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  Later, Tate told John that the gym orderly who had been to assess his ‘injured’ back was a member of staff he had in his pocket. ‘Some of the screws I worked with in the gym let me do anything I wanted,’ Tate said. ‘When the officer came in the cell, I told him I needed him to say I had a bad back. The officer just laughed and said no problem.’

  On the way to Highpoint prison, the van transporting Tate and John broke down. A piece of debris on the carriageway caught the brake pipes and tore them off. The driver was forced to pull over and inform the police of the situation. Although Tate and John were handcuffed together, while they waited for assistance the officers agreed to take the cuffs off as it was dangerous for them to sit manacled together in the van on the side of a busy main road. The only safe place to wait was on a grass bank on the other side of the carriageway. Tate and John scrambled to the top and sat in the sunshine eating fruit Tate had brought with him in a bag. When a police car arrived, the officers sat and talked with Tate and John while they waited for a replacement van. Tate kept asking one of the prison officers if he could read his confidential prison file because he was concerned his latest outburst would affect his chances of parole. At first, the officer was reluctant to do so, but then one of the police officers said, ‘Go on, let him, he seems an OK lad.’

  The file was handed over and Tate spent the rest of his time waiting reading it. When the replacement van arrived, everybody helped transfer Tate’s and John’s possessions from one vehicle to the other. Tate had ten boxes, John had one. When they arrived at Highpoint prison, Tate was given a trolley on which to put his boxes. He looked at the officer who had brought it to him, said he was unable to bend because of his bad back and walked off towards the reception with John. The officer loaded Tate and John’s boxes onto the trolley and pulled it along himself. When they entered the reception area, the officers present looked from John and Tate to the officer transporting their stuff as if to say, ‘Who the hell are these two guys?’ They were then told all of the boxes would have to be searched before they would be allowed into the prison. Tate replied that that wouldn’t be possible.

  ‘What do you mean that won’t be possible?’ the officer asked.

  ‘If you leave our possessions alone, I won’t play up,’ Tate said. ‘If you touch our possessions, I will.’

  The officer looked at Tate then addressed his colleague, the one who had pulled the trolley into reception. ‘Take these two and that trolley to unit four.’

  Tate and John walked out of reception following the officer pulling the trolley. On the unit, John and Tate were locked up together in the same cell. As soon as they were alone, Tate emptied one of his boxes onto the bed. It appeared to contain cartons of All-Bran, Alpen and other breakfast cereals. Tate cut along the side of one of the boxes and tipped out a handful of muesli. He then shook the carton and a large bar of cannabis resin fell out. Tate opened up several other cartons, which contained heroin, cocaine and steroids; soon there was a large pile of illegal drugs heaped up on the bed. Tate then cut the cannabis into eighths and quarters. The following morning, his ‘shop’ opened. In no time at all, the prison was flooded with drugs.

  After a few days, Tate heard that the north wing was the best one to be on because the inmates there had jobs outside the prison. John and Tate applied to be moved. John waited two months before his request was granted; Tate went the following day.

  John was given a job working with disabled people at a centre in Haverhill while Tate was employed on a car-boot sale adjacent to the prison – an ideal job to keep his business running in prison. Friends and associates would visit his stall and leave items full of concealed drugs, and Tate would pass them any money he had earned and wanted spirited out of the prison.

  John, who’d never had anything to do with drugs, asked Tate if he would refrain from selling and taking drugs in the cell they shared. John explained that if any drugs were found in the cell, both he and Tate would be charged. To John’s surprise, Tate agreed and the drugs were moved to another cell whose occupants were paid ‘rent’ by Tate for storing them.

  Around this time, several inmates were complaining that items such as phone cards, shampoo and postage stamps were going missing from their cells. Tate noticed that a young Asian man was constantly on the telephone, so he assumed that he was guilty of stealing the phone cards at least. Rather than confront the man, Tate barricaded the wing doors to prevent prison officers entering and called a meeting with all 69 inmates on the wing. It was agreed that Tate and John would search all of the cells while the other inmates waited together. If any of the stolen items were found in any of the cells, they would know who was responsible.

