Essex Boy by Steve 'Nipper' Ellis; Bernard O'Mahoney Read Free Book Online Page B

fear we had instilled in our victims, we headed back over the QE2 Bridge and home into Essex. I was paid £60,000 for that night’s work; Tate paid himself £60,000 and James, who had reluctantly assisted us with setting up the job, was paid the same. I was more than happy earning £60,000 for three hours’ work and, as an added bonus, Tate never did ask for my contribution towards his dry-cleaning bill.
    Our other business interests were not as lucrative as robbing drug dealers but they did provide us with a steady income. Tate would purchase high-quality forged £50 notes for £12.50 each and together we would descend upon a town and spend £1,000 worth in chain stores, which have a policy of giving cash refunds on returned goods. Having made our purchases we would then travel to a neighbouring town and, receipt in hand, return the goods for genuine banknotes. Throughout the day we would also use an array of brand-new credit cards that one of Tate’s cohorts had stolen from the Royal Mail sorting office. Apparently, credit cards and other such valuable items are stored in a secure cage prior to delivery and Tate’s friend had the job of handing them out to the postmen. Tate claimed that for every ten credit cards due to be delivered in south-east Essex, at least two would end up in his wallet.
    Tate had another lucrative business but he insisted this was ‘strictly sole trader only’. To be honest, even if Tate had offered me a partnership in this particular venture, I would have declined because he was hiring out young prostitutes to depraved and desperate clients. His staff-recruiting methods were simple but effective. Tate would book appointments with working girls at massage parlours or their homes and, after putting the product through its paces, demand that they work for him. Few argued. All eventually complied. Patrick Tate could be a very persuasive man.
    In September 1994, Tate met a man named Tony Tucker and his sidekick Craig Rolfe at a cafe in Southend. Tate had gone into the cafe with a man named Shaun Miller, who also happened to know Tucker and Rolfe. The men were introduced by Miller, and Tucker immediately warmed to Tate. Weighing 18 stone and standing 6 ft 2 in. tall, Tate was the type of man that Tucker would deem ‘useful’. When Tucker invited Tate to meet him and Rolfe for a drink at a nightclub in Southend later that night, he readily accepted. As soon as Tate returned to my flat that day he talked excitedly about his new friends. He urged me to go to the club with him to meet them but I declined the offer as I was already tired of hearing about just how great Rolfe and Tucker were. The name Rolfe meant nothing to me but I had heard of Tucker because he was involved in the running of a Basildon nightclub named Raquel’s. That club had started hosting rave nights that were run by a promotions team that I knew, which had previously held them at a smaller venue in Southend. The good people of Southend generally only visit Basildon for court appearances or funerals; they certainly do not go there to socialise. However, because this particularly popular promotions team moved their rave nights to Raquel’s, to accommodate their ever-increasing customer base, many of the Southend ‘in crowd’ followed them. Tucker, who ran the security at Raquel’s with a man named Bernard O’Mahoney, became friendly with some of these people and eventually began socialising with them in the nightclubs along Southend seafront.
    It was in these clubs that I had first heard stories about him and the vicious door firm that he controlled. Anybody foolish enough to cause trouble in premises looked after by Tucker’s firm was given unimaginable beatings. At Raquel’s, in Basildon, revellers were often slashed with knives, kicked senseless or hurled down three flights of concrete stairs. One man was permanently blinded and another beaten with sticks and doused in petrol. Tucker insisted that all the door staff who