Essex Boys, The New Generation (30 page)

The day Percival was convicted of these crimes on the strength of such shoddy evidence marked a very sad and embarrassing day for the British judicial system.

As I was preparing to leave, Carla begged me not to reveal her whereabouts to anybody who might be associated with Alvin. ‘I’m worried that Damon is going to come and find me,’ she said. ‘He really does scare me. It’s a shame about Dean. He really didn’t deserve to die like that. He wasn’t a physical threat to anybody. Dean knew everything about Damon and his family, they were really close, and that’s probably what got him killed. If anybody would have wanted Dean dead, it would have been Damon. If he didn’t pull the trigger himself, I am certain that he would have been involved in the planning of it. Damon was definitely the sort of person who would do that sort of thing. Whatever you say or do, please don’t let him find me.’

I tried to reassure Carla that Alvin could not and would not harm her, but my words fell on deaf ears. She remains absolutely terrified of him. The loveable rogue that the jury saw performing in the witness box at Chelmsford Crown Court is certainly not the same man whose name when mentioned strikes terror into the heart of Carla Shipton.

The Locksley Close Shootings

The death of Malcolm Walsh and the Locksley Close shootings were the catalyst for all Ricky Percival’s current problems. Despite being arrested within hours of the shootings and undergoing a whole range of forensic tests, not a shred of evidence was found to link Percival to the crime. It was only when Alvin accused Percival of being the gunman did Essex police decide to charge him. They may have had faith in Alvin’s stories, but nobody else who gave evidence, including the victims, appeared to agree with his account.

Carla Evans, who had told the jury that the gunman had blue eyes, was treated like a pariah and removed from the court. Victims who recalled seeing two gunmen and hearing up to six gunshots were disbelieved. The most important page of one of the victim’s statements, who has since died, was inexplicably ‘lost’. Christine Tretton, one of those injured that night, was openly hostile to Percival during the trial. She told the jury: ‘Until the day I die, I say 100 per cent that it was Ricky Percival who shot my family. If somebody put a shotgun to your face, you would know who they were.’ She added that he should be brought to justice for destroying her family; however, when asked by Percival’s barrister why she did not say anything like that in her original statement, Christine claimed that she had but the police had failed to write Percival’s name down.

The Tretton family, like Alvin, have disappeared into the witness-protection programme, but I did manage to get a letter to them in which I invited them all to meet me so that they could have their say in this book. Unfortunately, they declined my offer. In their reply, they told me that they would have liked to have helped me, but they had endured enough traumas since the shootings. One member of the Tretton family, however, who had not been called as a witness at the trial, did break ranks and say that he would meet me.

My early morning journeys down to Essex had become something of a routine over the previous year. Rise before the sun to avoid the rush-hour traffic. Take a leisurely drive down the motorway. Then, to kill time, like a ghoulish tourist, stroll around an area associated with a particularly despicable crime before meeting one of the unfortunate characters who have had the misfortune to be involved in this story. Most of these people had left me feeling sorry for the terrible things that had happened to them; few had made me laugh. Ronnie Tretton, for all of his numerous faults, was an exception to that rule.

A young man in a constant state of war with all that surrounds him, some of Ronnie’s rebellious behaviour reminded me of myself in times I have since tried hard to forget. We had agreed to meet on Leigh-on-Sea Broadway, but Ronnie had failed to appear at the agreed time. I rang him several times on his mobile and each time he told me that he was just a couple of minutes away. After half an hour, I gave up hope and began to walk to my car.

I don’t know why, but I had a gut feeling that the tall, slim guy crossing the road towards me was Ronnie Tretton. ‘Who are you?’ he asked after I had called out his name. Once I had introduced myself, he ceased scowling, forced a smile and suggested we go for a drink together. Going for a drink with Ronnie turned out to be a lot more complicated than one would imagine.

