Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
N who nicked Noye
Inside story of riminal to justice
We have all made an error in a car... to pull out a knife and use it like that is horrific DENNIS MCGOOKIN ON M25 ROAD RAGE KILLING
ped out of his Land Rover Discovery confronted Stephen, stabbing him h a nine-inch knife. nally extradited in 2000, he was victed of Stephen’s murder at the Old ey on April 14 and jailed for life. He released on licence in 2019. ennis was quick to pay tribute to the Danielle played in bravely bringing fiance’s killer to justice – at an enorus cost to herself. he walked through a restaurant re officers believed they had located e, to see if she could see the man she believed stabbed Stephen. t must have been the most daunting difficult walk of her life,” Dennis embers. “It was a very challenging extremely courageous thing for her llow through with. t says a lot, not just for the strength anielle’s character, but also the depth er feelings for Stephen, with whom had planned to spend her life. ike all involved in this case, Danielle ted to find some kind of closure.”
Danielle’s ordeal was not over. As the key witness in the case, she had to go into police protection and remains in a witness protection scheme today – only able to see her parents twice a year.
Dennis explains: “Once Danielle went into protection, she had to be cut off from her family, from Stephen’s family and from friends, because it would only take one breach to put her in danger.
“She remains under the scheme to this day. On the day Kenneth Noye murdered Stephen, he took away her life.”
Noye, now 76, gave an interview after his release saying he posed no threat to Danielle. But Dennis says he would never suggest that Danielle should risk meeting Noye in person.
“I have never had the opportunity to sit down and talk to Danielle”, he adds.
“I haven’t got a clue where she is at all. She could be back living in the next street, but we just don’t know.
“I personally would not like to encourage her to meet him. I think that is all too much. The law of the land says Kenneth Noye has his liberty now and that is what we have to respect.” Noye’s life of crime had begun at the age of five, when he was caught pinching cash from the till at Woolworth’s.
At senior school, he ran a protection racket and fenced stolen bicycles.
As an adult, Noye built a legitimate haulage business to hide his criminal activities and informed on underworld rivals to police.
Then, in 1983, he acted as a fence in the Brinks-mat gold bullion robbery.
While under surveillance during the investigation, he fatally stabbed a police officer, Detective Constable John Fordham, in the grounds of his home.
Noye was cleared of murder on grounds of self-defence but in 1986 was jailed for 14 years for conspiracy to handle the stolen gold. He was released on licence in 1994, two years before his fatal run-in with Stephen Cameron.
Dennis adds: “We have all been in situations where we have made an error in a car to the annoyance of other people.
“Normally, all that happens is you get a few expletives. But for someone to go to the lengths to pull up on the busiest junction in Europe, create a fracas like that, pull out a knife and plunge it into Stephen twice, is absolutely horrific.
“When we got the guilty verdict, I was over the moon for the families and everyone whose lives had been affected.”
In 2000, Dennis was the senior investigating officer on one of the biggest mass killings in British history when 58 Chinese migrants died in the back of a lorry at Dover after being smuggled into the UK by a snakehead gang.
Dennis explains: “Gang members show families in China photographs of young Chinese men and women sitting in expensive cars outside popular tourist spots all around London.”
Dutch lorry driver Perry Wacker was jailed for 14 years for manslaughter.
The Many Faces of Crime: A True Detective’s Chronicle by Dennis W Mcgookin is published by The History Press on 23 May 2024, RRP £22.99.