Bonded by Blood (11 page)

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 and, 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.

Towards the end of September 1994, he arrived out of the blue at his mother’s workplace. He pleaded with her to help him because he was in serious trouble. Joan asked him what kind of trouble, but Kevin refused to elaborate. ‘I will tell you one day, but I can’t at the moment,’ he said. Deeply concerned, Joan told her son that he would have to come home with her and explain things to his father.

Kevin’s father, Albert, recalled that his son was ‘white as a sheet’ as he sat down to speak to them. He explained that he desperately needed £2,500 to pay for a kilo of drugs he owed. Albert commented at the time, ‘He told us that if he did not get the money, he would kill himself; that he would jump off the multi-storey car park or something. He appeared nervy and in trouble. I’d never seen him in such a state. He’d never talked about committing suicide before, so we knew he was genuinely worried.’

Kevin’s parents were due to go on holiday to the Far East in a few days’ time, so they agreed to help their son in the hope that he would settle his debt and have no more to do with drugs. They certainly didn’t want to go away and leave him alone in such a poor frame of mind. On 30 September, Albert wrote out a cheque for £2,000. Kevin told him to make the cheque payable to Russell Tate, Pat’s younger brother. As well as the cheque, Kevin’s parents gave him £500 in cash. The very next day, they left for their holiday. When they returned three weeks later, they learned that Kevin and Alison had split up and he was living with a friend named Simon Smith.

While staying at Smith’s house, Kevin appeared to slip deeper and deeper into a depression. He never had a bath, or washed himself or his clothes. This was totally out of character in a young man who usually took pride in his appearance. Nobody knows if the separation from his girlfriend and their newly born son was the cause of his demise or if he had other problems on his mind. Everyone agrees that Kevin Whitaker was an extremely troubled man.

On Wednesday, 16 November, Kevin got up from the settee he slept on at Smith’s and told his friend he was going out to meet someone. Smith asked him if he wanted a lift, but the offer was declined because Kevin said he was only going to nearby Rectory Road. When Smith got into his own car, he saw Kevin sitting in the passenger seat of a vehicle being driven by Craig Rolfe. Later that afternoon, Smith returned home to find Kevin asleep on the settee. When he awoke, the two talked about what they had been up to that day. Kevin appeared excited. He said Rolfe had agreed to let him get involved in another drug deal that would help him get back on his feet.

The following day, Smith dropped Kevin off at his parents’ home. Every afternoon between Thursday and Monday, Alison would go to Kevin’s parents’ house so that he could see his son. This particular day, Kevin appeared happier than normal. He played with his son and received several phone calls. One of them was from Smith, who arranged to visit Kevin that afternoon. Later that day, Kevin spoke to Smith again, saying he would not be able to see him because he had to meet Craig Rolfe. Smith asked if everything was all right. Kevin assured him it was, adding, ‘I’ll talk to you when I get back.’

As the evening drew on, Kevin’s parents became increasingly concerned about their son’s whereabouts. ‘Whenever he left us with the baby,’ his father later said, ‘he would call every hour or so to check everything was OK. This was the first time he had not done so. Kevin had seemed fine when he went out. He did not seem depressed or anything. The split with Alison had upset him but he seemed all right. There had been times in the week since the break that Kevin had been down, but he had not mentioned harming himself nor did he seem particularly stressed since he had asked for the money.’

Having escaped a severe beating over the missing kilo of drugs, Kevin had been careful not to get involved with Rolfe or drugs again. But after the split with his girlfriend, he had decided he would need to find money somewhere to live and get himself back on his feet. Kevin heard about a dilemma Rolfe was facing and, thinking he could help him out, he telephoned him.

A drug dealer had approached Rolfe and asked him to supply 25 kilos of cannabis for £60,000. Rolfe, unable to come up with such a large amount at short notice, stalled the potential buyer and frantically rang around everyone he knew, buying their stock in the hope he could supply the 25 kilos. Kevin knew where he could get his hands on a substantial amount of cannabis on short-term credit; in fact, not only could he get the drugs on credit, he could get them at a discounted rate if he bought in bulk. Kevin thought that this would be his chance to make some quick, easy, much-needed money. He worked out that he would make at least £5,000. Rolfe, however, convinced him he could earn more if he would once again act as a courier for the deal. Foolishly, Kevin agreed. When he met the dealer to purchase the drugs, the cash was taken from him but no drugs were handed over. Kevin had once more been ripped off.

Tucker and Rolfe had turned up for the meeting with Kevin in Rectory Road in Tate’s cream-coloured BMW. As soon as Kevin joined Tucker in the back seat of the car, Tucker demanded the money. Terrified and with nowhere to run, Kevin blamed the drug dealer for the loss, so Tucker and Rolfe said they would take him to the man to confront him. The pair of them got increasingly annoyed as they headed down the A127 towards London. It was dawning on them that they weren’t going to get their money.

Tucker later told me that he had grabbed Kevin by the throat and said, ‘Thieve our gear, would you? If you like drugs that much, have some more of ours.’ He had then injected Kevin with cocaine and Special K. He said Kevin had tried in vain to resist; he thought he was going to die, he was absolutely terrified. Kevin sobbed and pleaded with Tucker and Rolfe to let him go, but they’d just laughed. Kevin was injected three times with massive doses of drugs. Tucker said Kevin had then passed out.

As they reached the Laindon/Dunton turn-off on the A127, Kevin was drifting in and out of consciousness. Rolfe drove up the slip road, as there didn’t seem much point in taking him any further, and turned left towards Laindon. Kevin had completely lost consciousness by now. Rolfe pulled up at the Lower Dunton Road and ordered Kevin to get out of the car, but he got no response. Tucker and Rolfe pulled Kevin from the back seat, but he was unable to stand and collapsed on the side of the road.

They got into the car and drove off. Rolfe pulled up a short distance away and looked back. Kevin remained motionless. Tucker told me Rolfe had got out of the car and ran back towards him. He was standing over Kevin, telling him to get up, but still there was no response.

‘Fucking leave him,’ Tucker said.

‘You can’t leave him here,’ Rolfe replied. It was about six o’clock and everyone was coming out of work.

Rolfe went back to the car, turned it around and drove to where Kevin lay. Tucker got out of the car with Rolfe and they both manhandled Kevin’s lifeless body back inside. Rolfe then drove back over the A127 to Dunton Road. Tucker said they looked at Kevin and knew he was dead. They pulled him out of the car and he was put face down in a ditch strewn with bin bags and rubbish.

Nearly 30 hours after Kevin had left home, Albert and Joan’s worst fears were realised. Just after 10 p.m. on Friday evening, Detective Sergeant Sharpe and Detective Constable Mayo knocked on their door and asked them to attend the mortuary at Basildon hospital to assist with an identification. After his distraught parents had positively identified Kevin, an autopsy was performed to determine the cause of death. There were no signs of violence but five puncture marks on his right forearm and elbow indicated he might have died after injecting drugs. A toxicology report found Kevin had cocaine, Ecstasy, ketamine and lignocaine in his bloodstream. Each drug was present in high enough concentration to have caused death on its own. The police began interviewing Kevin’s friends and family to piece together his whereabouts in the hours leading up to his death.