Gypsy Jane - I've Been Shot Four Times and Served Three Prison Terms?This is the Incredible Story of (7 page)

When they left, I showed Matt half an ounce of puff I had in my pocket and told him the police were idiots. I was just going to tell him about what was under the shed when he slapped me across the face and went into one, big time. ‘You’re the fucking idiot,’ he said. ‘I told you not to do nothing or have anything in the house but, no, you think you’re clever. What happens if you’d got caught with that half an ounce? You don’t care. Me and John, we’ll be left picking up the pieces.’ So I didn’t tell him about what was under the shed. He was mad enough already. What he doesn’t know won’t hurt me, I thought.

Sure enough, I got my guns, rifles and bullet-making gear back from the police but I had to go to collect it all from Romford police station. Their arms officer said that my collection was one of the best he had ever seen. I was well impressed with that. I mean, they had seen a lot of weapons and my collection was one of the best. And they still didn’t know what was under the garden shed.

By now Matt and I were arguing 24/7 and just hurting each other all the time, even though we loved each other.
It had to come to a head because I had to keep rebelling. It just wouldn’t work, mainly because I was too much of a free spirit and I couldn’t be what he wanted me to be. I couldn’t have my life ruled by a man and I couldn’t get away from him because he was too big and strong. I couldn’t shoot him because I loved him. But when he was away from me, I missed him so I got myself into a right state. And to make matters worse, him and John had become very close and John really liked him, which, of course, was good. But the rowing was not good for John. And I didn’t want my son seeing me unhappy. It just was not right. I was trying to hide it all from John but it was hard.

However, in the end, I’d had enough of him controlling me and despite everything I’d thought through so many times, I pulled a gun on him. ‘Get out now, Matt,’ I told him. ‘This is no good for either of us and it’s no good for John. I won’t let us destroy him.’

Now, say what you want about Matt but he loved my boy like his own and those words sank in. He walked away when I said that. And, let’s be honest, even a bird with a gun couldn’t have made Matt do that if he didn’t want to. So he did do the right thing. But it wasn’t to last.

A couple of weeks later I was driving to buy a bit of puff in Kent. Matt happened to see me on the road and started to come after me in one of the many cars he owned. I put my foot down but he caught me easily, cutting me up and heading me off. He got out of the car,
punched in the windows of my van with his bare hands and dragged me through the window. Cars were slowing down and people were watching. He was trying to put me in the boot of his motor but I fought him all the way. Two cars crashed because they were watching us. A police van pulled up and two coppers got out and started to come over. I was screaming for help but Matt just shouted that it was a domestic and put me in the boot. They didn’t lift a finger. I couldn’t believe it. Then he drove off in his car with my van abandoned on a roundabout near Ashford, in Kent, with a smashed window and the engine still running. He took me to a house I had never seen before – one of his safe houses, I guessed. I was basically under house arrest by Matt and his mates. A right old state of affairs.

He went back to get the van and I knew he might find I had a squirter (a plastic bottle with ammonia to squeeze in a fight), a knuckle duster and a joint in the glove box. The only thing out of that lot that would worry him was the joint. Drugs were a big no-no with Matt, unless it came to selling them. I wasn’t even allowed to smoke fags in front of him, let alone a joint so I would be in big trouble when he found it. But by the time he got back to the van the two coppers had called for back-up and he was quickly arrested for the knuckle duster, squirter and joint in the glove box. Not good!

His mate came back and told me he’d been nicked and taken to Ashford station. I told the mate to take me to the police station. I might not have been getting on with
Matt at that moment but I wasn’t about to let him take the fall for me. So off we went. I was arrested and they let Matt out. They asked me why I’d had the weapons and I told them I was going to use them to do Matt.

‘You what?’

‘Yeah but he won’t be bothered about that,’ I said. ‘We’ve got a love-hate relationship. It’s the joint he’s going to kill me for. He is very disapproving of drugs.’ I actually wanted them to arrest me and put me in a cell to keep Matt off me. I was scared about what he might do now. Things had got out of hand, to say the least. ‘Just keep me in here,’ I pleaded. ‘I’m guilty – they are my weapons, it’s my joint so just lock me up.’ To my horror, they chucked me out of the station after giving me a good talking to. They said how grateful I should be to have a man who was prepared to take me on. They thought I was madder than Matt. I got the big speech about how Matt was a decent, hard-working man who was trying to do the best by me and how I was an ungrateful woman. Well, I could see Matt had charmed the coppers around, just like he did everyone else. I didn’t have a chance. I was an unmarried mother from the East End with drugs and weapons so they took his side. They forgot all about him putting me in the boot of his car. But I suppose me telling them I was going to do Matt with the weapons didn’t help my case!

