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The National
8 hours ago
- Politics
- The National
MSPs weighing up Suzanne's Law should be clear on what it means
Introduced to Parliament more than two years ago, the Government and MSPs are considering final amendments to the legislation. This is the last chance for politicians and campaigners to shape the final flagship criminal justice reform of this SNP administration. One proposal featured prominently in the media last week. Sponsored by the new LibDem MSP Jamie Greene and backed by Victim Support Scotland, 'Suzanne's Law' would require the Parole Board to 'refuse killers parole if they withhold the location of their victims' bodies'. The amendment is named after Suzanne Pilley, who disappeared in 2010. David Gilroy was convicted of her murder in 2012 but remains tight-lipped about where her body might be. Relatives of Pilley and other families who have lost loved ones – and remain in the dark about where their bones are interred – gave a powerful press conference in Glasgow last week, describing the predicament as a 'form of mental torture'. READ MORE: 'Absolutely crazy': Scottish jazz artist scores new film by Hollywood director They argue the uncertainty about the fate of their loved ones makes that elusive thing – 'closure' – even more difficult to find. Homicide convictions are not common but have featured prominently in a number of high-profile documentaries from High Court murder trials in recent years. They range from the disappearance of Arlene Fraser and the subsequent prosecutions and convictions of her husband Nat in 2012, to Margaret Fleming's disappearance from Inverkip, resulting in the conviction of Edward Cairney and Avril Jones in 2019, despite the lack of a murder weapon, physical evidence proving how murder could have been committed or even physical evidence establishing that Fleming had passed away as a result of foul play. To understand this campaign, you need to understand something of the law as it currently applies. If someone is convicted of murder in Scotland, the court is required to hand down a life sentence. The judge sets what is normally called the 'punishment part' of the sentence, which is the minimum period of time the prisoner will remain in custody before being eligible to apply for parole. Decisions on whether or not to release life prisoners from custody are made by the Parole Board. The board is composed of a mixture of legal and criminal justice professionals and is independent of government. Their key role is to 'ensure that those prisoners who are no longer regarded as presenting a risk to public safety may serve the remainder of their sentence in the community on licence under the supervision of a supervising officer'. In taking these decisions, the Parole Board is concerned with risk to the public – not further punishment. News reports suggest that in response, Cabinet Secretary for Justice Angela Constance has accepted some kind of amendment to the parole rules which will require the board to treat non-disclosure of where a victim's remains might be found as a factor in decision-making. While details haven't been published, this would fall short of the principle of 'no body, no parole' requiring the Parole Board to automatically refuse to release a prisoner who won't provide information about what happened to their victim. This proposal has been met by some sceptical responses from parts of the legal world. The first argument is: there's no point in introducing laws like this. Speaking to the media last week, lawyers pointed out that Parole Board rules already direct them to consider whether or not the prisoner has revealed the whereabouts of their victim's body. READ MORE: Anas Sarwar blasted as 'hypocrite' after branding Benjamin Netanyahu 'war criminal' On Radio Scotland, advocate Edith Forrest rightly pointed to Rule 12 of the Parole Board Rules which already applies to parole hearings involving someone serving a life sentence for murder or culpable homicide. Where the Parole Board 'does not know where and how the victim's remains were disposed of' and believes the prisoner 'has information about where and how the victim's remains were disposed of' then it can take this into account in terms of deciding whether or not to release them on licence. This looks, as Forrest says, much like the rules which the Scottish Government is now proposing to add to the statute book. Holyrood has, yet again, been caught relegislating for things the law already deals with. Jamie Greene's response is he thinks 'it's important to get this stuff in black and white on the face of legislation'. But there are other reasons why MSPs would be wise to approach introducing rules like this carefully. As the name suggests, the whole campaign is premised on a particular scenario: a factually guilty person, behind bars, maliciously refusing to yield information about