Bonded by Blood Read online

  Feeling humiliated, Garwood couldn’t wait to tell Tucker. When she did finally contact him, Garwood made it sound as though Nipper had said it with some venom. She told Tucker that Nipper had no respect for him.

  The next time I saw Tate and Tucker, they didn’t mention the phone call. But they did claim that Nipper had grassed them up to the police about the 7-Eleven incident. They said they were going to make him pay.

  Tate had retained a key for Nipper’s flat after he had been politely asked to leave. Over the next few days, Nipper began to notice that some of his possessions were going missing, despite there being no evidence of a forced entry into his home. Unknown to Nipper, Tucker, Tate and Rolfe were going to his flat when he was not there and helping themselves to items Garwood and Paula required for their flat. When Nipper telephoned Tucker and Tate about the thefts, they denied all knowledge and maintained a friendly attitude towards him. So much so, they attended a party at the flat the following weekend.

  When Nipper was tidying up on the Monday evening, he noticed that his kettle, toaster, tea towels, bath towels, iron, even food out of the fridge, were missing. Feeling dejected and the worse for wear following the party, Nipper went back to bed where he remained until the Wednesday morning. When he got up, he surveyed the mess once more and began to tidy up. As he was doing so, his front door opened. Tucker, Rolfe and another man walked in.

  ‘All right, Tone,’ Nipper said.

  ‘All right, Nipper, where’s my gun?’ Tucker replied. Two weeks earlier, Tucker had hidden a silver 9 mm handgun in Nipper’s flat for safe keeping.

  Nipper went into his bedroom and returned with the gun, which he handed to Tucker. As soon as he did so, Tucker gripped Nipper’s face with his left hand, shoved him against the wall and lifted him off the ground. Tucker then rammed the barrel of the gun into Nipper’s temple and began screaming, ‘You little cunt! You little cunt! Fuck my bird up the arse! Fuck my bird up the arse! I’m going to teach you a lesson.’

  After a few seconds, Tucker dragged Nipper into a bedroom and threw him on the bed. Tucker kneeled astride him and kept stabbing the gun in his head, all the while screaming, ‘Fuck my bird up the arse, I’m going to show you what this can do!’ Tucker’s eyes were bulging and he was frothing at the mouth. Tucker was clearly out of his mind on drugs. Nipper told me later, ‘All that was going through my mind was “I won’t see my sisters grow up” and “I won’t see my girlfriend again, I’m going to be killed here.”’

  Tucker continued to rant incoherently. He snatched Nipper’s necklace from him and said he also wanted any jewellery his girlfriend owned. Nipper lay motionless on his back, repeating over and over again, ‘OK, Tone. OK, Tone.’ Nipper thought he had got through to Tucker because he suddenly stopped and put the gun in his jacket’s inside pocket. But when Tucker brought his hand from inside his jacket, the gun had been replaced by a butcher’s meat cleaver.

  ‘You have got to pay, you cunt, you have got to pay!’ he shouted. ‘Your hand or your foot, which one do you want to lose, which one?’ Tucker allowed Nipper to sit up on the edge of the bed. Nipper closed his eyes and held out his right hand.

  After ten seconds, nothing had happened so Nipper opened his eyes again. Tucker stood before him holding the meat cleaver with a manic grin on his face. He put the weapon in his jacket and walked out of the room.

  Foolishly, Nipper jumped up and shouted, ‘What the fuck have I done, Tone?’

  ‘Leave it, let him calm down,’ the third man in the room said as he grabbed hold of Nipper’s arm.

  ‘I’ve done no wrong, he’ sacunt,’ Nipper protested, pushing the man away and trying to grab Tucker, who immediately pulled out the cleaver and swung it towards Nipper’s head. Rolfe and the other man intervened and bundled Nipper back into the bedroom. Nipper was told that if he wanted to live, he would have to leave it and let Tucker calm down. Nipper slumped on the bed in shock and total disbelief at what had happened. The three men left.

  Nipper turned to Tate, the man he had once considered a friend, for help. None was forthcoming. When Nipper rang him, he was told, ‘You’re a cunt. You insulted Tucker’s woman and now you are going to die.’ Nipper put the phone down and rang Tucker in the hope the drugs had worn off and he had calmed down.

