Did crime lord kill dealers who sold death drug to Leah Betts?
A CRIME boss offered to murder the drug dealers who sold the ecstasy pill that led to the death of teenager Leah Betts, it has emerged.
The gangster said he could ‘ take out’ the suppliers during a conversation with a retired detective that was secretly recorded by Scotland Yard.
Just three weeks later Tony Tucker, 38, Patrick Tate, 37, and 26-year-old Craig Rolfe were found shot dead in a car on a farm track.
The case became known as the Essex Range Rover Murders and was turned into a 2000 film, Essex Boys, starring Sean Bean.
Michael Steele, 74, and Jack Whomes, 55, were jailed for life in 1998 for the killings. But the new information from the secret recording could be used to overturn their convictions. Details are expected to be passed to the Criminal Cases Review Commission.
The recording was made by the Metropolitan Police’s Special Intelligence Section while carrying out surveillance on a shop owned by an associate of the crime lord, who has not been named.
It is mentioned in a 2002 report called Operation Tiberius, which warned that gangsters had been infiltrating the force ‘at will’.
An extract, published by the Sunday Mirror, said: ‘ On November 16, 1995 [the former officer] met [the gangster] who offered the hand of friendship by offering to take out the supplier of the drugs to Leah Betts, who died of an overdose.’
Leah collapsed during her 18th birthday party at her home in Latchington, Essex, in November 1995 and died in hospital 15 days later. It had been feared that the ecstasy pill she took – which had been bought at a Basildon nightclub where Tucker, Tate and Rolfe controlled the supply of drugs – was from a contaminated batch. However, a post mortem examination found the teenager suffered a fatal swelling on the brain caused by drinking 12 pints of water in 90 minutes.
Her death triggered a national outcry about illegal drug use after her family released moving photos of her in a coma in hospital. A major police crackdown followed.
On December 7 Tucker, Tate and Rolfe were found dead in their 4x4 on a farm track in Rettendon, near Chelmsford.
The convictions against Steele and Whomes were secured after Darren Nicholls, a convicted f raudster and supergrass, told police he had been the getaway driver. But critics claim his version of events was invented. Another man, Billy Jasper, had already admitted being paid £5,000 to be the driver for a hitman, known as Mr D, but was never charged.
Leah’s father, Paul, was also questioned about the murders. The retired Met f i rearms officer, who lives in Scotland, said he didn’t know the dead men or the retired detective in the secret recording.
The unnamed ex- detective has admitted he knew the gangster but claimed he had nothing to do with ‘any skulduggery’. Scotland Yard said: ‘We are not prepared to discuss publicly the details of Operation Tiberius. It is a secret document.’