watch in horror as a semi-automatic pistol appeared in the nearside window and let off two shots. One struck him in the arm, it looked like the other missed its mark, and the car sped off into the distance.
Tough guys are two a penny in the biker world but Bear undoubtedly stood out from the crowd. A Vietnam veteran, he had not only been awarded the Purple Heart (a decoration given to soldiers wounded in combat) on two separate occasions but had also won a Bronze Star for heroism. At the age of sixty-one, he’d lost none of his youthful vigour. Pullingover to the side of the freeway, he set his heavy Harley Davidson on its side stand and only then revealed that the second bullet had hit him square in the chest. He collapsed and bled to death on the spot in a matter of minutes.
Carrol was so traumatised by what he had seen that when the emergency services arrived, he forgot all about the code of silence that prohibits members of the Angels from discussing anything to do with the club with ‘citizens’ – non club members. With tears welling in his eyes at the sight of his fallen friend, he told the paramedics that the four men in the SUV had all been wearing jackets that identified them as members of the Outlaws Motorcycle Club – the Angels’ long-standing rivals.
By 2006, the Hell’s Angels and the Outlaws had been in a bitter and increasingly violent feud with one another for over thirty years and both had suffered hundreds of casualties. Mariani’s death had been the direct result of a new edict issued by Jack Rosga, national president of the Outlaws, for members of his club to seek out and murder Hell’s Angels. It was a call that echoed around the world.
On 12th August 2007, London Hell’s Angel Gerry Tobin was shot dead in broad daylight as he drove down the M40 at around ninety miles an hour. In circumstances that were almost identical to the attack on Mariani, two shots were fired from a green car. The first bullet smashed through the metal mudguard at the back of Tobin’s Harley Davidson and skirted through his rear wheel; the second skimmed the base of the biker’s helmet and lodged in his skull, killing him instantly.
His assassins were quickly identified as members of the Outlaws and within weeks, seven members of the southWarwickshire chapter had been charged with his murder. The men responsible had no personal animosity for Mr Tobin and had never met him. As prosecutor Timothy Raggatt QC told the jury, ‘this was a man who was targeted not because of who he was, but because of what he was. In one sense, Gerry Tobin was a random victim.’
So far as the general public were concerned, this was the first time the global conflict between the Outlaws MC and the Hell’s Angels had reached the UK. The reality was very different. And in truth, the seeds for Gerry Tobin’s death had been sewn some twenty-one years earlier …
PART ONE
GENESIS
MAYHEM IN THE MIDLANDS
14th May 1986
Daniel ‘Snake Dog’ Boone had been a full member of the Warwickshire-based Pagans MC for a little less than a month when he got his first opportunity to kill for the club. Brandishing a sawn-off Webley 12-gauge shotgun and hell-bent on taking the ultimate revenge, he joined a five-man, early morning raiding party that smashed its way into the home of a leading figure from a rival clan. The group stormed up the cluttered staircase and made their way to the master bedroom where they found their prey sound asleep, alongside his girlfriend.
The terrified woman was dragged off the mattress, thrown into a corner of the room, gagged and then covered with the quilt so she would not have to witness the events that were to follow. While three of the team immobilised their target against the bedstead, Boone forced the barrel of the gun deep into the man’s mouth and began to squeeze the trigger.
The trouble had started a week or so earlier when it emerged that a man living on the edge of the area the Pagans considered to be
Tough guys are two a penny in the biker world but Bear undoubtedly stood out from the crowd. A Vietnam veteran, he had not only been awarded the Purple Heart (a decoration given to soldiers wounded in combat) on two separate occasions but had also won a Bronze Star for heroism. At the age of sixty-one, he’d lost none of his youthful vigour. Pullingover to the side of the freeway, he set his heavy Harley Davidson on its side stand and only then revealed that the second bullet had hit him square in the chest. He collapsed and bled to death on the spot in a matter of minutes.
Carrol was so traumatised by what he had seen that when the emergency services arrived, he forgot all about the code of silence that prohibits members of the Angels from discussing anything to do with the club with ‘citizens’ – non club members. With tears welling in his eyes at the sight of his fallen friend, he told the paramedics that the four men in the SUV had all been wearing jackets that identified them as members of the Outlaws Motorcycle Club – the Angels’ long-standing rivals.
By 2006, the Hell’s Angels and the Outlaws had been in a bitter and increasingly violent feud with one another for over thirty years and both had suffered hundreds of casualties. Mariani’s death had been the direct result of a new edict issued by Jack Rosga, national president of the Outlaws, for members of his club to seek out and murder Hell’s Angels. It was a call that echoed around the world.
On 12th August 2007, London Hell’s Angel Gerry Tobin was shot dead in broad daylight as he drove down the M40 at around ninety miles an hour. In circumstances that were almost identical to the attack on Mariani, two shots were fired from a green car. The first bullet smashed through the metal mudguard at the back of Tobin’s Harley Davidson and skirted through his rear wheel; the second skimmed the base of the biker’s helmet and lodged in his skull, killing him instantly.
His assassins were quickly identified as members of the Outlaws and within weeks, seven members of the southWarwickshire chapter had been charged with his murder. The men responsible had no personal animosity for Mr Tobin and had never met him. As prosecutor Timothy Raggatt QC told the jury, ‘this was a man who was targeted not because of who he was, but because of what he was. In one sense, Gerry Tobin was a random victim.’
So far as the general public were concerned, this was the first time the global conflict between the Outlaws MC and the Hell’s Angels had reached the UK. The reality was very different. And in truth, the seeds for Gerry Tobin’s death had been sewn some twenty-one years earlier …
PART ONE
GENESIS
MAYHEM IN THE MIDLANDS
14th May 1986
Daniel ‘Snake Dog’ Boone had been a full member of the Warwickshire-based Pagans MC for a little less than a month when he got his first opportunity to kill for the club. Brandishing a sawn-off Webley 12-gauge shotgun and hell-bent on taking the ultimate revenge, he joined a five-man, early morning raiding party that smashed its way into the home of a leading figure from a rival clan. The group stormed up the cluttered staircase and made their way to the master bedroom where they found their prey sound asleep, alongside his girlfriend.
The terrified woman was dragged off the mattress, thrown into a corner of the room, gagged and then covered with the quilt so she would not have to witness the events that were to follow. While three of the team immobilised their target against the bedstead, Boone forced the barrel of the gun deep into the man’s mouth and began to squeeze the trigger.
The trouble had started a week or so earlier when it emerged that a man living on the edge of the area the Pagans considered to be
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