In the early hours of Saturday 2nd March 1991, Anthony Gorman was kicked and punched to death on the streets of King’s Lynn, Norfolk. Nobody has stood trial for his death. The Police stopped looking seventeen years ago, so who cares? Well I do for one. The case files are today still stacked up on the floor in the corner of my living room. I intended to write a book or do a screen play about that gruesome night hoping to shed light on the cause of his death. Why me, that’s simple I was one of 4 people originally charged with his murder although I never stood trial for it. Nobody did, why? I’ll let you decide
I don’t know how the law stands on printing extracts from police statements but I’ll worry about that later, should it become a problem. Please understand how time consuming this is, so bare with me I will write when I can.
It will become obvious I have no experience in writing anything of this magnitude. My last literary piece would have been about John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men” for my CSE English exam 30 years ago. Excuse me if I go off in tangents but my brain works a damn sight faster than I can type.
On the 1st March 1991 I was a doorman at the Cellar Bar in King’s Lynn, I had been on and off for about 3 years, at various pubs and clubs in and around town. I got into it by chance. I was a serving member of the Royal Air Force, married with a 2 year old Daughter. My wife had taken a job as cashier at a nightclub that was opening; they said they were looking for Door staff. I applied and got the job. It was great, £50 a night in my back pocket no questions asked. The taxman wouldn’t need to know. Soon I was doing 5 nights a week they even paid me £50 for the under 18’s disco, I was loving it. With all this money coming in my wife didn’t need to work and could concentrate on looking after our daughter, it would be 2 years before my son was born. I had served 10 years for Queen and country with 3 years in Germany and a 4 months tour in the Falklands. The only action I saw was in the NAAFI on a Saturday night fighting the Army and Navy.
My wife and I had spoken often about me getting out of the Air Force; I wanted my Daughter to go through school with the same friends. Unlike me, I went to 9 different schools, always having to move because of my dad’s job. He was a shipping agent and we moved from Hull where I was born to Middlesborough then Grimsby and finally just after I had left school to Liverpool. I wanted better for my little girl so I applied to buy myself out of the RAF. The money from the door work was about the same as I was getting in the RAF. My discharge came through and I enrolled on a city and guilds course to learn bricklaying. The door work enabled me to do that.
Prior to 1991 I had had several run ins with the Police usually over fighting, I didn’t hate them I actually got a kick out of pitting my wits against them in the courtroom. The funny thing was I won all but one of our little battles in court and was found not guilty. I knew how much that pissed them off but to me at that time it was a game. I never envisaged all out war, with them eventually dropping an atom bomb on me.
An incident that really pissed the Police off occurred a couple of months before Tony Gorman’s murder. A friend of mine had been seeing a girl while her boyfriend was in prison. Needless to say it didn’t go down to well when the boyfriend found out. So when he got home leave he apparently paid a couple of idiots to give my mate a pasting. He told my friend that even though he was in prison he could still get to him. The Police were called and the bloke was arrested and put in the Police cells waiting to go back to Norwich nick. I wasn’t very happy when I heard about it later that day so I went to the Police station and told them I was the son of the prisoner they had in custody. They let me in for a visit and soon I found myself face to face with a bloke I didn’t even know. After I had finished what I went to do I told him that even though he was in prison I could still get to him. I calmly walked out of the station and on my way. I was later contacted by the Police about this incident as the prisoner had made a complaint but I denied any knowledge. They didn’t pursue it very hard as it would have only made them look incompetent.
In 1991 I worked on the door of the Cellar bar in King’s Lynn. During the day I worked as a lorry driver for a firm called BDS. They were builders merchants. I had passed my city and guilds but the housing market was on a steep decline, leading to a crash in house prices. There are some that would try and pin that one on me too. The Cellar Bar was a small venue and as the name suggests was probably at some time the cellar of the building above. To gain entry you had to descend a flight of stairs that had a landing half way down. I had spoken to Tony Gorman and his friend Gary Sewell on a number of occasions prior to the 1st of March. Gary Sewell had told me he was a good friend of my brother in law. They would always come to me for a chat when they first arrived. My impression of them was of been loud, always with a story to tell, a couple of jack the lads trying to impress. Not that much different from most of the lads that came in the club. I never found them to be threatening, yes they might have had the odd argument but that was more to do with lads having a few too many. As far as trouble went I wasn’t aware of any. I always gave them the benefit of the doubt they were mates of my brother in law after all.