their victim's final resting place, presented as a form of coercive control beyond the grave, or as a further act of spite to rub salt into the wounds of families broken by grief. Presented in this way, who could reasonably object to the idea of keeping dangerous characters like this in custody? But try looking at the proposal from another angle. Try thinking of this not as Suzanne's Law but just as a law which will apply to all kinds of prisoners. While Greene's proposals might answer a sense of justice in one context, they are guaranteed to create more injustice in others. In the miscarriages of justice literature, this is sometimes called the 'innocent prisoner's dilemma'. Consider the case of Andy Malkinson, by way of illustration. Malkinson was convicted of rape in 2004. The conviction relied on the evidence of the victim, who picked Malkinson out of a life-up, saying she was '100% sure' he was the man. She was mistaken. He was convicted by majority verdict and sentenced to life imprisonment. The judge set the punishment part at six years and 125 days. Subsequent forensic re-examination of the victim's clothing found DNA matching the profile of another man on the national database. On the basis of this new evidence, the Court of Appeal in London finally quashed Malkinson's rape conviction as unsafe in the summer of 2023. He spent 17 years in custody. READ MORE: Former Knesset speaker urges '1 million Jews' to file Israel war crimes complaint Failures in the handling of Malkinson's case have now precipitated the collapse in the leadership of the Criminal Cases Review Commission. The CCRC is responsible for reviewing potential wrongful convictions in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. But there was another step in the criminal justice process which helped keep Malkinson in custody for 17 years: the parole process. Although eligible to apply for release on license after spending six years and 125 days in custody, the Parole Board applied a principle like Suzanne's law to his case. In essence, it said: if you don't admit you did this, we're going to leave you in prison until you do. Rules like this demand of wrongfully convicted people an impossible question: which is more important to you, the truth or your liberty? Choose. As the Court of Appeal explained in its 2023 judgment vindicating Malkinson, 'throughout those many years', he 'adamantly maintained that he was innocent of the crimes and had been wrongly convicted'. And 'he did so in the knowledge that he was thereby delaying his release from prison' – for years, and years, and years. This is the innocent prisoner's dilemma. Malkinson described it as his catch-22. If he just admitted to committing the rape he was convicted of and went through the dishonest motions of engaging with the behavioural programmes in prison requiring him to reflect on his wrongdoing, he'd have been released from prison long before he was. If he refused, more years were guaranteed to pass him by, protesting his innocence in custody. Similar considerations apply to Suzanne's Law. You can't give the authorities information about a murder you did not commit. You cannot specify a deposition site if you didn't kill your victim. Given the small numbers of people involved, perhaps you're comfortable with a utilitarian calculus which sees a small number of innocent people like Andy Malkinson spending more time in custody for crimes they did not do, if it visits lengthier punishments on guilty men, determined to inflict a final twist of the knife on families they've already bereaved. In backing this campaign, that's the choice MSPs will be making.
New York Post
a day ago
- Politics
- New York Post
'It's an absolutely horrifying event,' slain cop's brother says
The state's far-left Parole Board denied freedom for one of New York City's most notorious cop killers – but the fallen police officer's family is still fighting to keep his accomplices behind bars. Convict David McClary, a gangbanger who assassinated Police Officer Edward Byrne in 1988, argued for his freedom before the state's liberal parole board on July 22 but was sent back to Wende Prison in Erie County, state records show. The 16-member state parole board, which is packed with members appointed by then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, has sprung 43 cop killers since 2017, according to the Police Benevolent Association. 8 Every year, members of the NYPD return to the corner were Officer Eddie Byrne was killed. Seth Gottfried 8 David McClary Byrne, a 22-year-old rookie, was sitting in his patrol car in Queens protecting a local witness in a drug case when he was shot five times in the head. Afterward, McClary and his three accomplices boasted about the killing. 