  Despite a rigorous search nothing was found, so everyone returned to work. The search may not have yielded results, but it certainly caused one inmate to fear for his safety. A group of inmates was approached and told that the Asian man was responsible. The inmates were also told where he stashed his hoard of stolen goods. An outbuilding was searched and the goods found. The group then went in search of the Asian man. They found him on the second floor of the wing and attacked him. As the battered and bloodied man was being kicked and punched, Tate arrived on the scene.

  ‘Stand back, stand back!’ he shouted. ‘That’s not the way to fucking do someone.’ Tate then walked into his cell. When he came back out, he was holding a large tomato sauce bottle, which he smashed against the wall. He bent over the Asian man, grabbed him by the throat, then rammed the broken sauce bottle into his face before twisting it left and right numerous times. Some of the men present said they felt sick, but Tate was not finished yet. Tate picked the man up, walked two or three steps, then threw him over the landing rail. Fortunately for the man, he was out cold. Two floors below, there was a sickening thud as his body hit the concrete floor. Tate hit the prison officers’ alarm bell with his elbow and said to the horrified inmates, ‘That’s how you fucking do someone. Clean this mess up, quick.’

  He then walked into his cell, leaving the men to mop up the blood, while on the ground floor officers gave the badly injured man first aid. The Asian man lived, but he was moved to another prison for his own safety. Nobody was ever charged in relation to the incident.

  One afternoon, Tate went into his cell and said to John, ‘You’re not going to believe this. Someone I had in my pocket at another prison has just started work here. I’m out of here to an easier prison. I can get him to do anything for £500.’ John doubted Tate, but by the end of the week, Tate’s transfer request had been granted and he had been moved to HMP Spring Hill, an open prison near Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire.

  Chapter 2

  In 1986, I was about to embark on a path that would lead to my involvement with the Whomes brothers, Mick Steele, Darren Nicholls and, more significantly, Pat Tate.

  Forget what you read in the tabloids about cushy prison life – regardless of some of the so-called ‘perks’ bestowed upon inmates, it’s a complete shit-house experience. On 8 July 1986, I’d just finished serving six months of a twelve-month sentence in one of Her Majesty’s dustbins. I was in a pub in Codsall, Staffordshire, having a heated discussion with a friend about people who’d been slagging me off to my girlfriend’s parents. A man kept interrupting, and in the end I’d had enough so I whacked him over the head with a bottle. It was no big deal, but the police have never had a sense of humour where I have been concerned.

  Prison didn’t agree with me at all. It was a tortuous cycle of petty rules, petty screws and countless wannabe movie-star gangsters. I was more than happy to be striding towards the gate that stood between me and freedom that summer’s morning. Two years had passed since I had been at liberty in England. After the bottling incident, I’d gone on the run to South Africa – I’d previously been locked up for wounding, so it was odds-on that I would be sentenced to another term of imprisonment if I attended court. I didn’t fancy it, so I fled. When I eventually made my way back to England, I was arrested at Dover ferry port.

>   That was now history. I was thinking all the philosophical shit you have to think when you come out of an institution: a fresh start, a new beginning, no more trouble. Futile crap, I know, but essential to raise your expectations and give yourself some sort of hope for the future.

  On the train journey south, I sat in silence, staring out of the window considering my prospects. I had met my girlfriend Debra in Johannesburg while she was there working as a rep for a British hairdressing company. Debra had later returned home and as parole is not an option for prisoners with no fixed abode, she had agreed to let me use her address in Basildon to secure mine. Debra and I were just good friends in South Africa: a romantic relationship hadn’t developed. Our first embrace was in the police cells in Dover where she’d come to meet me as I re-entered the country.

