'Doubt' over Range Rover murders verdict

The Range Rover is taken from the scene

Most miscarriages of justice take decades to come to light. But the solicitor for the Rettendon Two - serving life for the murder of three gangsters in a Range Rover in 1998 - is convinced they were wrongly convicted, and is confident they will be cleared.

BBC News Online's Chris Summers reports.

Some time during the night of 6 - 7 December 1995 three men - all career criminals - were blown away with a shotgun as they sat in a Range Rover parked in a remote farm track in Essex.

Murder timetable

Nov 1995: Teenager Leah Betts dies after taking ecstasy bought from Tucker's "firm"

7 Dec 1995: Tucker, Tate and Rolfe found shot dead in Workhouse Lane, Rettendon

Jan 1996: Billy Jasper makes statement at Forest Gate police station

May 1996: Darren Nicholls is arrested. Michael Steele and Jack Whomes are then charged with the murders

After a long trial at the Old Bailey, engineeer Michael Steele and mechanic Jack Whomes were convicted largely on the word of police "supergrass" Darren Nicholls.

Nicholls was a former friend who claimed he had driven the pair to the scene and picked them up after the killing.

The informant, who had been charged with conspiracy to import cannabis, was later given credit for turning Queen's Evidence and was sentenced to 15 months in jail. He walked free in lieu of time he had served on remand.

But the families of the two convicted men, and their solicitor, Chris Bowen, say new evidence has undermined Nicholls' credibility and, without him, the conviction is unsafe.

Steele's case has now been referred to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), which has the power to refer it back to the Court of Appeal, and an application from Whomes will be made in due course.

Looking back at the scenes of crime photographs, it is truly horrific to see what a double-barrelled shotgun did to the handsome, chiselled features of drug barons Tony Tucker, Craig Rolfe and Pat Tate.

John Whomes (left) has been campaigning for his brother's release

From their relaxed body language - Rolfe was still holding the steering wheel - it is clear the killer struck with the maximum degree of surprise.

A month after the killings an East End villain, Billy Jasper, who had been arrested for an armed robbery, confessed to having been the getaway driver.

'Taken out of the game'

He claimed another criminal, Jesse Gale, gave him £5,000 to drive an accomplice, referred to for legal reasons as Mr D, to and from Workhouse Lane in Rettendon, Essex, where he was going to carry out a cocaine deal with the three men.

Jasper testified at the Old Bailey that he had agreed to the plan, but had not spotted Mr D's 9mm Browning pistol and a sawn-off shotgun when he first drove him to Workhouse Lane.

He said it was only on collecting him that he saw the weapon and realised Tate, Tucker and Rolfe had been killed.

But Jasper did not fit in with Essex Police's line of enquiry - 54-year-old Michael Steele was already their prime suspect - and Jasper was never charged in connection with the murder.

Four months later, Nicholls told police he was the real getaway driver.

In January 1998 Steele and his friend, Jack Whomes, 36, were jailed for life for the murders.

I hardly need stress the importance of Nicholls's evidence; so much hinges on what he said.

Mr Justice Hidden

Nicholls, like Jasper, claimed he was unaware of the true purpose of the trip until afterwards.

During the case, the trial judge, Mr Justice Hidden, said in his summing up to the jury: "Nicholls is a convicted criminal who was engaged in drug abuse and the importation of drugs into this country.

"You must bear in mind it was in his own interest to become a prosecution witness... he hopes to get less time to serve."

Long before the Rettendon murders Nicholls was a police informant who worked with a handler, referred to in court as Detective Constable A.

DC A is suspended from duty pending a disciplinary hearing, but Mr Bowen has been refused permission to attend this hearing, to find out whether it impinges on his clients' convictions.

For the second part of this investigation click here.