'He should stay in prison because he's not fit or capable nor does he deserve the right to go back on the street,' the slain cop's younger brother, Kenneth Byrne, told The Post. The cop was sitting in his patrol car around 3:30 a.m. on 107th Ave. and Inwood St. in South Jamaica watching the home of a local Guyanese immigrant, who had reported drug dealing. The witness's home home had been firebombed twice. 8 Byrned assassination shocked the city. Mary McLoughlin/NY Post The assassins pulled up alongside Byrne and one of them got out and knocked on his passenger side window while a second man crept up on the driver's side and shot him with a .38 caliber pistol. The cop's younger brother remembers an NYPD chaplain coming to his home. 'It's an absolutely horrifying event watching my parents collapse onto the floor,' Byrne recalled. 'My parents aged and suffered because of this.' 8 Police Officer Eddie Byrne President Ronald Reagan called the Byrne family to offer condolences. Then-Vice President George H.W. Bush carried his shield during his 1988 presidential campaign. 'This was front and center for many years because it was such a shocking crime,' the brother recalled. Three other men, Philip Copeland, Todd Scott and Scott Cobb were also arrested and eventually convicted in the killing. 8 The Byrne family has staunchly opposed the release of their loved one's killers. Brigitte Stelzer 'Every two years, we have to go back and do this again,' Byrne said, noting that his brother, NYPD legal boss Larry Byrne, took the lead on the parole hearings until he died in 2020. Byrne's mother, Ann Byne, who is 88 and living on Long Island, was devastated when the parole board released Cobb in 2023. 'It's just a lot for her to deal with after decades and decades,' her son said. 8 NYPD Deputy Commissioner Larry Byrne speaks at a memorial for his brother, a police officer who was killed in the line of duty in 1988. Daniel William McKnight 8 Hundreds turned out for Byrne's February 1988 funeral. Don Halasy/ NY Post McClary will return to argue to be released again next year. Todd Scott, 56, is serving 25 years to life at Shawangunk prison upstate and is due to appear before the board this month. Drug dealer Howard 'Pappy' Mason is serving life in prison for drug racketeering and ordering the murder from jail. 8 McClary in court in 1989. Jerry Engel/ NY Post The convicts often tell the board how they'll try to benefit society if they are released, Byrne said. 'Eddie was doing work that benefitted the public,' he said. 'They cut it short.'
The Irish Sun
2 days ago
- The Irish Sun
Shady final twist has me convinced Essex Boys killers were FRAMED in cover-up as questions linger over ‘corrupt' witness
Sun writer Oliver Harvey, who extensively covered the case, would love the chance to interview 'killer' Michael Steele - but is prevented from doing so for a shocking reason TAKING A BULLET Shady final twist has me convinced Essex Boys killers were FRAMED in cover-up as questions linger over 'corrupt' witness CAGED in Category A prisons for 29 years, the man convicted of masterminding the Essex Boys triple murder has been released - but with a rigorous stipulation. Grey-haired and in his eighth decade, Michael Steele still vehemently denies he was behind the most infamous gangland hit in British criminal history. 11 Michael Steele, who still vehemently denies he was behind the most infamous gangland hit in British criminal history, was released in May (pictured in 2006) Credit: Rex Features 11 Pat Tate, Tony Tucker and Craig Rolfe were the three victims Credit: PA 11 Oliver Harvey talking to retired senior Scotland Yard detective David McKelvey - who has spent the last five years painstakingly studying the case - at the scene in Essex Credit: Louis Wood Despite efforts by the Justice Secretary to keep him under lock and key, the career criminal was released from prison on licence in May. A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said he was under 'strict conditions and intensive probation supervision' and that 'he faces an immediate return to prison if he breaks the rules". One of those stringent conditions is that Steele does not discuss the case with journalists. Unless the snail-paced Criminal Cases Review Commission - currently conducting its third examination of the case - grants a fresh appeal, it's a silence he's likely to take to the grave. Steele has been unwavering in his protestations of innocence. According to recently-released Parole Board documents, he insists 'the killing was organised by another criminal and a corrupt police officer'. It was a shocking claim that, over the years, did little to encourage the authorities to grant him his freedom. But Steele stuck by his word as the grim prison years ticked slowly by and the outside world moved on. His minimum tariff of 23 years passed in May 2019, but he didn't waver in his assertion of innocence. Finally, in February this year, the Parole Board deemed Steele was no threat and could walk. Are 'Essex Boys killers' innocent? But Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood