A little bit more

With the £100 fine came a posting to RAF Marham, a little village in the middle of nowhere. King’s Lynn was about 13 miles away a market town I’d never heard of. Within 3 months I had met the girl that would become my wife, Sally Thomson. I would often stay at Sally’s house at weekends. Usually when I went to work on a Monday morning I would hear stories from my mates about how they got jumped in King’s Lynn on the Saturday night whilst waiting for the bus back to camp. They’d all go into town on the RAF bus get pissed and while they waited for the transport back to base a local gang called the Wildcats would jump them. This was a regular feature on a Saturday night, so I came up with the idea of instead of them getting pissed and then getting jumped. I would go into town with them and they could point the gang out to me and we’d have the fight early on before everyone was too legless to do anything. The evening went very well and none of us ended up with the usual black eyes and sore heads. One nil to me. Unfortunately they scored an equaliser the following week. I was out with my girlfriend and my mate and was jumped by the Wildcats outside the Globe hotel. I don’t know how many there was but we gave a pretty good account of ourselves, he ended up with a broken jaw, I needed stitches in my head. Let the battle commence. I then took it upon myself to seek out the pussy cats usually with a pair of rice flails in hand. Culminating in my first appearance in the Magistrates Court, one of the cats had been following me around the town. He ended up going through the bread shop window opposite Sainsbury’s. I remember the Station Warrant Officer ringing me and saying “if you’ve got anything in your room you shouldn’t have got rid of it”. Out went the trungeon the pick axe handle and of course the Rice Flails, just before the Police van arrived to take me on a journey into town. Along with my £100 fine for carrying an offensive weapon, which I pleaded guilty too, I also got something else that the Police wouldn’t forget a reputation. I wasn’t going to be messed with. Isaac Newton said “for every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction”. Well Isaac Newton hadn’t heard of me. peter newton certainly had the copper investigating the murder, I don’t know if they were related if they were it was Isaac who had all the brains. peter was a member of the Keystone Cops (King’s Lynn) branch. Over the next few years I would be in Crown Court a number of times with a couple of appearances at the Magistrates. With every not guilty verdict I was just making things worse for myself. Because each time the Police would try that bit harder to secure a guilty verdict. Two cases stand out in particular. The first involved a group of RAF Policemen who were playing up at Manhattans. I and another doorman had asked them to leave which they were doing but very slowly they were arguing their case like most people do, then another doorman came up the stairs (he shall remain nameless) he said “either get down the stairs or I’ll knock you down”, one lad in particular kept remonstrating and the next thing he was knocked out cold. There was no need for it but hey it happened. The shock came later when he named me as the assailant. I was hardly going to punch an RAF Policeman, especially when I was still a serving member of the RAF myself. As I wouldn’t name the person responsible I found myself making another Crown Court appearance. Fortunately for me the other doorman went to my Solicitors and said that although he wouldn’t give evidence in my defence he admitted he was responsible for the assault. Three days into my trial this information was conveyed to the Judge “in chambers” and the trial was stopped. The judge made a comment that if the CPS were to continue with the prosecution he wouldn’t be able to hear it. So imagine my surprise when in fact they did continue with the case and low and behold it was the same Judge. It didn’t go down too well with him when after a couple of days it was my turn to give evidence and I reminded him of what he had said at the first trial. He called for an adjournment so he could read the transcripts of the previous trial. After several hours I was proved correct and again he had to stop the trial. The comments he made this time probably prevented the CPS from pursuing the case. I didn’t hear anymore about it.
The next case I was involved in also occurred at Manhattan’s. Let me give you a brief outline. One night a mate came up to me and asked if I could get a £10 wrap of speed for a friend of his. I went and asked someone who I knew took it. He gave it to me and I passed it on to my friend, who I presume passed it on to his friend, I didn’t think anymore of it. Shock horror nearly 3 months later I’m up the club and it’s the 1st time I’d been up there when I wasn’t working and a load of Policeman come up to me and arrest me for supplying drugs. I didn’t know what they were talking about. It soon sank in they are talking about this 1 £10 wrap. I soon find myself in court with about 8 other people. This was in the day when Philip Charnley prosecuted “high profile” cases (not anymore hey Phil). Anyway unbeknown to me and presumably the other 8 the USAF Police were trying to find out where their servicemen were getting drugs from. They set up an operation where they would use agent provocateurs to buy drugs in the club. Hence my arrest for the wrap. We were all found guilty and got varying punishments. I told the others I wouldn’t be appealing, I didn’t want to encourage any of them to as I thought collectively it would spoil my chances. But I did in fact appeal; the case went to Norwich Crown Court some months later. There was a lot of trouble bringing 2 of the Yanks back to England from the States. I was informed that should I lose my appeal, costs would be awarded against me which would run into thousands. Fortunately the Judge conceded that the USAF Policeman although acting in good faith could have been mistaken due to the lighting conditions the overcrowding etc. I won my appeal and the Police got another smack in the face courtesy of yours truly. Are you now beginning to understand why the Police had it in for me?