Heavy Duty Trouble (The Brethren Trilogy) (34 page)

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Authors: Iain Parke

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Y
ou have heard from Mr Parke’
s
journal, his account of the events leading up to the killings, but he can however help us no further with the events of that day after he put his package in the post for safety
,
and then climbed back into that car for the
remainder
of the
fateful
journey to the club
’s northern premises high up in the hills of the North Pennines
.

Without statements from the accused, who have throughout this case refused to co-operate with the authorities in any way
,
and as you know from the evidence presented so far, have each refused to make any statement to the police, we are unlikely to ever know what
happened, or
what
was said at the clubhouse that
evening
.

The CCTV records from the club’s surveillance cameras show the three men arrived at the clubhouse at
6.16
pm and having buzzed the intercom, were admitted.

The CCTV records show all thre
e men then left the club twenty-
six minutes later at
6.42
pm and returned to their car which had been parked outside the courtyard
in front of the building
.
They then got into the car with Mr
Stephen
‘Wibble’
Nelson
in the driving seat, Mr
Peter
‘Bung’
Milton
in the passenger seat, and Mr Iain Parke in the back seat.

The last known picture of the men
therefore
is
from the club’s CCTV footage and shows
the car exiting the gateway to the clubhouse, passing over the cattle
grid and beginning to descend the track to the road below.

So we are left wondering two things.

Firstly, w
hat happened inside the club?

And secondly, w
hat then happened to these three men
?

As I’ve said, without the co-operation of the accused or other witnesses,
the truth is
we may never know the answer to the first question
.

But from the
extensive
forensic evidence
recovered by the police
,
as you will see,
we can
,
I think
,
deduce quite clearly what then happened to the three
occupants of the car
.

From the maps
already
entered in evidence you will see that at the foot of the track, the car obviously turned right, as you would expect
it
to do. This was the direction that would lead them back over the top of the moors
,
before dropping down into the valley beyond, where they could head back to
Newcastle
airport for their flight back down to London.

Who know
s
what they were thinking or saying in the car as they drove. Did they sit in silence or did they talk about the meeting they had just had, and what it might mean for their futures?

Of course we will never know.

In Mr Parke’s
notes
you will have seen a number of references to
the works of Niccolo Machiavelli and in particular his famous book
The Prince
, which
Mr Nelson
,
his predecessor, Mr Robertson,
and other
members of the club
seem to have regarded as something of a handbook.

I
n
perhaps one of the most chilling passages in chapter three, Machiavelli sets out the brutal truth of power as he sees it when he says,
Me
n ought either to be well treated or crushed, because they can avenge themselves of lighter injuries, of more serious ones they cannot; therefore the injury that is to be done to a man ought to be of such a kind that one does not stand in fear of revenge.

According to Mr Parke’s notes,
Mr Nelson and Mr Milton
had been offered the option of leaving the club, retiring
,
as it was referred to, having lost what was evidently a major power struggle for control of the
organization
.

But for those that were to remain in the club
,
was that really enough? Under their code would they not want to be seen to expel them? To actively cast them out rather than have them walk
away
? And more, to then
follow
Machiavelli’s maxims, would they
not want to
crush them, to
destroy them utterly so as to ensure they could never become a threat
to the new
status quo
,
at any point in the future?

The injury that is to be done to a man ought to be of such a kind that one does not stand in fear of revenge.

You will notice that as the road
starts to
come
down
off the moor, it begins to descend in a series of twisting turns towards the village of
Enderdale
.
From the photographs and video shown to the Court by the police of the route travelled, you will have seen how
,
fr
om being unfenced
as it sweeps across the
moorland
, it
then
becomes contained between
dry stone
walls rising on banks on
either side
of the road, and together these begin to restrict severely the distance ahead that
a driver
can see.

There are a couple of minor turnings off to both the left and right
before you reach the fi
rst few houses and then a cross
roads close to the village.

However
,
the car on this journey never reached either the houses, or the crossroads.

It was stopped
, after a drive of no more than
five or
six minutes
at most
,
just after a bend in the road.

T
he forensic expert
s
ha
ve told you
that found in the burnt out vehicle there was what
appears to be the remains of a police cap
. S
o,
we can suppose that the car was flagged down by a person, or persons in police uniform
, probably with a vehicle and police signage blocking the road ahead
.

This would make sense and would presumably not have seemed unusual to the men. After all, club members have repeatedly complained that they are subject to a high level of police attention
,
or
harassment
as they would often
prefer to
put it. As a result, being the subject of a stop and possible search on their way from the clubhouse
would
doubtless
have appeared
simply
a normal
occurrence
,
so long as the uniforms were convincing enough
,
and those wearing them were not known to the men in the car
.

As members based in the south, as
Mr Nelson
and
Mr Milton
were of course, they would not for example be expected to know the faces of the members of a northern so-called support or puppet club. So if those manning the roadblock were members of such a club the
likelihood
is
that the men would
not
recognise them
.

No sooner had the car been brought to a halt
however
,
what can only be described as a
military style
ambush was spru
ng.

From the cartridge cases found at the scene, one
assailant
carrying an AK47 assault rifle was hiding behind the
dry stone
wall to the
left hand
side of the road, only a few yards away from where the vehicle had come to a halt.

He sprayed the car’s driver and passengers with a blast of automatic fire
, fully emptying the magazine at point blank range and leaving
the vehicle riddled with holes.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you may perhaps imagine the awful violence of th
os
e few moments as the three men in the car were mercilessly gunned down. Unarmed, and sat
inside
their
vehicle
they were sitting ducks for the gunman.
Perhaps they saw him stand to fire as they pulled to a halt. But
even
if they
did
, they
never stood a chance
to make their escape
and must have been cut down almost instantly in an absolute hail of bullets.

But the attackers were not leaving anything to chance.

From
skid marks
in the road behind the car, it would seem that a second vehicle, probably a stolen van found burnt out some ten miles away
on the following Sunday
,
had pulled up about twenty feet behind the car, effectively blocking any potential for escape by reversing the car away from the ambush. Police believe that this vehicle had been waiting in one of the side roads and had
pulled out
after the car had come past in order to complete the entrapment.

Someone carrying
another
gun, and police believe that this is likely to have been a second
attacker
, possibly emerging from the van, then approached the car.

When found, all the car’s doors had been opened and nine shell cases from a Russian made
Makarov
pistol were found by the side of the
vehicle
.

The forensic evidence therefore suggests that
with the car
having been riddled with bullets from the rifle, the second gunman calmly walked up to
it
,
opened each of the doors and then made sure of the men inside by shooting each
one
a further three times
at point blank range with a pistol
.

Someone, members of the jury, was making very sure that there were to be no survivors left to tell the tale of this attack.

And now it is time to play you
one of the Crown’s last pieces of evidence. Th
is is th
e transcript of a telephone intercept
made by police on the evening of
Friday
5
th
March
2010
and the transcript of this conversation is entered into these proceedings as Crown
Exhibit
98
.