disagreed and slammed the brakes on. Her department spokesperson insisted: 'Public protection is our first priority.' Yet, retired senior Scotland Yard detective David McKelvey - who has spent the last five years painstakingly studying the case - told me: "Steele is 82, he poses absolutely no risk.' Not only that, but the 62-year-old retired Detective Chief Inspector believes Steele and his accomplice Jack Whomes - both now free - are innocent of the Essex Boys slaying. After returning to the murder scene with McKelvey and other ex detectives, I too believe there has been an awful miscarriage of justice. Steele and Whomes' convictions rest largely on the word of 'Fat Darren' - supergrass Darren Nicholls, a paid police informer and drug dealer. Appeal Court judges would later say Nicholls had a "corrupt" relationship with his Essex police handler. So did this star witness tell an Old Bailey jury the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? What is certain is that the murders so captured the public imagination it spawned 12 feature films - including 2000's Essex Boys starring Sean Bean - and a raft of books. I have attempted to sift through the welter of fact and fiction and discover what really happened. Grisly scene 11 Police were pictured examining the scene in 1995 where the trio were shot dead 11 The bodies of Patrick 'Pat' Tate, Tony Tucker and Craig Rolfe, were found inside a blue Range Rover Credit: REX 11 Michael Steele alongside co-defendant Jack Whomes following the 'Essex Boys' gangland murders Credit: PA On a crisp February morning in 2021, I met McKelvey and another ex leading detective Albert Patrick in Workhouse Lane, Rettendon. Set amid Essex farmland, it is immortalised as the spot where a metallic blue Range Rover containing the bodies of the three men had been discovered 26 years previously. Using a similar SUV, the two cops skillfully recreated the crime scene for a Sun documentary. Retired Det Chief Supt Patrick, 76, paced around the motor, describing the dead men inside and how they were murdered. Slumped behind the wheel was violent cocaine addict Craig Rolfe, 26, who was born in Holloway Prison. In the passenger seat was ex-soldier Tony Tucker, 38, the body-building head of a security firm that controlled the drugs trade in Essex nightclubs. Tucker was ultimately responsible for supplying the ecstasy pill that led to the death of 18-year-old Leah Betts in November, 1995, a tragedy that had traumatised the nation. The guy was very, very good at what he was doing and he's done it before Retired Det Chief Supt Patrick In the back seat was Tucker's enforcer, short-fused 18-stone man-mountain Pat Tate, 36, who had heroin, cocaine, cannabis and steroids in his bloodstream when he died. All three had been shot in the face with a pump action shotgun so swiftly that they had no time to retaliate. Rolfe's hands were still on the steering wheel and his foot on the brake. Tucker was holding his mobile phone. Tate took a bullet in the stomach to immobilise him before he, too, was shot in the head. There were no witnesses. Whoever pulled the trigger left behind no fingerprints or DNA. Patrick, who spent "31 years nicking villains" before he became a civilian homicide review officer for the Met, called the slaying 'retribution' and 'a professional hit'. He said of the assassin: "The guy was very, very good at what he was doing and he's done it before." Essex Police were under huge pressure to solve the most high profile gangland assassination since the Kray Twins ruled London's East End. 'Perjury' 11 'Fat Darren' had worked with Steele, pictured, and Whomes Credit: Rex Their inquiries stalled until petty crook and police informant Darren Nicholls was arrested in May 1996. Ex-BT engineer Nicholls, then 30, was held after 10kg of cannabis was found in his van. He had worked with Whomes, Steele and the dead men. But when accused of being in the murder gang, he turned grass. His testimony was that his friend Steele had lured the murdered trio to Rettendon as a passenger in the Range Rover. Whomes, he insisted, then jumped out of the bushes, handed Steele a shotgun and between them they blasted the trio to death. The motive, he said, was a cannabis deal that had gone wrong. Nicholls, who said he was the getaway driver, claimed that Steele had boasted: "They won't f*** with us again." Whomes admits he was in Rettendon on the night of the murder, saying Nicholls had asked him to pick up a broken-down car. In January 1998, Steele, of Great Bentley, Essex, and Whomes, then from Brockford, Suffolk, were convicted of the murders and were sentenced to life. You must bear in mind it was in his own interest to become a prosecution witness - he hopes to get less time to serve Mr Justice Hidden Trial judge Mr Justice Hidden had told the jury of Nicholls in his summing up: "You must bear in mind it was in his own interest to become a prosecution witness - he hopes to get less time to serve." Nicholls pleaded guilty to drug-running and was given a lenient sentence, gifted a new identity and rehoused at a secret location. In 2000 he broke cover. Lubricated with Jack Daniels, he revealed: 'My little boy keeps saying, 'Why can't we have our old name back? Why can't I call my friends? Why can't we go back to Essex?' 