Essex Boy (28 page)

In a police statement Alvin made later about this incident, he said, ‘They called Percival “the shooter” as opposed to “the murderer”. They went on to say that if I was prepared to tell them what had happened the night Boshell died, protection would be offered to my family and me. My wife came to the police station and it was explained to her what assistance could be given if I was in a position to confirm what they suspected.

‘I was then allowed a period of time alone with my wife in a room divided by a screen. My wife and I discussed our options. I told her that I knew what had happened that night and that I was involved. My wife made it plain that she did not want to be away from her family; she was pregnant at the time and was scared. She left it up to me, however, to make the final decision. I was allowed the night to think about it. The following morning, I decided to remain silent because I was concerned for my safety, the safety of my wife, her family and mine.’

Just before Alvin was returned to HMP Belmarsh, he was asked ‘off the record’ why Dean Boshell had been murdered. Without any hesitation Alvin had replied, ‘Because he was a liability.’ Alvin says now that while at Gravesend he was desperate to tell the police the full story regarding Boshell’s murder but he was too scared. Of whom, he does not say. Percival was on holiday in Spain and so one can only assume that Alvin feared the drug-dealing loan sharks to whom he supposedly owed £15,000.

Before people are sentenced in these days of equality and justice, they are interviewed by the probation service so that a report detailing their personal circumstances can be presented to the judge. Those who are homeless, unemployed or otherwise in genuine need are generally sent to prison and people who have wives, children, a job and a home are often spared the indignity of incarceration. The thinking is that jailing a family man will cause his innocent wife and children to suffer. Society as a whole allegedly suffers if a taxpayer is jailed because the public purse has to fund his upkeep while he is inside. Those with nothing are decreed to be an existing strain on the limited resources of the welfare state and so sending them to jail apparently affects nobody. The fact that a person from a stable background should have thought long and hard about the consequences of his actions, before risking losing them, is generally ignored.

When Alvin met the probation officer appointed to write his report, he knew exactly what he was required to say in order to attract maximum credit. He was going to have to invent a story backed by fabricated evidence and say that he had acted under duress and any punishment he received for his crime would punish his innocent wife and child more than it would punish him. Alvin told the probation officer that, following the death of his good friend Dean Boshell, he had become very low and depressed.

He claimed that he had been diagnosed as suffering from depression and his condition had become so dire he began to ‘self-medicate’ with cocaine. Initially, he only used the drug socially but after moving to the Benfleet area of Basildon, he had become increasingly involved with heavy cocaine users. This had resulted in Alvin’s habit spiralling out of control, to the point where he was using up to £250 worth of the drug a week. Alvin said that he was able to conceal his drug dependency from his wife but when refurbishments were required at his home he had secured a £10,000 loan from drug dealers that he associated with, and a further £5,000 from them at a later date.

At first, there were no problems with the arrangement but Alvin said that as his drug habit escalated he fell behind with the repayments, and relations between him and his creditors began to sour. In December 2002, matters came to a head when Alvin was confronted by a number of men from this gang, who demanded their money back. Alvin asked them for more time to pay but the men refused to listen. Alvin said that he was stabbed in the leg and then beaten with a hammer. As he lay on the floor bleeding, he was told that if he did not pay or somehow work the debt off, future attacks would involve not only him being hurt, but also members of his family. As he told the shocked probation officer his story Alvin struggled to keep his composure. He said that he had initially refused to comply with the gang’s requests, but when they threatened him and demanded the full amount, he reluctantly agreed to work off some of the debt by making a delivery of cocaine. It was while transporting a kilo of cocaine from Leigh-on-Sea to Canvey Island, on behalf of the gang, that Alvin had been arrested.