  ‘Have you sorted this out yet, Tone, what is going on?’ he asked.

  ‘Sorted what out?’ replied Tucker, ‘You’re a piece of fucking shit.’ Nipper asked what it was he had done. ‘You told my woman I fuck her up the arse.’ Nipper denied he had ever said such a thing to Tucker’s partner. ‘So you’re calling her a fucking liar now, are you?’ Tucker replied.

  Nipper knew that it was an argument he was never going to win. Tucker told Nipper that he would be visiting him at his home that afternoon to sort it out, and then the phone went dead. Fearing for his life, Nipper went to the Army and Navy store in Southend and purchased a combat knife. He then telephoned a man to whom Tate had introduced him and who sold guns. Nipper told the man he had a problem and he needed a gun as soon as possible. When the man was told who the ‘problem’ was with, he said he wanted nothing to do with it and put the phone down.

  That night, Nipper slept in his car because he was too frightened to return to his home. The next morning, after looking up and down the street for Tucker’s, Tate’s or Rolfe’s cars, he entered his home via the back door. To his horror, he saw that the place had been ransacked. His TV, video, camcorder, microwave and clothing had all been taken. Anything that had been left was slashed, smashed or smeared with excrement. Even the walls and doors had huge holes kicked in them. Nipper was outraged. He rang Tucker and demanded to know where his stuff was.

  ‘I want my fucking stuff back, you wanker. I’m going to fucking kill you,’ he shouted.

  Tucker didn’t reply, he just laughed at Nipper. The line had been crossed now. Nipper knew he had to arm himself because Tucker would kill him when he found him. Nipper rang another man who bought and sold guns for the criminal fraternity, but when he heard who was involved he too declined to have any further involvement. That night, Nipper once more slept in his car, but he was no longer feeling afraid. He was filled with anger and a desire for bloody revenge.

  The following morning Nipper was advised by a friend to purchase a bulletproof vest because word had got around that Tucker, Tate and Rolfe were going to shoot him. The friend also mentioned he knew where Nipper could obtain a machine gun, but Nipper could not afford the asking price. The only other weapon available was a .22 revolver that was at best useless for the task in hand, but Nipper purchased it regardless.

  On the Friday night, Tate and Rolfe came down to Raquels. After talking about this and that, they asked me if I had seen Nipper. I told them he hadn’t been in the club for a while. They said they wanted to check if any of his friends were in, so they walked around inside for about 15 minutes before leaving. Tate rang back later that night. He was obviously out of his head. He asked me if Nipper had turned up. I could hear him banging, as if he was punching a wall. He was shouting, saying that he was going to kill Nipper, and if he couldn’t get hold of him, he would do his family. There wasn’t a lot I could say to Tate. I just told him I’d pass on the message then put down the phone.

  Nipper eventually managed to acquire a double-barrelled shotgun with which he decided to confront his tormentors. Nipper hid in a cupboard in his flat and waited with the shotgun resting on his lap. When nobody had shown up by 3 a.m., he went to lie on what remained of his mattress. At 6 a.m. the phone rang and Nipper answered it.

  ‘Nipper?’ Tate whispered.

  ‘Hello, Pat,’ Nipper replied, ‘why are you doing this to me?’

  ‘Don’t worry, mate, it’s all sorted out now,’ Tate reassured him. ‘We are going up to London to sort a bit of business. Give me a call around midday and Tony and I will come around and see you.’

  Nipper sensed that he was being set up, but he didn’t say anything to alert Tate to the fact. He simply said, ‘OK, goodb
ye,’ and then jumped up, grabbed the shotgun and ran out to his car, where he had the .22 revolver. As he reached the car door, Tucker’s car screeched to a halt in the road and the occupants jumped out. They did not see Nipper, who had crouched down at the side of his vehicle. Nipper watched as they ran to his home and kicked open the front door. After a few minutes, they walked back out of the flat and Nipper stood up.

  Tucker saw Nipper and the shotgun that was pointing towards him and Rolfe. Without saying a word, Tucker and Rolfe turned and ran. Nipper gave chase, but Tucker and Rolfe were in their car and speeding away before he could reach them. He went back into the flat and found a note written in Tate’s handwriting. ‘Nipper, don’t let us lose all respect for you. I’m your mate, we want to help you.’