'One day he's going to want to get married. One day he's going to want to know why he doesn't have a birth certificate. 'And when it all comes out and he finds out his dad's a grass, he'll probably end up hating me too.' The same year another supergrass - held in the same secure unit as Nicholls back in 1997 - claimed the Essex man had told him before Whomes and Steele's trial that his testimony was untrue. 'He said the story he was supposed to tell in court was a pack of lies,' the grass revealed. "I thought there were forensics, witnesses. I could ignore Darren's perjury because I thought it was just the cherry on the cake. 'Now I realise Darren wasn't the cherry on the cake - he was the cake.' At Steele and Whomes's failed 2006 appeal, judges found that Nicholls may have received up to £15,000 in a book deal relating to the case, signed before the pair's trial. The supergrass also agreed to take part in a TV documentary - again before Whomes and Steele were tried. Jurors at the 1998 trial were not told of the lucrative media deals but when the evidence was put before Appeal Court judges eight years later, they ruled the convictions should stand. Cold-blooded execution 11 Steele's co-accused Jack Whomes, pictured, has been released from prison Credit: getty In 2021, Whomes, now 63, was released after 23 years in jail. In all those long years he'd never wavered in his insistence that he was innocent of the Rettendon murder. His brother John told me: 'Jack's free but he hasn't got justice yet.' In his summing-up at the 1998 Steel and Whomes Old Bailey trial, the judge pointed out that whoever committed the murders must have been an expert marksman. John insists his brother wasn't capable of such a cold-blooded execution. Growing up on a Suffolk farm, John said there were guns around, but that Jack was never interested in them. 'He's a mechanic. He's interested in how things work," his retired builder brother said. 'When we was kids, my dad bought a clay pigeon trap. Jack was fascinated. 'He was pulling the arm around when it swung full circle, hit him on the neck and knocked him out cold. 'He's still got the scar. He never went near guns or clay pigeons after that." So if Steele and Whomes didn't kill the Essex Boys, who did? 'Alternative scenario' 11 David McKelvey, pictured, has pieced together an alternative scenario 11 Pictured, the car in which the killing took place, which resurfaced in 2021 and went up for auction in a raffle McKelvey and Patrick have pieced together an alternative scenario which I believe holds credence. On January 14, 1996, the Met Police arrested a "mid-tier" East End villain called "Billy" for armed robbery. The crook claimed he had been paid £5,000 to be the getaway driver in the Essex Boys hit. Billy said the order for the killings was placed by a major South London criminal - who had fallen out with Tucker over a drugs debt - and organised by an East London firm. Later Billy testified at Whomes and Steele's trial that he had been an unwitting getaway driver. Former cop Patrick - who reviewed the murders of Damilola Taylor and Rachel Nickell for the Met - told me: "There's been a total miscarriage of justice. 'If you're going to trust the word of a supergrass then you need corroboration." McKelvey says of Steele and Whomes: 'When you've completed your sentence, why would you continue to protest your innocence?' These two hard-bitten ex cops have diligently reviewed the case, not for money, but because they want to see justice done. I too believe the evidence against Steele and Whomes isn't close to passing the 'beyond reasonable doubt' threshold. Essex Police point out there was "an exhaustive police investigation" into the murders and that the Court of Appeal twice rejected miscarriage of justice claims. Meanwhile, the notoriously slow-moving Criminal Cases Review Commission continues its deliberations. For my part, I would relish the opportunity to interview Steele. But his lips have been sealed. 11 The murders so captured the public imagination it spawned 12 feature films - including 2000's Essex Boys starring Sean Bean, pictured - and a raft of books Credit: Alamy
The Sun
2 days ago
- Politics
- The Sun
Shady final twist has me convinced Essex Boys killers were FRAMED in cover-up as questions linger over ‘corrupt' witness