I will now give you an abridged version of what happened that night. I will go into it in much more detail when I plough through the statements, the taped interviews and the forensic evidence. As I write this I have to explain I sit here knowing I didn’t do it. So I know what things to question. The Police when conducting their enquiries didn’t have that advantage but if they had started off with at the very least an open mind I’m sure that would have helped them find the killers. Lots of people who remember the case will already have an opinion about who killed Tony Gorman and I’m sure most of them think it was me. I’m not here trying to change that, what I’m trying to do is put in the public domain evidence that was never put before a court. Let’s face it not a great deal of facts were ever put before the magistrates and when they were the case collapsed.
I will start 1st by telling you who I was charged with. Rod Moore, he was also a doorman and a friend of mine working that night. Karl Sxxxxxxn was a friend of mine, and Gary Withers, he was charged several months into the investigation. I didn’t know him. So to the night in question. Very briefly what happened from my point of view was. Forget that I’ll do it like the Police did, which in my opinion is were they went wrong. But as an outline what happened is Tony Gorman got chased from the Tuesday Market Place ( for those who don’t know that’s about 150 yards away from the club) by a group of lads.
I’ve put in a map. The yellow dot is the Cellar Bar, the red route is the route I took after I left the club,the red dot is where I spoke to Robert White ( he was with Gorman that night and was a friend of his ). The blue and white dot is where Gorman was 1st confronted by a group of people, the blue route showing the chase and the blue and black dot showing where he was eventually caught,beat up and later died. It’s important that I put that in early because I expect I will be referring to it quite a bit. Another thing to bear in mind which is important is although somewhere in the region of a couple of hundred statements were taken only 2 people actually saw the fighting. I think about 6 more might have seen the chase. Gary Sewell was with Gorman when 1st approached by the group of lads and his evidence you would think was crucial to solving the murder as he heard the conversation leading up to the chase and had the best view of the culprits. We’ll ignore that for the time been (the Police certainly did ). So instead of taking statements from the Boy and Girl who actually saw the assault the Police chose 1st to interview the staff of the Cellar Bar. I’ll just add that the staff were told to remain together at the club where they discussed together what they thought had happened. They then fell asleep there for several hours before giving statements.
I don’t know how the law stands on printing extracts from police statements but I’ll worry about that later, should it become a problem. Please understand how time consuming this is, so bare with me I will write when I can.
It will become obvious I have no experience in writing anything of this magnitude. My last literary piece would have been about John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men” for my CSE English exam 30 years ago. Excuse me if I go off in tangents but my brain works a damn sight faster than I can type.
On the 1st March 1991 I was a doorman at the Cellar Bar in King’s Lynn, I had been on and off for about 3 years, at various pubs and clubs in and around town. I got into it by chance. I was a serving member of the Royal Air Force, married with a 2 year old Daughter. My wife had taken a job as cashier at a nightclub that was opening; they said they were looking for Door staff. I applied and got the job. It was great, £50 a night in my back pocket no questions asked. The taxman wouldn’t need to know. Soon I was doing 5 nights a week they even paid me £50 for the under 18’s disco, I was loving it. With all this money coming in my wife didn’t need to work and could concentrate on looking after our daughter, it would be 2 years before my son was born. I had served 10 years for Queen and country with 3 years in Germany and a 4 months tour in the Falklands. The only action I saw was in the NAAFI on a Saturday night fighting the Army and Navy.
My wife and I had spoken often about me getting out of the Air Force; I wanted my Daughter to go through school with the same friends. Unlike me, I went to 9 different schools, always having to move because of my dad’s job. He was a shipping agent and we moved from Hull where I was born to Middlesborough then Grimsby and finally just after I had left school to Liverpool. I wanted better for my little girl so I applied to buy myself out of the RAF. The money from the door work was about the same as I was getting in the RAF. My discharge came through and I enrolled on a city and guilds course to learn bricklaying. The door work enabled me to do that.