  Nipper telephoned Tate, who asked him why he had laid in wait with a gun. ‘Because you lot were going to fucking kill me,’ Nipper replied.

  ‘No, we just want to help you,’ Tate said.

  ‘So why kick my fucking front door in then?’ Nipper asked.

  There was no reply. Tate put the phone down. Unbeknown to Nipper and Tate at that time, after running away, Tucker and Rolfe had gone to the police and made a statement about Nipper confronting them with ‘what looked like a sawn-off shotgun’. So much for wanting to kill Nipper for being a grass.

  The following day, I telephoned Tucker, but, unusually, his number was unobtainable. He was due to hold his birthday party at a snooker hall in Dagenham that Sunday and I had been invited. I was going to tell him that I couldn’t make it, but as his phone was unobtainable, I decided to leave it and try later.

  At work that night, the doormen were telling me various stories about what was happening regarding Nipper Ellis. I was surprised to hear that even Nipper’s father had been threatened. Tate, they said, was going berserk. That was the reason why I didn’t fancy going to Tucker’s party. I didn’t want to listen to hours and hours of what he and Tate were and were not going to do to Nipper. I rang Tucker’s house and left a message on the answering machine saying I was unable to go, as I had fallen ill. I later learned that only 20 people had turned up. I was obviously not the only one noticing the decline in Tucker and Tate’s behaviour. A year earlier, there had been nearly 200 people at his birthday party.

  On Monday, 21 November, I was contacted by two Basildon detectives, who said they needed to see me quite urgently. Because I was the head of security at Raquels I had to maintain some form of civil relations with both the police and the council. My gut instinct was to tell them I had no desire to talk to them, but Tucker and I would then have been out of Raquels and other clubs sooner rather than later, so reluctantly I agreed to see them.

  When we met, they asked me if I had heard anything at all about Pat Tate being shot. I said I was not even aware that he had been shot. They also asked me if Craig Rolfe had been up to anything in the past few days and if Tony Tucker drove a black Porsche. I said he didn’t, he had a BMW. They asked me if I knew anyone who had a black Porsche. I said I didn’t. They said they knew I was mistaken because they had been watching me talking to a man in a black Porsche a few nights earlier. I wasn’t being very helpful, so they said I could go and they would be back in touch.

  I immediately contacted Tucker. When I told him the police had been asking questions about Tate and Rolfe, he was very keen to hear what they had to say. He asked me to meet him as soon as possible. Less than an hour later, Tucker was telling me what had been going on over the weekend. He denied the problem with Nipper had arisen over comments made to Garwood and insisted it was because Nipper had grassed them up over the 7-Eleven incident. Tucker said on Sunday Tate had been at home getting ready for the birthday party. He was in the bathroom when somebody threw a brick through the window. Tate peered outside and Nipper opened fire from close range with a revolver. Tate put his right arm up to shield his face and the round hit him in the wrist, travelled up his arm and smashed the bones in his elbow. The gunman fled and Tate was taken to hospital. ‘When Tate gets out, Nipper’s going to die,’ Tucker said.

  Nipper was finally arrested for the shooting, but the case against him wasn’t pursued because the judge ruled that the gun he had on him at the time of his arrest was not the one that was used to shoot Tate. Nipper received relentless death threats from the firm and was told there was a £10,000 contract on his head. His father, stepbrother and two sisters were also threatened. They were warned that Nipper’s sister, who was only 15 at the time, would be abducted and raped and her fingers hacked off one by one until Nipper was man enough to face them. Nobody believed the rape allegation: however evil they may have been, Tucker and Tate would not have done that. The jury’s out on whether or not someone on the payroll would have harmed Nipper’s family. A hit man did go to Nipper’s father’s home after he had been released. His father looked out through an upstairs window and saw a large man in dark clothing standing at the front door. He opened the window and asked the man what he wanted.

  ‘Is Steve Ellis in?’ the man asked.

  ‘No, he doesn’t live here any more. Can I help you?’

  ‘No, it’s OK. I need to see Steve, I’ve got something for him.’

  Mr Ellis says he clearly saw a gun protruding from the man’s jacket pocket as he walked away.

  Nipper eventually fled to Dorset where he remained until the trio were executed. He has since returned to Essex and lives a quiet life. When Nipper learned Tucker, Tate and Rolfe had been murdered, he told a reporter that he had danced with joy and he wished he could shake their killer’s hand. It was a sentiment many people in Essex shared.