  As a result of my lifelong reluctance to conform, I had ended up in six different prisons during the six months I had served. First was Shrewsbury, then Birmingham; after that, I went to Ranby in Nottinghamshire. From there I went to Lincoln, back to Birmingham and finally to Stafford.

  I hadn’t been at Ranby long when they put me in solitary confinement for allegedly trying to escape. It was, of course, nonsense. I’d merely gone for a stroll in an out-of-bounds area. But the screws wouldn’t listen. They refused to let me shatter their fantasy. They’d foiled an escape attempt – and nothing could be allowed to detract from their achievement. Not even the truth.

  This was my first experience of solitary. My new apartment suite had been fitted out to minimalist standards. The bedroom consisted of a slab of concrete; the bathroom a plastic bucket. I was permitted the following possessions – although not all at the same time: the prison clothes I stood up in (minus shoes) and bedding (pillow, sheet and cover). At night, in order to get the bedding, I had to hand over my clothes. I had nothing to write with or read, not even the Bible, and certainly no telly or radio. You’d have provided more home comforts for a dog. A small, high window made of thick frosted glass ensured I could barely distinguish night from day.

  The cell had obviously been designed to destroy any traces of humanity remaining in its occupant. My only human contact – and I’m probably stretching the definition here – came from twisted screws. Mercifully, this never lasted more than a few minutes each day. I came to understand how silence could sometimes be described as deafening. The dirty beige walls seemed to close in on me. Hearing the jangle of keys would make my heart jump. I’d hope the screws were coming to let me out. And they knew it. One screw used to put his keys in my door, take them out again and laugh. Another told me that long-term prisoners could apply for ownership of their cells under the Conservative government’s Right to Buy scheme. I didn’t want them to think they could get to me. When I heard them coming, I’d sit cross-legged on the floor with my back to the door. I wouldn’t even turn round at meal times, when they’d slide a tray of slop across the floor towards me. It really used to annoy a few of them. ‘You think you’re fucking clever, don’t you, O’Mahoney?’ one used to say. ‘I bet that when the other kids wanted to play cowboys and Indians at your school, you insisted on being a fucking Mexican!’ Eventually, they moved me to HMP Lincoln, where I returned to normal prison life. Debra had been very loyal, visiting me in every prison I kept getting sent to. Despite all the hurdles, we got on well.

  My first sight of Basildon new town was Laindon station and the Alcatraz Estate. It got its insalubrious name because of the warren of alleyways and building-block flats that it was comprised of. The plan was to ring Debra from the station and she would pick me up in her car. But because she only lived five minutes away from the station, I thought I’d surprise her. However, even though I had her address, it was almost impossible to navigate the estate. It took me almost an hour before I at last saw Debra again. Unfortunately, an hour was exactly the time I was allowed in the town before I had to report to my probation officer. I might have done my time in prison, but the authorities still weren’t going to let me be rid of their rules.

  I’ve had several probation officers in my life, so I know the pointless ritual. Sit down, smile, ‘How are you?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Do you regret the crime?’

  ‘Every moment of every day.’

  ‘Do you think you’ll be in trouble again?’

  ‘Who, me? Never!’

  ‘Congratulations, Mr O’Mahoney, you’ve just won your freedom. See you again next month. Goodbye.’

  Probation, in my humble opinion, is about as much use as tits on a bull.

  Coming out of prison is a shock to the system. Employers tend to shun you and socially you are deemed to be dubious and unacceptable. Despite all of these problems, Debra and I did eventually settle down to what most would consider a normal life. Debra had her own hairdressing business and I used to commute to London every day, where I worked as a heavy goods vehicle driver.

  The estate we lived on was really rough. Parties would go on all night, making sleep impossible. I would leave the house for work at quarter to five in the morning and return at seven in the evening. More often than not, I’d fall asleep on the train on the way home and end up in Southend, having missed my stop. One of our female neighbours would hold a party whenever she found a new boyfriend – so I could rely on her disturbing my sleep at least three times a week. The bark of her dog would accompany the pounding music. Revellers would urinate, fornicate, vomit and argue on the stairs outside my front door.

