I’VE NOT BEEN ABLE TO GO STRAIGHT SINCE 1999’
John Henry Sayers tells court he blames police attacks for his reputation
Reputation is a bit like gossip; people add to it John Henry Sayers
JOHN Henry Sayers said he has “never been able to go straight” since serving 10 years in prison in the 1990s due to police “attacks”.
As the 54-year-old continued to give evidence in his trial for allegedly ordering the Tup Tup Palace shooting, he said he had considered leaving the country because of “all the years I’ve been attacked, being remanded, all the pressure”.
Describing his upbringing in the West End of Newcastle, Sayers said he started working on the family fruit stalls at the age of around five, but at the time the business was illegal.
“It was a game – the police would try to catch my uncles and aunties, and we would try and not get caught.
“My great-grandma and her nine daughters were all arrested for selling fruit and veg on the streets of Newcastle.”
Sayers said he grew up thinking the police were “bullies” as a result.
The jury heard his first conviction was in 1990 for robbery, for which he still maintains his innocence.
“Northumbria Police employed an informer to say he had spoken to me and we had arranged it. He got a two-year sentence and I got 10.”
After being released from prison in 1999 with a “reputation as an ex-robber”, he says he went into an “informal debt collecting business”.
Sayers said his reputation was helpful because “people were impressed by the fact I had been in prison for so long”.
The court heard he was acquitted of another offence after a trial in 2002, and pleaded guilty to tax evasion in 2008.
In 2009 he was arrested on suspicion of approaching a juror in the 2002 trial.
In the wake of the judge ruling that he could not get a fair trial, Sayers said he made a Panorama programme about the use of informers giving evidence when they are being paid.
Sayers said that case “proved beyond a shadow of a doubt how corrupt they were towards me”. His barrister Michael Holland QC asked about how his reputation had stopped his efforts to go straight. “I have never been able to do that since I got out in 1999. “For an example, I work for my mother’s business supplying fruit and veg to restaurants. “If I go to a new restaurant to try and get work, the police come in behind me and say, ‘Do you know who that is?’” Prosecutors allege Sayers ordered the shooting on June 6, 2015 – which left doorman Matthew McCauley with multiple wounds – in “revenge” for an incident two weeks earlier when his son was allegedly punched by door staff. Mr Holland said: “The prosecution say you were so incensed that you didn’t care who it was on the door on the night of the shooting.” Sayers replied: “It’s an example of Northumbria Police wanting to paint me as black as possible.” When asked whether he “wanted to give them an excuse to lock him up”, he said he had “too much to lose” as the sole parent for two young children.
He is also accused of putting convicted murderer Michael McDougall up to confessing to the crime himself.
The two met in HMP Wakefield while Sayers was awaiting trial.
Sayers told the court he found out McDougall was going to say he was the gunman on July 13, 2017 in the exercise yard. “He revealed why he was in that prison. “He explained what he had done in his offence, that he had just had treatment for cancer.
“I don’t know how it came out but he just said he had done that one – the one that I was charged with.”
Sayers said at that point he asked McDougall to take his coat off because “I thought he was wired up”.
“I said I wanted him to make a statement to my solicitor and he said he would.”
He was also asked about prison CCTV footage of him showing McDougall footage of the shooting, saying McDougall “asked if there was footage of him on the bike”.
Sayers said he showed him the footage because “it was either upset him and he doesn’t make a statement, or show him and get him to tell my solicitor what he had told me”. Cross-examining Sayers, prosecutor Simon Denison QC asked him about his former debt collecting business, which he admitted was “unlawful”.
Mr Denison then said it was an example of Sayers “using your reputation as a ruthless criminal”.
And when asked about his reputation for “intimidating people”, Sayers said: “Reputation is a bit like gossip; people add to it.”
Mr Denison added: “You say it’s always Northumbria Police. It’s always them lying, it’s never you.”
Sayers was also asked whether “an attack on your son is an attack on you” that “couldn’t go unpunished”.
He replied: “I certainly wouldn’t go into the city centre and shoot someone for nothing.”
Sayers and Michael Dixon, 50, are accused of conspiracy to murder and conspiracy to possess a firearm.
Russell Sturman, 26, is accused of assisting an offender.
Sayers and McDougall, 50, are also charged with conspiring to pervert the course of justice. The defendants deny all of the charges. The trial continues.