We were turned away from one pub apparently because I had a small Celtic FC badge embroidered on my jacket. Ronnie didn’t want to go in the Grand Hotel because he said he didn’t like the noise and, in the same breath, he informed me that the Carlton public house was off-limits because of a recent ‘massive free-for-all’ that he had been accused of starting. Eventually, we gave up hope of finding a suitable pub on Leigh Broadway and drove instead to the Woodcutters Arms.

Chaotic is one way of describing Ronnie Tretton’s life to date. He and his family have never seen eye to eye with the law. Neighbourly disputes, high-speed car and motorbike pursuits, manslaughter and the attempt to murder family members all feature in their chequered history. Described in a local newspaper as one of Southend’s most notorious young criminals and a thug, Ronnie’s most recent encounter with the authorities when I met him had quite rightly resulted in him being banned from entering Southend hospital.

Whilst having an X-ray on a particularly painful broken arm, Ronnie had shouted and sworn at a radiographer. All appeals for him to calm down had been ignored and he ended up throwing an X-ray cassette across the room and kicking a temporary barrier across the corridor. He and a friend had then moved the CCTV camera in the waiting room in an attempt to avoid being identified. The camera had already recorded their images, however, and Ronnie was arrested. It was when he appeared in court that the ban on him setting foot in the hospital had been imposed. A hospital spokesman told the Southend
Evening Echo
: ‘He will now have to seek treatment elsewhere unless his condition is so serious staff decide to make an exception.’

At the not-so-tender age of 17, Ronnie had been given the rather dubious honour of being the first person in Southend to be the subject of an antisocial behaviour order. ASBOs, as they are commonly known, are given to individuals with a significant history of causing alarm, distress or harassment to others. A catalogue of incidents including driving whilst disqualified, making threats, assault, criminal damage and harassment had led to Ronnie’s order being imposed.

Aged 24, Ronnie had nearly met his death in a horrific motorcycle accident. Tearing along a dual carriageway at more than 100 mph, Ronnie hadn’t noticed a white Renault van in front of him. After slamming into the back of the van, Ronnie was catapulted through its doors and into the front passenger seat. The driver of the van was uninjured and continued driving along the road at 60 mph. The passenger received whiplash injuries and Ronnie broke both his arms, his left wrist, his pelvis and right leg. When the van eventually stopped, Ronnie was rushed to Southend hospital by ambulance, where he underwent emergency surgery.

My head was full of questions that I wanted to ask Ronnie about the shootings at his family home, but I couldn’t help first asking where the fuck he was going to go after his next accident. It was a reasonable question: the likelihood of Ronnie Tretton going through life unscathed was zero and the local hospital had now banned him from receiving treatment there.

‘Perhaps I will move,’ replied Ronnie. ‘But then again, that would please too many people around here.’

I could have spent all day listening to Ronnie’s exploits, but it was his knowledge of Percival and the Locksley Close shootings that I had come to hear about.

‘Tell me what you know about Percival and the attack on your family,’ I asked. ‘I know Percival has been convicted but I am not sure that he is guilty.’

‘Neither am I,’ Ronnie replied. ‘My family are not going to like this, but I know that Percival did not do it. I first met Percival about 13 years ago. My brother Steve was good friends with Percival and he introduced me to him. When my brothers Stuart and Steve were in their early 20s, somebody in our road accused them of damaging a car that was owned by a local hard man named Malcolm Walsh. He was friends with a man named Damon Alvin. My family didn’t know Alvin, but we knew of him. I think everybody in Southend has heard of Damon Alvin.

‘We knew Walsh and we knew he wasn’t a man you ought to cross. Walsh was rightly upset about his car being damaged but wrong to accuse Stuart and Steve of doing it. He was also wrong to threaten to hurt them if they didn’t have his car repaired. When Percival heard what had happened, he went to see Walsh because he was friends with him. He said that Stuart and Steve were innocent and Walsh should ignore local gossip, that it was just some fool trying to cause trouble. Unfortunately, Walsh wouldn’t listen. He had it in his head that Stuart and Steve were guilty. The threats and abuse continued, and the rest is history now. Walsh ended up dead.