  Chapter 6

  The weekend Tate was shot was, by anybody’s standards, an eventful one. Dramatic as they undoubtedly were, the assaults on Nipper and the shooting of Pat Tate paled into insignificance when compared to another incident that occurred that weekend involving members of the firm and a man from Basildon.

  In early 1994, Kevin Whitaker thought he had turned a corner in his life. He had managed to kick his cocaine habit, secure employment and give up dealing in drugs. His long-term girlfriend, Alison, was also expecting their first child. The future, Kevin thought, looked bright. It was certainly very different to what many would have predicted for the former tearaway, who first came to the attention of the police aged 18. Kevin and two friends had drunk a large quantity of cheap lager and Pernod before breaking into Kingswood Junior school in Basildon and starting to fool around with matches. Soon, the half-dozen small fires they had lit had turned the school into an inferno. By the time the flames were brought under control, two classrooms were completely gutted. Kevin was seen fleeing from the scene by a witness and was arrested a few days later. He was acquitted but was sentenced to nine months’ youth custody for his part in a series of burglaries that came to light during the arson investigation.

  When Kevin was released, he returned home to live with his parents, Albert and Joan, who did their best to put their wayward son on the straight and narrow. Kevin had a succession of menial jobs, none of which lasted more than a few weeks, and ended up spending most of his time on the dole. Despite his situation, Kevin never appeared to be short of cash or company, albeit of the shady variety.

  ‘His friends would come around all the time,’ his father commented at the time. ‘They would have mobile phones and expensive cars, but none of them was working. Kevin had also started smoking cannabis. I told him I didn’t want it in the house, but he just carried on regardless. Sometimes he would disappear for a few days at a time. And then there were times when we would get phone calls in the middle of the night. People would seem really desperate to get hold of Kevin, but they would only ever leave their first names, no numbers. At the back of my mind, I suspected he was involved in drug dealing, but there didn’t seem to be anything we could do.’

  Kevin had started dealing in drugs soon after being released from prison. He initially sold cannabis joints to his friends, but soon he was selling ounces of the drug to everyone and anyone a
nd, combined with the dole, was earning enough money to be quite comfortably off. By the early 1990s, as with most, if not all, drug dealers, Kevin’s profits from his illicit trade were not being re-invested, they were being shoved up his nose to feed his spiralling cocaine habit. Kevin had many sources for his supply of drugs, but the one he relied upon most was Craig Rolfe.

  Just when it looked like Kevin was going to fall into a drug abyss, fortune smiled on him and he started up a relationship with a local girl named Alison Pickton. The relationship was initially rocky because of Kevin’s drug habit and his dealing business, and after a few months the couple separated. But when Kevin realised what he had lost, he vowed to change his ways and the couple were reunited. Kevin and Alison got engaged and set up home together in Brackley Crescent, Pitsea. In late 1993, Alison fell pregnant and the couple announced their first child was due the following June. Kevin was really excited about becoming a father. He told his friends that he was never going to touch cocaine again because he wanted to be a good, decent parent. Kevin soon found a steady job working for a man named Ronnie laying crazy paving. His parents really thought their son had finally settled down: he was in a relationship, working and starting a family. They were both overjoyed. But then disaster struck.

  In April 1994, Ronnie and Kevin had an argument over little or nothing and Ronnie sacked him. With a baby due within two months, Kevin suddenly found himself unemployed. Desperate for cash to support his family-to-be, he couldn’t resist the temptation to go back to his old ways. When he picked up the phone and called his friend Craig Rolfe, it was to be the biggest mistake of his short life.

  Rolfe agreed to help Kevin and said he could act as a courier on a cannabis deal between himself, Tucker and a firm from Manchester. It would be Kevin’s job to go to Manchester, pick up the drugs and bring them back to Basildon. Kevin agreed. But the deal went horribly wrong for him. When he arrived back in Essex and handed over the drugs, Tucker noted there was a kilo missing. Since Kevin was the courier, the missing kilo was down to him. Tucker wanted to know how he was going to repay the shortfall. Kevin, who knew what was coming, had no means to pay and so he tried his best to avoid Tucker and Rolfe.