Matt was waiting for me when I got out and I was bang in trouble. I knew that he was not amused. He took me back to the safe house, where we rowed all
night long. ‘I’ve got money. All you have to do is look beautiful. That’s all I want, Janie. Is that so hard? Most women would kill to be in your position,’ he kept saying. And he was right. They would. But I couldn’t handle it. I couldn’t allow myself to be controlled or imprisoned by anyone. But love is the strongest drug of all. I agreed to his terms and promised I’d go back and stay with him and not get up to anything. But I knew, even as I said it, I was lying. I loved him so much but I knew I couldn’t keep my promise. All we were doing now was hurting each other.

I was also starting to get paranoid that Matt would take John away from me, as they were really close and, every time me and Matt had a break-up, he said he was going to take John. I was so worried that I told my boy that, if he went with Matt, he would lose all his mates and Matt would lock him up in a room. John was only 11 at the time and, if I’m honest, I was a bit jealous of their friendship. They got on so well. I hadn’t realised how much I’d worried John with talk of Matt taking him until one day when he was out with his mates at the local video shop. He rang me to say there were two blokes watching him from their Ford Escort van.

‘How many of you are there, John?’ I asked.

‘There’s about twenty of us, Mum,’ he said.

‘Don’t worry, babe, you’re all right. There are too many of yous for anyone to try anything.’ Poor John. I’d convinced him Matt was going to kidnap him but, in my heart, I didn’t think it would come to that. But then
John called me back. The two blokes were Irish and I started worrying because Matt had told me he’d have two of his Irish boys take John to Ireland and that I’d never see him again. So, when I heard the word ‘Irish’ from John, I panicked. ‘I’m on my way,’ I said.

I grabbed my samurai sword, jumped in my van and flew round to the video shop. I could see the van with the two blokes in it and all the kids were outside the shop. I pulled across the front of the van and blocked them in. I jumped out with my sword and asked John, ‘Are these them?’ He said, “Yes,” and, straight away, I went for the door but the blokes knew they were in trouble. They had already locked the doors. They could see me with a big shiny sword – hardly a common sight – and they were panicking. I’d gone into Gran mode. No one was taking my boy.

I lifted the sword above my head, two-handed, and smashed it as hard as I could into the windscreen. It cracked and shattered but didn’t cave in so I started smashing the van as hard and as many times as I could. I wanted to get at these blokes. They knew now that, if I got to them, they would be in mortal danger but they couldn’t drive away as my van was blocking them in. So, in a blind panic, they ground the gears, dropped the clutch and lurched straight at me. They were trying to run me over. The van mounted the pavement, I jumped out of the way and, wheels spinning and gears crunching, they sped off. I had smashed their van to pieces and, when they reached a safe distance, they stopped and one
of them got out. ‘You’re a fucking nutter!’ he shouted. ‘We’re calling the police.’

Now, I had my sword gripped in both hands out in front of me and I shouted back, ‘You’re scaring the kids! Don’t scare the kids!’ They drove off.

I looked round and there must have been a couple of hundred people watching me. They were probably thinking I was scaring the kids more than the men in the van were, which was a fair point. It certainly looked like I was scaring them. I had my Gran face on and I’d got a big sword held in both hands like I was ready to chop someone up, samurai-style. They must have been thinking it was like something out of
Kill Bill
. All I needed was a yellow leather catsuit and it would have been. But, fortunately, no violence was required. I just told John to get in the van and we went home for a cup of tea. The incident was the talk of Rainham for a while.

Matt phoned up later that day saying he had heard about what had happened and wanted to make sure me and John were OK.

I was fuming. ‘Don’t give me, “Am I OK?”’ I said. ‘You’ve sent two of your soldiers round to take my John. Well, they came proper unstuck, didn’t they?’

‘What are you on about, you stupid cow?’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t do that to you.’

‘Oh, fuck off,’ I said. That was the end of me and Matt. There was no going back now. He had frightened my boy by sending those men but it had backfired on him. I would have killed them if I had got into their van
and Matt now knew it. Using my son to get at me was a no-go area. He had just crossed the line, big time. John and I were OK together. We had each other and that was what mattered the most. Matt was well and truly gone.

