Two men jailed for life for the Essex Boys murders are victims of a serious miscarriage of justice, a review body was told.
Michael Steele, 82, and Jack Whomes, 63, were convicted of killing three drug dealers with a shotgun 30 years ago. Steele was finally cleared for release this month while Whomes has been out of jail for five years. Both have always denied mur-dering Tony Tucker, Pat Tate and Craig Rolfe in Rettendon, Essex.
The Criminal Cases Review Commission is examining the 1995 case for a third time after retired Met detective David McKelvey handed them a report compiled by his investigation firm TM-Eye. Mr McKelvey, who played a small part in the original probe, said: “We approached this believing Steele and Whomes were highly likely guilty. After three years examining the facts we now believe there was a serious miscarriage of justice.”
The submission to the CCRC claims a “Mr D” may have been the real killer and that Essex detectives could have perverted justice. It also raises questions about a supergrass who may have lied on oath, car trips “that would have required a time machine”, witnesses who were never called and vital footprints in the snow. Essex Police said the case had been exhaustively examined with no fresh evidence identified.
The convictions rested on the testimony of crook Darren Nicholls. He told the Old Bailey that Steele, a drug trafficker, lured the victims to an isolated spot with the prom-ise of a cocaine shipment. He wanted to kill them before they killed him after a previous deal went sour.
The prosecution said the victims picked up Steele in their Range Rover and drove to Workhouse Lane where Whomes was in wait after being dropped by Nicholls. Whomes allegedly blasted all three targets with a pump-action shotgun before making a “come and get me” call to Nicholls.
But Mr McKelvey, who wrote the report with former Met Det Chief Supt Albert Patrick, told the CCRC that the evidence supports an account given by an East End armed robber arrested shortly after the murders. He claimed crook Jesse “Billy” Gale, later killed in a crash, gave him £5,000 to drive a “Mr D” to and from Rettendon.
He said Mr D was going to do a cocaine deal with the three men. The witness said that he spotted Mr D’s pistol and a sawn-off shotgun when he drove him to the murder scene. But the Essex police log noted that the account did not “fit with the current intelligence, direction and evidence already available”.
Four months later Nicholls told police he was the getaway driver and implicated Steele and Whomes. Mr McKelvey said it was a “blinkered investigation”, adding that there was a “stench of endemic corruption” around the case.
The supergrass
Essex Police were struggling for leads when Nicholls, then 30, claimed he was the getaway driver. He cut a deal for a lenient sentence after cannabis was found in his van.
Nicholls was already in a corrupt relationship with an Essex detective and knew Whomes, Steele and the victims. At the Old Bailey trial, Mr Justice Hidden told the jury: “I hardly need to stress the importance of Nicholls’ evidence. So much hinges on what he said.”
Mr McKelvey’s report states that four witnesses who gave evidence in other cases told police Nicholls admitted perverting justice and perjury. He claims that evidence was ignored.
His report says: “Evidence now exists, and always has, that Nicholls lied on oath. Evidence also suggests some Essex police detectives were involved in ‘coaching’ Nicholls and are alleged to have perverted justice. Senior Essex detectives have been involved in a cover-up. These include current serving officers.”
Neither judge nor jury knew Nicholls had agreed a “commercial arrangement” with a writer to publish a book about the killings which made him several thousand pounds. He remains in hiding after being given a new identity.
The timings
Nicholls said he met Steele and Whomes at Marks Tey, near Colchester, at 5pm on the day of the murders. But Mr McKelvey says “his entire timeline falls apart from the start” when you compare it to the data from the alleged killer’s mobile phones.
This shows Whomes was at least 24 minutes’ drive away in Sudbury, Suffolk, at 5.12pm. Mr McKelvey says: “Unless Whomes is a time traveller there is no way he could have been where Nicholls claims he was.” He adds that it was “impossible for the events that Nicholls described to have taken place”.
According to Mr McKelvey, other timings mean the victims could not possibly have been in Workhouse Lane when the prosecution claim they were.
The Tiberius Report
A Scotland Yard bugging operation recorded a gangster offering to “take out” the drug dealers who supplied Leah Betts three weeks before they were murdered.
Leah died after taking an ecstasy tablet. Tucker, Tate and Rolfe controlled the supply of ecstasy in the Basildon club where the tablet was bought.
Pictures of Leah in a coma sparked a national outcry. Details of the bugging operation appear in a 2002 Scotland Yard draft intelligence report called Operation Tiberius, which claimed gangsters had infiltrated the Met “at will”.
The Mirror revealed in 2017 details of the gangsters’ proposition to a retired detective then suspected of corruption. An extract in the report states: “On November 16, 1995 [ex-officer named]… met [crime lord named] who offered the hand of friendship by offering to take out the supplier of the drugs to Leah Betts.”
The footprints
Footprints in the snow of the suspected gunman cast further doubt over the convictions.
Mr McKelvey spotted Reebok trainer prints where the shooter would have stood. He said the evidence, caught in crime scene photographs was previously missed. He claims it supports the account of Nicholls, who said the killer wore Reebok trainers. Nicholls claimed Steele and Whomes both wore wellingtons.
The final phone call
The last man called by one of three victims was never questioned by police. Mr McKelvey says he was a suspected crook linked to a man who has previously been named as the shooter but was never charged. The final call made from Tate’s mobile, apart from one to a girlfriend, was at 6.26pm and lasted 17 seconds. It was never disclosed at the trial.
Mr McKelvey says the “vital witness” Tate rang is repeatedly named in the murder file as a person of interest. Days after the murders an action was raised to interview him but when his solicitor said he was refusing to talk officers gave up, the papers claim.