While in prison, Alvin said that his wife had been accosted by gang members and forced to withdraw £20,000 from their savings in order to repay the debt. Despite handing over this money, his wife had continued to receive menacing phone calls and death threats. These included a funeral wreath being delivered to her address with a card that read, ‘With Deepest Sympathy for You. Tell him to keep his trap shut or these will be yours. May it help you to remember that friends are always there.’ In a note posted through her letterbox, which had been made using letters cut from a newspaper, the gang had warned, ‘We want our fucking money. Sort it, or we will sort you.’

Alvin claimed that these threats against his family were intended to dissuade him from giving information to the police about the gang. That was why he had refused to answer police questions when he had been arrested.

After hearing Alvin’s tale of woe, the well-meaning probation officer wrote in his pre-sentence report: ‘Given the circumstances surrounding this offence and further information provided within this report, if the court feels that only a custodial sentence can be justified, I would ask that any term of imprisonment imposed be as short as possible in order to limit further pressure upon Mr Alvin’s family, who have already suffered significantly as a result of this offence.’

Knowing the importance of shoring up a bullshit story with factual evidence, Alvin produced a medical certificate to ‘prove’ that he had been stabbed and beaten by the loan sharks he owed money to. This certificate stated that he had attended a doctor’s surgery around Christmas 2002 suffering from cuts to his hands and leg. These were, the document said, ‘allegedly caused by a knife’. Alvin’s wife had already reported the death threats, letters and funeral wreath she had received to the police. It’s unlikely that any judge would have doubted the authenticity of Alvin’s dreadful plight at the hands of such an evil drug gang.

On 10 July 2003, Alvin appeared at Basildon Crown Court for sentencing. When asked by the judge if he had anything to say in mitigation, Alvin acknowledged that he was aware that the only sentencing option available to the judge for such a serious offence was a custodial sentence. However, he begged the judge to consider how much he had changed in the past few years of his life.

‘My past offending is shameful,’ he said, ‘and I’m far from proud of my previous convictions, but I have changed in the past few years. I have got married to a wonderful caring woman and together we have bought a house. We have a baby and have another on the way. I started my own business three years ago, which has been steadily growing and I normally employ up to six people. I know the offence I committed was both stupid and irresponsible and I have no one else to blame but myself. I know this is no excuse but I got myself into a position I didn’t know how to get out of. I now realise I could have, and should have, done things differently. I am now clean from drugs and receiving help with the depression caused by the murder of my friend [Boshell], which led to my habit. I have helped the police to the best of my ability with everything I know. I ask you for one last chance and for you to consider giving me a shorter term of imprisonment. When I’m released, I want to show that I can live a normal, law-abiding life and continue with my business.’

There wasn’t a dry eye in the courtroom by the time Alvin had finished delivering his emotionally charged speech. But the ‘Damon Alvin Sympathy Show’ was not over just yet. Pregnant and dabbing at her eyes with a tissue, his wife Clair listened intently as a letter she had written as an encore to her husband’s performance was read out on his behalf.

‘I am living between my own home and my parents’ house,’ Clair had written, ‘because I am scared to be at home alone with my son, due to the threats that I have been receiving. I have had an alarm and panic button installed but I still feel unsafe. I have lost my husband, who I love and miss very dearly. We have never been apart before and I’m finding it hard to cope. We are a very close couple and although I don’t condone what Damon has done, I do feel that I now understand the reasons why he did it. Both myself and my young son are still suffering as Damon is away from us, and we are still living with the threat that he tried to resolve.’

Taking into account the circumstances that supposedly led to Alvin being forced to courier drugs and the fact that he had been ‘beaten, stabbed and his family left traumatised’, the judge sentenced Alvin to thirty months’ imprisonment, instead of the six years that he had been told to expect.

A confiscation order was also made against him for the £31,420 that had been found in his washing machine and a further £18,000 was seized out of his savings. Justice, it would appear, had prevailed. Damon Alvin had broken the law and Damon Alvin had been made to pay. Proof, if any were ever needed, that there is no correlation between morality and legality. Neither is there any correlation between justice and ‘the law’.