It was sad for me at first though. Despite everything, I really loved Matt and my heart was broken. I had more money than I could count from all the beer runs. There were more people around me than I needed, yet I was the unhappiest and loneliest person in the room. You see, everybody was your mate when you had everything, which, at that time, I did. But Matt and I were finished. I was all smiles on the outside, for the world, but in my heart and soul I was sobbing like a baby. Well, this is what you wanted, girl, I told myself. So get a grip and get back to what you do best. I had my John and I didn’t need anyone else. As long as John was OK, I was OK. And John was, as always, the perfect son.

Life went on.

S
omeone from the beer run asked me one day if I wanted to do a robbery.

‘Why not?’ I said. ‘I’ve not earned for a while and, anyway, I’m bored.’

The job sounded easy. It was all set up. I was going to stick up a delivery man who had £80,000 in cash in a bag. It was tax-evasion money from a big player who was supplying booze from the continent to off-licences. The delivery man was in on it and that was what made it so easy. The cash couldn’t go in the bank because it could have been traced, so it was to be transferred from the off-licence to a house for safekeeping. I was going to hold them up with two others while the delivery man was on the way but, since all he had to
do was act like he was being robbed, it was going to be a piece of cake.

The day before the job, the two blokes who told me about it decided they didn’t fancy it. They thought it was too risky. I couldn’t believe it. ‘It’s a piece of piss,’ I said. ‘What is wrong with you? What can go wrong?’ But they didn’t change their minds. They said that, even though it looked easy, it was a bit out of their league.

They’d had a look at my arsenal of weapons and said, ‘You’re fucking crazy, woman.’

I was still going through with it. The next day I got my guns – a Colt .38 and a replica Browning pistol. The replica was to point at the bag man because he said he didn’t want a loaded gun pointed at him, which was fair enough. Just in case he was being watched by possible witnesses, it would then look as if he really was being robbed. I planned to have the real gun ready in case the owners of the cash showed up and decided to get brave.

The day of the job was a Sunday. I did my boy’s dinner, put on my full combat gear and got Tracey to watch John, as he was mates with her own boy. I planned to be home by 9pm and they waved me goodbye as I drove off on the job.

The transfer was at 7 pm and I waited in my van outside Valentines Park in Gants Hill, near Ilford, where I could see both the off-licence and the house the money was being taken to. I was sitting in a white Ford Transit, which belonged to the man who had supplied me with the information. I loaded my Colt .38, just in case. At
length, I saw the runner come from the off-licence with the satchel over his shoulder, just as I was told he would. I drove almost level with him, pulled out the replica Browning, waited for him to walk past my open window and pointed the gun in his face. ‘Give me the satchel, mate,’ I said nicely. But something was wrong. I could see it in his face from the off.

To my disbelief he said, ‘No.’

‘Give me the fucking money,’ I said again through gritted teeth. ‘What are you fucking playing at?’ He didn’t answer but just started to run. I was not amused with what was happening. I began to see it was a set-up. Now I knew why the other two didn’t come. My target was now legging it down the road. This was not on at all and I cursed myself under my breath for not twigging when the other two pulled out at the last minute. To make matters worse, the runner had got some balls. I mean, most people would have handed over the cash but he had done his job. I threw the imitation gun on the passenger seat and grabbed the Colt .38 but by this time my man was among a group of people. There were two families on the opposite side of the road coming out of the houses and getting into their cars, and quite a few pedestrians up ahead where the runner was headed. This was a crowded street. I spun the van around and, my gun in my hand, I shouted at everyone, ‘Get down, get down!’ They thought I was going to shoot them but I just wanted the runner and to warn them. It was all going pear-shaped big time because no one had noticed
him. They all looked at me before hitting the ground – all apart from the runner who was still trying to get away. He was hiding behind those people who were too far to have dropped down yet and I just couldn’t believe what was happening. This wasn’t the plan. I was waving a gun at a crowded street and I knew I was in big trouble but it was about to get a lot, lot worse.

Satchel-boy knew I wanted to do him and he ran behind a woman. There was a look of pure terror in her eyes and she started screaming. That set a few others off and then I could hear police sirens. Soon, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a police car. I’d got a whole street on the ground at gunpoint and I had to get out of this situation. I threw the gun in the back of the van, put my foot down and drove off as fast as I could. I was driving the van at up to 70 mph as though it was a mini. But at every turn I could see police cars. Then I heard a helicopter above me and it seemed as though the whole of Scotland Yard was after me. But I didn’t give up.