CAGED in Category A prisons for 29 years, the man convicted of masterminding the Essex Boys triple murder has been released - but with a rigorous stipulation. Grey-haired and in his eighth decade, Michael Steele still vehemently denies he was behind the most infamous gangland hit in British criminal history. 11 Despite efforts by the Justice Secretary to keep him under lock and key, the career criminal was released from prison on licence in May. A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said he was under 'strict conditions and intensive probation supervision' and that 'he faces an immediate return to prison if he breaks the rules". One of those stringent conditions is that Steele does not discuss the case with journalists. Unless the snail-paced Criminal Cases Review Commission - currently conducting its third examination of the case - grants a fresh appeal, it's a silence he's likely to take to the grave. Steele has been unwavering in his protestations of innocence. According to recently-released Parole Board documents, he insists 'the killing was organised by another criminal and a corrupt police officer'. It was a shocking claim that, over the years, did little to encourage the authorities to grant him his freedom. But Steele stuck by his word as the grim prison years ticked slowly by and the outside world moved on. His minimum tariff of 23 years passed in May 2019, but he didn't waver in his assertion of innocence. Finally, in February this year, the Parole Board deemed Steele was no threat and could walk. Are 'Essex Boys killers' innocent? But Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood disagreed and slammed the brakes on. Her department spokesperson insisted: 'Public protection is our first priority.' Yet, retired senior Scotland Yard detective David McKelvey - who has spent the last five years painstakingly studying the case - told me: "Steele is 82, he poses absolutely no risk.' Not only that, but the 62-year-old retired Detective Chief Inspector believes Steele and his accomplice Jack Whomes - both now free - are innocent of the Essex Boys slaying. After returning to the murder scene with McKelvey and other ex detectives, I too believe there has been an awful miscarriage of justice. Steele and Whomes' convictions rest largely on the word of 'Fat Darren' - supergrass Darren Nicholls, a paid police informer and drug dealer. Appeal Court judges would later say Nicholls had a "corrupt" relationship with his Essex police handler. So did this star witness tell an Old Bailey jury the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? What is certain is that the murders so captured the public imagination it spawned 12 feature films - including 2000's Essex Boys starring Sean Bean - and a raft of books. I have attempted to sift through the welter of fact and fiction and discover what really happened. Grisly scene 11 11 On a crisp February morning in 2021, I met McKelvey and another ex leading detective Albert Patrick in Workhouse Lane, Rettendon. Set amid Essex farmland, it is immortalised as the spot where a metallic blue Range Rover containing the bodies of the three men had been discovered 26 years previously. Using a similar SUV, the two cops skillfully recreated the crime scene for a Sun documentary. Retired Det Chief Supt Patrick, 76, paced around the motor, describing the dead men inside and how they were murdered. Slumped behind the wheel was violent cocaine addict Craig Rolfe, 26, who was born in Holloway Prison. In the passenger seat was ex-soldier Tony Tucker, 38, the body-building head of a security firm that controlled the drugs trade in Essex nightclubs. Tucker was ultimately responsible for supplying the ecstasy pill that led to the death of 18-year-old Leah Betts in November, 1995, a tragedy that had traumatised the nation. In the back seat was Tucker's enforcer, short-fused 18-stone man-mountain Pat Tate, 36, who had heroin, cocaine, cannabis and steroids in his bloodstream when he died. All three had been shot in the face with a pump action shotgun so swiftly that they had no time to retaliate. Rolfe's hands were still on the steering wheel and his foot on the brake. Tucker was holding his mobile phone. Tate took a bullet in the stomach to immobilise him before he, too, was shot in the head. There were no witnesses. Whoever pulled the trigger left behind no fingerprints or DNA. Patrick, who spent "31 years nicking villains" before he became a civilian homicide review officer for the Met, called the slaying 'retribution' and 'a professional hit'. He said of the assassin: "The guy was very, very good at what he was doing and he's done it before." Essex Police were under huge pressure to solve the most high profile gangland assassination since the Kray Twins ruled London's East End. 