in to represent other UK MCs, independents like The Hangmen come to pay their respects, and support clubs like The Reapers come to pay their dues. There was a sizable contingent from The Chopper Riders Club of Great Britain and a multitude of groups from smaller side patch and rallying clubs.
And there was a sizeable overseas contingent as well from friendly and Brethren affiliates and support clubs across Europe. Across the car park I saw a gamut of foreign patches, some of which I recognised like Saturnalia MC and Ragnarök MC, as well as some that I didn’t, such as Loki MC.
I found out that the plan was to hold two funerals today. First we would be riding over to a crematorium at Mortlake for Shady Aidie. Then once we were done there, we would form up and ride to Birmingham for Nugget’s send off in the afternoon.
Greasy Fingers’ family had requested a private event and after some negotiations the club had given its permission but it had been agreed that the North East Charter members would go along on a low key basis to represent the club.
I watched the TV coverage of the convoy later the next day. It was like the beginning of
Stone
, the Aussie biker movie. One of the networks had filmed it from a bridge above a bit of dual carriageway, and for minute after minute the camera just ran as below it swept a slowly travelling twin line of outlaw and associated bikes that seemed to stretch out as far as the camera could see in rigid formation and dead silence apart from the continuous rumble of the passing exhausts. And then finally, once the last of the outlaws had passed, there came a mass of other bikes, a knot of individuals with no particular order, trailing after the convoy like a shoal of pilot fish around a great white shark.
And outside of the convoy, riding in formation with it, a screen of police bikes and marked patrol cars, their high vis jackets, full on headlights and circling blue lights providing a strange strobing unreality to the scene and the darkness of the body of bikers.
Many of the outlaws were riding bare headed. If asked they would say it was a sign of respect to their fallen brothers. Perhaps it was, but it was also a huge two fingers to the escorting cops, a provocation, but one the police wisely ignored. The bikers weren’t in a mood to be fucked around with and the cops knew it.
All the same the substantial size of the police presence was a deliberate statement on the part of the authorities. What were they afraid of, I wondered? Hundreds of bikers turning east after the body was in the ground and riding across to lay waste East Anglia’s biker haunts, killing any Mohawks that they could find on the way in some two-wheeled bloody pogrom?
Monday 17 August 2009
Bob was being his usual acerbic self on the phone.
I thought about asking him if he could sort out my traffic tickets as part of our deal but decided against it. I might just piss him off more than he already seemed to be.
‘My boys?’ I said, ‘What do you mean, my boys?’
‘Your mob, The Menaces, that’s who you’re riding with now isn’t it?’
‘Oh do me a favour, give over will you?’ I said in exasperation, ‘you know that’s crap,’ but I couldn’t help glancing over from where I was sat talking on the phone and through to where my jacket and its half hidden support patch was thrown over the back of the chair in the kitchen where I had left it.
‘But anyway, I don’t understand what you mean,’ I said, turning back to the desk to focus on my notes which were spread out in front of me, ‘The Mohawks had a go at the Toy Run with heavy artillery. In what possible way is that The Brethren starting it?’
‘No,’ I admitted, mentally kicking myself. For a moment I was glad I hadn’t gone in to see him and that we were just on the phone. That way he wouldn’t see the expression on my face. How could I have been so stupid, I wanted to ask myself, it was such an obvious question, but it was one which I had completely overlooked.
‘Like I said, based on our crap Intel as you put it, as far as we knew up until two weeks ago, all was peaceful out there in the big bad outlaw biker world.’