Soon I could see the helicopter clearly. It was hovering in front of me, flying backwards but the pilot was looking straight at me. This close it looked like
something
from outer space. All I could really see was a big glass dome with men in it, helmets over their faces, big goggles over their eyes. A spotlight was shining down on me. ‘Shit, shit, shit!’ I screamed. I had a high-powered torch in the van, which I grabbed and pointed directly at the helicopter. The beam was so powerful it dazzled the pilot and suddenly the helicopter banked and turned
away from me to avoid crashing onto the busy street below. He did the right thing because I wasn’t going down without a fight.

I was screeching down turnings at random and before long I flew down a dead-end road. There was a brick wall in front of me and, behind me, a sea of police cars. But there had been a turning to my left, just behind me, so I stuck the van into reverse, smashed into a police car, forcing it out of the way, and spun the van round in the direction of the turning. ‘I’ve got to get out of this,’ I said to myself. ‘I’ve told my boy I’ll be home at nine.’

I was just about to put my foot down and head into the turn leading to a clear road when an armed officer, aiming an M16 rifle straight at me, shouted through the driver’s window, ‘Armed police. Show me your hands!’ He had appeared from nowhere. He was standing by the side of the van. I hadn’t seen him jump out of the car I had rammed into. The barrel of his gun was inches from my head. Time stood still. I stared straight back at him through the window. It’s now or never, I thought, my eyes darting from him to the turning in the road. I was as calm as you like. Then, for some reason, words that I had lived by came into my head and told me what to do – Mine is not to question why, I am but to do or die. That had always been my mantra when I was in danger. My gypsy blood would never allow me to go down without a fight.

I laughed in the copper’s face. ‘Yeah, really?’ The red
dot of his laser sight was flicking around my face. He wasn’t expecting those words. I supposed I was meant to shit myself and crumble. It didn’t happen. For a long moment the copper was motionless. I knew now that, if I didn’t get away, I’d get it in the head. I laughed again and then smashed my foot down on the accelerator and the van lurched, then roared forward. But the turn was too tight and I lost control and crashed the van into a house on the corner. In the mayhem I didn’t hear anything but the copper I had taunted had his M16 set on semi-automatic and fired off four shots. I could see my hands covered in blood and the windscreen was a red mist. My blood. I’d been shot. Then the van door was pulled open and I could hear the cops screaming at me. They were going mental. I mean mental. ‘Armed police. Armed police. Show us your hands. Show us your hands!’

I was dragged out of the van and handcuffed. Now I was laughing at them. They tried to spread me
star-shaped
on the ground but my hands were cuffed above my head. I looked up at them all and laughed again. ‘You load of fucking pigs,’ I said. But before I could finish, six guns came down into my face.

‘Shut your fucking mouth or we’ll blow your fucking head off,’ one of them said. There were loads of them, all in full body armour. I was in no doubt that, if I made one false move, I would have been taken out. Another one of the cops stood on my hands and, for the first time, I realised I had been shot in the right hand. I
stopped laughing as the adrenalin started to wear off. I didn’t know it yet but in all I’d been shot four times. I knew I was facing serious time and I thought about my boy at home. If I realised how badly I’d been hurt, I would have wondered if I was dying. The first bullet had entered my right forearm and ripped its way down to lodge in my hand. The second had gone into the back of my right shoulder and exited through the front of the same shoulder. The third had entered my back, behind my heart, and the last had ricocheted off the dashboard and got me in the groin. Just my luck. But I still didn’t feel a thing. I knew I’d been shot in the hand because I could see a big hole in it but I hadn’t got a clue about the other wounds.

The armed police were screaming at everyone coming out of their houses to stay away. I was lying in a pool of my own blood in Royal Close, Ilford, wondering what the hell had happened. I found out later that the police officer opened fire because he thought I was going to run him over. That was what I was told but all the shots came from behind me as I tried to get away. I had been shot in the back, driving away, so how could I have been trying to run him over?

But maybe I was dying. All of a sudden my dad was there cradling and rocking me and telling me I was going to be OK. I could hear him shouting, ‘Get these cuffs off her. She’s been hit everywhere. There’s blood coming out of her everywhere. We’re going to lose her. Stay with me, babe. You’re going to be OK. I’ve got you.’