Eight brief months after being sentenced to serve two and a half years, Damon Alvin was released from prison on the condition that he agree to wear an electronic tag for a period of four months. These tags are tuned into an electronic box in the offender’s home, which sends a warning signal to the police if the person is not within a certain distance of it at designated times. The idea is that, rather than have low-risk inmates inhabiting prison cells that could be used to house more dangerous criminals, they can be tagged and effectively put under house arrest. This allows them to work during the day, but prevents them from roaming the streets at night. After three long, seemingly inactive years, the Boshell murder investigation appeared to be going nowhere. That was until 2004, when the Labour Government announced that they were going to introduce new legislation.

The then Home Secretary, David Blunkett, said that a new strategy to tackle organised crime was needed and this would include a revamp of the supergrass system. Blunkett said that his proposals were aimed at getting a grip on gangs who controlled drug running, people smuggling, prostitution and financial rackets.

‘Criminals who “turn Queen’s evidence” could win immunity from prosecution, or have their sentence cut by more than two-thirds if they shop their gang bosses,’ he said. ‘Existing criminals who “turn Queen’s evidence” already have their sentences reduced and are often given new identities, but this will be the first time that this approach has been formalised in an Act of Parliament.’

Nobody knows if Essex police already had a strategy for the Boshell case simmering on some back burner, or if news of this new legislation prompted officers to think again. Coincidentally, or otherwise, the police decided to rearrest Damon Alvin. At 0400 hrs on the very morning that Alvin was due to have his electronic tag removed, the police stormed his house and took him into custody for the murder of Dean Boshell. At the same time, Kevin Walsh and Kate Griffiths were arrested for allegedly conspiring to pervert the course of justice. Ricky Percival’s address was also raided but he was not home at the time.

Alvin was taken to Harlow police station for questioning, but on the advice of his legal representative he made no comment when interviewed. He did, however, produce a written statement. Alvin said that he had met Boshell in Chelmsford prison and they had become friends. He said that he had liked Boshell and had had no reason to fall out with him and certainly no reason to want to kill him.

Alvin vehemently denied planning to go on any sort of burglary with Boshell at the time of the murder, adding, ‘If I was doing something really serious like that, I would not have relied on Dean.’

In an effort to appear helpful, Alvin offered the interviewing officers a second possible motive for the murder. He said that Boshell might have been involved in gun running and drug dealing with immigrants in the Southend area.

‘I simply do not know who killed Dean,’ he said. ‘When I was taken out of prison to Gravesend police station, the officers told me that they knew that I had nothing to do with the murder. They said that they believed it was Ricky Percival who was responsible for the killing. They offered me all sorts of deals, which I refused. I said I did not know anything about Dean’s death and so was unable, even if I had wanted to, to do a deal with the police and implicate Ricky. I have heard various rumours about Percival’s involvement in criminal matters. I know nothing of these matters and believe that many of these rumours have been put about by the police. Further, I believe that I have only been charged to put pressure upon me to give the police information about Percival’s possible involvement in Boshell’s murder. Unfortunately, I do not know anything.’

At the end of the interview, Alvin was bailed to reappear at the police station in two months’ time pending further inquiries. Walsh and Griffiths were interviewed at separate police stations and both reiterated the accounts that they had given previously, concerning the night Boshell had died. The police had formed the opinion that the couple had either been coerced or threatened by Percival, Alvin or both men to give them an alibi for the time that Boshell had been shot.

The unofficial time of Boshell’s death had been calculated by the police after considering the time Boshell had been seen leaving Southend and the second statement of Gordon Osborne, who claimed that he had heard two or three shots coming from the allotments between 2300 hrs and 2330 hrs. Boshell had not been seen alive again after leaving Southend. He had been shot three times and, according to the police, nobody other than the gunman knew this. Osborne, therefore, must have been telling the truth when he said he heard that number of shots being fired between 2300 hrs and 2330 hrs.