‘I used to visit Terry Watkins in HMP Chelmsford after he was charged with Walsh’s murder. Everybody in our family felt sorry for Terry because he had been dragged into an incident that had nothing to do with him or us.

‘It’s fair to say that Percival didn’t see it that way. He was annoyed with Terry because he thought there was no need for Walsh to have died over something so trivial. Alvin, too, was also really upset about Walsh’s death. I was warned to watch my back by several people because Alvin was apparently out to get a Tretton.

‘Walsh and Alvin had been partners in crime and had even lived together at one stage. Alvin started telling people that he hated me for some reason. I don’t know why because I had never even spoken to him. He told people that I wasn’t to be trusted because I was a Tretton. I used to see him occasionally in the Woodcutters pub. He would be holding court with his little gang of drug runners. His latest bit on the side would be sitting there, gazing at him in awe, and he would be staring straight at me, trying to intimidate me. He was twice my age and size and so there wasn’t a lot I could do about it. I would just look the other way and pretend he wasn’t there.

‘His drug runners and whichever girl he was seeing behind his wife’s back that week would all find his antics highly amusing. As soon as I heard that my family had been shot I thought of Alvin. He was the only person I could think of who had a grudge and was mad enough to do such a thing.

‘Stuart, my uncle Raymond and a neighbour named Jenny Dickinson lost fingers and parts of their hands in the attack. Two years later, Raymond and Steven were dead because of alcohol. Some say they drank themselves to death because of the shootings, but that’s not true. My auntie Christine, Steve and Raymond all had problems with alcohol long before the attack. I’m not saying that the ordeal they went through didn’t affect them, of course it did, it affected all of our family. Steve had gone to somebody else’s house before the gunman burst in and so he blames himself for not being there and possibly being able to protect the others. Thankfully, Auntie Christine doesn’t drink any more. Steve’s and Raymond’s deaths were a wake-up call for her.

‘I went to the hospital as soon as I heard about the shootings and every day thereafter. Not one member of my family even suggested that Percival might have been responsible for the attack. To be fair, nobody mentioned Alvin’s name either, although, as I have said, I thought he may have done it. We all guessed that the shootings were something to do with Walsh’s death, but beyond that we were clueless.

‘The police didn’t appear to have much idea either. They fitted panic alarms in our home and we were given personal panic alarms to carry around with us in case of another attack. These alarms were linked to the local police station and if activated would bring armed officers to our location within minutes.

‘Two months after the attack, there was a party at the house where the shootings had taken place. Steve, Stuart, Raymond, Auntie Christine and I were all there. Also in attendance was Ricky Percival. Everybody shook his hand when he arrived and talked to him as normal. Nobody even hinted that they thought he might have been responsible for the shootings. Alvin, who was good friends with Percival at the time, didn’t attend the party. Percival even slept over that night because we were worried about him driving home after having a drink.

‘I don’t think any rational person would believe that Percival would have had the audacity to attend the party and stay the night if he was guilty. I heard that Percival was arrested on the morning of the shootings, but forensic tests ruled him out as a suspect. Whenever there is a major crime committed, such as a triple shooting, lots of people are questioned. It doesn’t mean they are guilty.

‘I continued to associate with Percival after the shootings and he regularly came to my house. Nobody ever passed as much as a comment about him being in our home. When my auntie Christine made her statement, she didn’t name Percival; however, by the time she got to court, she had changed her mind and said it was definitely him. I don’t know why she changed her story or why she now believes it was Percival. My auntie is well known for getting confused over people’s identities.

‘I have always been fanatical about motorbikes. I have had one since I was about 13 or 14. Quite a few of the lads my age around Locksley Close also had them and we used to go scrambling over the fields together. The police couldn’t really do anything unless we rode them on the road. A few kids used to ride them on the road to get to and from the fields, but I would always push mine. A boy named Shane, who lived near me, would always ride his on the road. My auntie Christine was convinced that Shane was me and would ring my mother to tell her what I was supposedly up to. It caused me loads of grief at home even though I was entirely innocent.