‘I’m OK, Dad,’ I replied. And that was the last thing I remembered. I passed out. But the man holding me wasn’t my dad. He was an ordinary police officer. Not one of the armed ones. This copper picked me up, got the cuffs off me and held me as if I was a baby until the ambulance got there. I’d like to thank him for that, whoever he is.

I woke up in the King George hospital, Ilford, with two police officers in my room. All I could think was that my dad was going to go mad and Matt was going to kill me because he had warned me not to get involved with the villains who had given me the information. He had told me they were wrong ’uns and, as usual, I hadn’t believed him. I thought he was just saying that so I didn’t do any more jobs but he was right again. I had now been shot four times and was looking at a life sentence.

I lay in the hospital bed recovering from the blood transfusion I’d had to replace all the blood I lost. I’d had two operations to remove three bullets that had lodged in my body. The bullet that blew a hole in my hand and the two that went into my back and groin had to be removed in the operating theatre. In all, I needed more than 350 stitches to keep me together. It wasn’t only bullets they took out of me. It was the bits of van metal propelled by the bullets into my body. I had other splinters from the van in me as well. I mean, I had half the bleedin’ van in me. I’d been flung into the windscreen and had to have chunks of glass removed
from my arms. Some of the debris was buried so deep that they had to pick shrapnel out of my arms and back for about ten months. I didn’t even know about much of it until it worked its way to the surface. Then they would dig it out.

I was on the critical but stable list but, when I woke up, it was as though nothing had happened. I couldn’t feel any pain anywhere. It was unbelievable. Then in walked my dad and John and I grabbed hold of my boy. He was only 12 and I could see he’d been crying but, when he saw me and realised I was OK, his face lit up. Believe it or not, we all started laughing.

The doctors told me I should have died but I told them it takes more than four bullets to keep me down. I don’t feel any different from any other day. My boy was OK and, as long as he was OK, I felt like nothing could hurt me. According to Dad, the police said I’d been shooting at them and that’s why they opened fire. I told Dad I didn’t shoot at anyone and that, if it had been me firing four shots, I would have got four coppers in their heads.

‘Shush, Jane. Don’t talk like that,’ my dad said under his breath. ‘The place is crawling with the old bill and you’re in enough trouble as it is.’ Of course, he was right so I toned it down. And it was just bravado anyway. I felt so guilty because of my boy. He deserved better.

The cops questioned me while I was in bed and I told them I hadn’t done anything wrong. ‘A man tried to rape me, then he tried to hurt a load of people in the
street,’ I said. ‘I tried to help them and I’m the one who gets shot, just for saving myself.’ Even the cops had to hide the smirks on their faces. They should have given me an Oscar for that one! But you’ve got to try something. After all, I had put a whole street of people on the ground at gunpoint and the runner was saying I had tried to rob him. I was looking at life for armed robbery and it was easily possible I would be charged with attempted murder of police officers because they were saying I shot at them. Now I knew I had done wrong. But I wasn’t guilty of attempted murder.

I told Dad and John not to worry because I didn’t believe God would save me from four bullets to give me a life sentence for something I didn’t do. I told them that everything would be OK and put them all at ease. I think they left the hospital happier than they were when they arrived. But God only knows what they must have been thinking. Their hearts must have been breaking, seeing me like that.

I was told I was going to be transferred to a burns unit at Basildon University hospital for plastic surgery on my hand, which was in a bad way. I arrived the next day and, while I was in my room, I could hear a commotion outside and then Matt burst in. He looked really worried. But he was angry too. ‘What’s happened?’ he asked, looking at my hand and all the tubes and drips I was linked to. So I started with the whole story. Before I could say anything to stop him he reacted by going mad and he began throwing police officers down the corridor.

‘You shot my missus!’ he screamed and the police were terrified. He was a very powerful man and had brought a firm with him. Believe me, they made their presence known. I think the cops must have thought Matt was going to try to spring me from the hospital or something because they had called in the army to guard me. There were police and soldiers on the roof, in the corridors, right outside my room. There must have been 20 in the corridor alone. Police dogs patrolled outside and they had put security checks in place a mile around the hospital. If you came to the hospital, you were treated like a terrorist, partly because I was a dangerous criminal and partly because they reckoned Matt was planning an escape for me.