'Perjury' Their inquiries stalled until petty crook and police informant Darren Nicholls was arrested in May 1996. Ex-BT engineer Nicholls, then 30, was held after 10kg of cannabis was found in his van. He had worked with Whomes, Steele and the dead men. But when accused of being in the murder gang, he turned grass. His testimony was that his friend Steele had lured the murdered trio to Rettendon as a passenger in the Range Rover. Whomes, he insisted, then jumped out of the bushes, handed Steele a shotgun and between them they blasted the trio to death. The motive, he said, was a cannabis deal that had gone wrong. Nicholls, who said he was the getaway driver, claimed that Steele had boasted: "They won't f*** with us again." Whomes admits he was in Rettendon on the night of the murder, saying Nicholls had asked him to pick up a broken-down car. In January 1998, Steele, of Great Bentley, Essex, and Whomes, then from Brockford, Suffolk, were convicted of the murders and were sentenced to life. Trial judge Mr Justice Hidden had told the jury of Nicholls in his summing up: "You must bear in mind it was in his own interest to become a prosecution witness - he hopes to get less time to serve." Nicholls pleaded guilty to drug-running and was given a lenient sentence, gifted a new identity and rehoused at a secret location. In 2000 he broke cover. Lubricated with Jack Daniels, he revealed: 'My little boy keeps saying, 'Why can't we have our old name back? Why can't I call my friends? Why can't we go back to Essex?' 'One day he's going to want to get married. One day he's going to want to know why he doesn't have a birth certificate. 'And when it all comes out and he finds out his dad's a grass, he'll probably end up hating me too.' The same year another supergrass - held in the same secure unit as Nicholls back in 1997 - claimed the Essex man had told him before Whomes and Steele's trial that his testimony was untrue. 'He said the story he was supposed to tell in court was a pack of lies,' the grass revealed. "I thought there were forensics, witnesses. I could ignore Darren's perjury because I thought it was just the cherry on the cake. 'Now I realise Darren wasn't the cherry on the cake - he was the cake.' At Steele and Whomes's failed 2006 appeal, judges found that Nicholls may have received up to £15,000 in a book deal relating to the case, signed before the pair's trial. The supergrass also agreed to take part in a TV documentary - again before Whomes and Steele were tried. Jurors at the 1998 trial were not told of the lucrative media deals but when the evidence was put before Appeal Court judges eight years later, they ruled the convictions should stand. Cold-blooded execution 11 In 2021, Whomes, now 63, was released after 23 years in jail. In all those long years he'd never wavered in his insistence that he was innocent of the Rettendon murder. His brother John told me: 'Jack's free but he hasn't got justice yet.' In his summing-up at the 1998 Steel and Whomes Old Bailey trial, the judge pointed out that whoever committed the murders must have been an expert marksman. John insists his brother wasn't capable of such a cold-blooded execution. Growing up on a Suffolk farm, John said there were guns around, but that Jack was never interested in them. 'He's a mechanic. He's interested in how things work," his retired builder brother said. 'When we was kids, my dad bought a clay pigeon trap. Jack was fascinated. 'He was pulling the arm around when it swung full circle, hit him on the neck and knocked him out cold. 'He's still got the scar. He never went near guns or clay pigeons after that." So if Steele and Whomes didn't kill the Essex Boys, who did? 'Alternative scenario' 11 11 McKelvey and Patrick have pieced together an alternative scenario which I believe holds credence. On January 14, 1996, the Met Police arrested a "mid-tier" East End villain called "Billy" for armed robbery. The crook claimed he had been paid £5,000 to be the getaway driver in the Essex Boys hit. Billy said the order for the killings was placed by a major South London criminal - who had fallen out with Tucker over a drugs debt - and organised by an East London firm. Later Billy testified at Whomes and Steele's trial that he had been an unwitting getaway driver. Former cop Patrick - who reviewed the murders of Damilola Taylor and Rachel Nickell for the Met - told me: "There's been a total miscarriage of justice. 'If you're going to trust the word of a supergrass then you need corroboration." McKelvey says of Steele and Whomes: 'When you've completed your sentence, why would you continue to protest your innocence?' These two hard-bitten ex cops have diligently reviewed the case, not for money, but because they want to see justice done. I too believe the evidence against Steele and Whomes isn't close to passing the 'beyond reasonable doubt' threshold. Essex Police point out there was "an exhaustive police investigation" into the murders and that the Court of Appeal twice rejected miscarriage of justice claims. Meanwhile, the notoriously slow-moving Criminal Cases Review Commission continues its deliberations. For my part, I would relish the opportunity to interview Steele. But his lips have been sealed.