Prior to 1991 I had had several run ins with the Police usually over fighting, I didn’t hate them I actually got a kick out of pitting my wits against them in the courtroom. The funny thing was I won all but one of our little battles in court and was found not guilty. I knew how much that pissed them off but to me at that time it was a game. I never envisaged all out war, with them eventually dropping an atom bomb on me.
An incident that really pissed the Police off occurred a couple of months before Tony Gorman’s murder. A friend of mine had been seeing a girl while her boyfriend was in prison. Needless to say it didn’t go down to well when the boyfriend found out. So when he got home leave he apparently paid a couple of idiots to give my mate a pasting. He told my friend that even though he was in prison he could still get to him. The Police were called and the bloke was arrested and put in the Police cells waiting to go back to Norwich nick. I wasn’t very happy when I heard about it later that day so I went to the Police station and told them I was the son of the prisoner they had in custody. They let me in for a visit and soon I found myself face to face with a bloke I didn’t even know. After I had finished what I went to do I told him that even though he was in prison I could still get to him. I calmly walked out of the station and on my way. I was later contacted by the Police about this incident as the prisoner had made a complaint but I denied any knowledge. They didn’t pursue it very hard as it would have only made them look incompetent.
In 1991 I worked on the door of the Cellar bar in King’s Lynn. During the day I worked as a lorry driver for a firm called BDS. They were builders merchants. I had passed my city and guilds but the housing market was on a steep decline, leading to a crash in house prices. There are some that would try and pin that one on me too. The Cellar Bar was a small venue and as the name suggests was probably at some time the cellar of the building above. To gain entry you had to descend a flight of stairs that had a landing half way down. I had spoken to Tony Gorman and his friend Gary Sewell on a number of occasions prior to the 1st of March. Gary Sewell had told me he was a good friend of my brother in law. They would always come to me for a chat when they first arrived. My impression of them was of been loud, always with a story to tell, a couple of jack the lads trying to impress. Not that much different from most of the lads that came in the club. I never found them to be threatening, yes they might have had the odd argument but that was more to do with lads having a few too many. As far as trouble went I wasn’t aware of any. I always gave them the benefit of the doubt they were mates of my brother in law after all.
I will now give you an abridged version of what happened that night. I will go into it in much more detail when I plough through the statements, the taped interviews and the forensic evidence. As I write this I have to explain I sit here knowing I didn’t do it. So I know what things to question. The Police when conducting their enquiries didn’t have that advantage but if they had started off with at the very least an open mind I’m sure that would have helped them find the killers. Lots of people who remember the case will already have an opinion about who killed Tony Gorman and I’m sure most of them think it was me. I’m not here trying to change that, what I’m trying to do is put in the public domain evidence that was never put before a court. Let’s face it not a great deal of facts were ever put before the magistrates and when they were the case collapsed.
I will start 1st by telling you who I was charged with. Rod Moore, he was also a doorman and a friend of mine working that night. Karl Sxxxxxxn was a friend of mine, and Gary Withers, he was charged several months into the investigation. I didn’t know him. So to the night in question. Very briefly what happened from my point of view was. Forget that I’ll do it like the Police did, which in my opinion is were they went wrong. But as an outline what happened is Tony Gorman got chased from the Tuesday Market Place ( for those who don’t know that’s about 150 yards away from the club) by a group of lads.
I’ve put in a map. The yellow dot is the Cellar Bar, the red route is the route I took after I left the club,the red dot is where I spoke to Robert White ( he was with Gorman that night and was a friend of his ). The blue and white dot is where Gorman was 1st confronted by a group of people, the blue route showing the chase and the blue and black dot showing where he was eventually caught,beat up and later died. It’s important that I put that in early because I expect I will be referring to it quite a bit. Another thing to bear in mind which is important is although somewhere in the region of a couple of hundred statements were taken only 2 people actually saw the fighting. I think about 6 more might have seen the chase. Gary Sewell was with Gorman when 1st approached by the group of lads and his evidence you would think was crucial to solving the murder as he heard the conversation leading up to the chase and had the best view of the culprits. We’ll ignore that for the time been (the Police certainly did ). So instead of taking statements from the Boy and Girl who actually saw the assault the Police chose 1st to interview the staff of the Cellar Bar. I’ll just add that the staff were told to remain together at the club where they discussed together what they thought had happened. They then fell asleep there for several hours before giving statements.
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