  One night, I reached the end of my short tether. Around two in the morning, the sound of a screaming row tore me out of my sleep. I put on a pair of boxer shorts and opened the front door. My neighbour and her latest boyfriend stood in the stairwell exchanging unpleasantries. I walked the few paces over to them and said to the boyfriend, ‘I’m not having a debate about it, mate. I get up in two hours. Fuck off or I’ll kill you.’ He just grinned at me moronically. The alcohol fumes from both of them could have put me over the drink-driving limit.

  I’d had enough. Bang. I chinned him. He flew backwards down the stairs. His girlfriend started screaming. I told her to shut up, closed my door and went back to bed. A short time later, someone started banging loudly on my front door. I got up again and thought, ‘If it’s the boyfriend, he’s going over the balcony.’ I opened the door to a stern-faced policeman. Several other officers stood in the background with dogs. I could see my neighbour and her boyfriend, the latter bleeding from facial wounds. As soon as he saw me, he shouted, ‘That’s the cunt! Arrest him!’ The officer said he wanted to question me about an alleged assault and threats to kill.

  ‘For fuck’s sake, mate,’ I said. ‘Unlike most of the scum around here, I work for a living. I’m up in less than two hours. How can I not react when these people are pissing, puking, fucking and fighting on my doorstep all night?’

  The policeman looked at me in my boxers, then looked at the drunken boyfriend – who’d now begun to scream obscenities – and told me to go to bed. My neighbour found herself a new boyfriend.

  The partying continued, so in the end I broke into her flat one day when she was out and smashed her stereo to bits, stamped on all her tapes and tried to hurl her snarling dog over the balcony. The hound sensed my hostile intentions, however, and scampered around the flat, bared its teeth whenever I got near and stayed just out of my grasp. I was making too much noise and to avoid being caught I abandoned my mission. The dog lived to bark another day, but my neighbour became quieter.

  In June 1987, Debra and I had our first child. I named him after a good friend of mine, an armed robber named Vinney Bingham from Huyton in Liverpool. Our son Vinney brought us a lot of happiness. Our pretty uneventful lives suddenly had meaning. Vinney was our world, a labour of love rather than an unwanted chore, which was what most of the kids on our war-torn estate appeared to be. Two years later, we had a daughter whom we named Karis. We adored her equally.

  The strain of tra
velling to London every day and working long hours with two small children in the house began to tell. When I got home, all I wanted to do was sleep but with screaming neighbours and kids that became impossible. I decided to seek out additional income locally. Through a friend, I was told about a job that was going as a nightclub doorman at a place called Raquels in Basildon town centre. I spoke to the manager and he arranged for me to meet the head doorman. A large, muscular man shook my hand and introduced himself.

  ‘Dave Venables,’ he said. ‘I hear you want work.’

  Venables looked me over, asked a few questions and then told me I could start the following weekend. The wages, he said, were £40 per night, cash in hand.

  I remained at the club for a short while talking to him about things in general. Venables told me I was entering the Basildon nightclub security scene at a time of change following a spate of retirements, deaths and public disorder. A bouncer named McCabe, who was once all-powerful, had recently died in a road accident and the infamous West Ham United football hooligans, known as the Inter City Firm, had smashed, slashed and stabbed the hardcore of Basildon’s doormen at a rave that had been held in the town. Madness had reigned that night, Venables told me. The ICF had come prepared with coshes, hammers, ‘squirt’, tear gas and knives. The unwitting doormen had nothing to defend themselves with other than their muscle-bound bravado and reputations. They soon lost them both. The ICF rampaged through the hall, hacking, slashing and stamping on the retreating bouncers, whose crime it was to have had one of the ICF members ejected over a trivial remark.