The Herald Scotland
4 days ago
- The Herald Scotland
Families of slain Scots 'confident' over parole rule changes
Now, after meeting with Justice Secretary Angela Constance, the families of two women killed by their intimate partners say they are confident the law will finally be changed. Arlene Fraser's sister Carol Gillies spoke to reporters. (Image: Andrew Milligan/PA wire) Family members of Arlene Fraser, who vanished from her home in 1998, and Suzanne Pilley, who went missing in 2010, spoke to reporters at a Victim Support Scotland press conference Wednesday afternoon. The remains of both women have never been found, despite Arlene's husband Nat Fraser and Suzanne's ex-partner David Gilroy being convicted of their murders. Fraser, who was twice found guilty of Arlene's murder, is eligible for parole in October 2028, while Gilroy, who was convicted of Susanne's murder in 2012, is eligible in March 2030. Arlene's sister Carol Gillies told reporters: 'Nat disposed of Arlene in a very ruthless and efficient way. And to just have Nat Fraser in front of the parole board and all they have to consider is the risk or how he behaved in jail, it's just not enough. 'If he was to get out, then that information would be gone forever. I believe that Nat Fraser has more information. Perhaps he doesn't know where the body is, if there is a body. But he certainly controlled this, he was the ringleader. Suzanne's sister Gail Fairgrieve added: 'The parole board needs to understand that this crime is still continuing. He's perpetrating a crime against us. We're still dealing with this every day. "I go into a card shop, and I can't buy anything for my sister. He has information that could just put us at ease and bring Suzanne home. 'With this ruling, they now have to consider that he can't possibly be rehabilitated or show remorse if he's continuing to withhold this information. This information is a full part of his crime. Otherwise, life imprisonment means life imprisonment.' Asked how she felt after years of attempting to bring about a change in the law, Ms Fairgrieve said: 'It seems like a win in the sense that the regulations will be changed. But we're still lost. You know, there's still a part of us that's lost. 'There's a life that wasn't led. With our sister, with our daughter. So you know, we're happy that people are listening and appreciating the story that we're telling.' Suzanne Pilley's sister Gail Fairgrieve (R). (Image: Andrew Milligan/PA wire) Ms Gillies added: 'Doors are opening, I feel. It's a hard system to understand, but doors are starting to open now and it will get listened to.' In a statement, Angela Constance MSP said: 'I am grateful to the families of Suzanne Pilley and Arlene Fraser for meeting with me today. 'They have suffered heartbreaking losses, compounded by not knowing the final resting place of their loved ones. My deepest sympathies remain with them. 'In March, I supported an amendment to the Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform Bill that will mean the Parole Board, when making decisions about release, must take account of whether a prisoner has information about the disposal of a victim's remains, but has not disclosed it. 'At today's meeting, I reiterated my firm commitment to this change, which will become law if the Bill is passed in Parliament.' Kate Wallace, the CEO of Victim Support Scotland, said: "Legislatively, this amendment would bring Scotland in line with England and Wales, which have already enacted the equivalent Helen's Law. It would also support the proposals for a corresponding Charlotte's Law in Northern Ireland. "While she cannot guarantee it herself, we are pleased that Angela Constance has reassured the family of her steadfast support of the amendment." Read more: David Gilroy guilty of Suzanne Pilley murder Family of murder victim Arlene Fraser fear her body will never be found Angela Constance: Scotland facing 'critical risk' from overcrowding in prisons Liberal Democrat MSP Jamie Greene, who defected from the Conservative Party in April, proposed 'Suzanne's Law' as an amendment to the Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform Bill, which is currently making its way through the Scottish Parliament. Holyrood's Criminal Justice Committee voted to include the amendment at Stage 2 of the bill, which is expected to be voted on before the end of this parliamentary term. Mr Greene said: 'My amendment to the Victims Witnesses and Justice Reform Bill that requires the parole board to take into account a murderer's failure to disclose their victims remains is a welcome step toward creating a system that properly respects the rights of those victims, I have never tired of standing up for victims and their families throughout my time as an MSP. 'I will be bringing forward further measures to improve the experience of victims throughout the criminal justice system as this Bill approaches its final stage in Parliament and I encourage all parties, including the Scottish Government, to support them and work with me constructively and pragmatically to see the law change in Scotland and swing the balance of justice back towards victims.'
