This statement was made several month before Darren Nicholls was even arrested.
NAME: DONNA LYNN JAGGERS
AGE / DATE OF BIRTH: 26 27101969
Who states:- This statement consisting of 013 pages, each signed by me, is true to the best of my knowledge and belief and I make it knowing that if it is tendered in evidence I shall be liable to prosecution if I have wilfully stated in it anything which I know to be false or do not believe to be true.
DATED: 140396
D L JAGGERS (SIGNED)
I am the common law wife of Craig ROLFE whom had been my partner for seven years. I have been asked about Craig's association with Tony TUCKER and Pat TATE and their involvement with drug dealing, and the circumstances surround their deaths. Craig had been involved with TUCKER for approximately three or four years and was registered as a Director of TUCKER's security company running Nightclub doors.
This was in name only and I know that Craig never had any involvement in running the business. His association started as a result of TUCKER buying drugs from Craig. They then became more involved as time went on and they started doing drugs deals together. In early 000095 Craig was not being very active and was not completing many deals therefore he did not have much money.
He was being promised that a large deal was due which would provide him with plenty of money, in the mean time we were scraping to get by. I later learnt from Craig that a person called Mickey 'The Pilot' who I now know to be called Michael STEELE was a friend of Pat TATE who in turn was a friend of Tony TUCKER. STEELE I understood to be a pilot who brought drugs into the country, and I understood that he had been in prison for it.
Craig told me that STEELE was a ruthless person who really didn't think very much of other people. In early 000095 I was aware that TATE was in prison and I recall TUCKER and one other person, whose details I do not know, running around getting TATE's money together for him to finance the deal. I am fairly sure that John MCCARTHY had some of TATE's money.
Craig told me that this was happening and stated that STEELE was happy to continue bringing it in until they were all millionaires. I can not say when the deal took place but I can say that at that time I witnessed the change over of the drugs. Mickey STEEL drove to Longwood Stables in Dry Street, Basildon, Essex, where TUCKER had two horses. I arrived there with Craig and met Tony who was with his horses.
We waited for Mick to arrive which he did in a blue Toyota RAV4. Although I had remained in our car and I had my back to where Mickey STEELE had parked, I was able to look over my left shoulder towards the rear of his car. I saw STEELE take a large dark coloured kit bag, measuring approximately three feet in length by about twelve to fifteen inches in diameter, from the boot of his car.
By the way he was holding the bag it appeared to be very heavy. He handed it to TUCKER who put it in the boot of our car which was a Vauxhall Senator. Craig then got back into our car and drove to another location. Craig took the holdall out of the boot and took it to a "safe house' where all the drugs were stored. I went into the house with Craig who then placed the bag on the table.
He opened the bag up and I saw that it contained bars of brown cannabis resin which were all individually wrapped in a clear film. I was present when he checked that it was good quality by burning and smelling a sample and then counting the bars. I am unable to say how many bars there were. I have only met Mickey STEELE on a couple of occasions and that was only in passing.
I have not actually spoken to STEELE. On each occasion when I have seen him he has always made me very aware that he does not want me to look at him. The last deal which STEELE carried out for them was approximately two weeks after TATE was released from prison which was at the end of 001095. Craig told me that Mickey STEELE was arranging to bring in sixty thousand pounds worth of cannabis from abroad.
Craig put in seven thousand pounds, TUCKER put in twenty thousand pounds and TATE and a fourth person called Barry DOORMAN were putting in the remainder of the money. A couple of days before the cannabis was collected I went with Craig to TUCKER's home address in Fobbing, Essex, to hand him the seven thousand pounds which was in a Tesco's carrier bag. The money was handed to TUCKER who was in turn going to hand it to STEELE.
We were only at the house for about five minutes and as Craig and I were leaving and walking down the driveway towards our car, I saw Mickey STEELE walking up the driveway towards the house. He passed by us and nodded to Craig. He did not speak or acknowledge myself. STEELE had come from a white car which I believe he had been driving. I can not say what the car was but it was clean and had the appearance of an average family saloon.
There was a second male in the car who had short dark hair and appeared to be a little bit younger than STEELE. He appeared clean shaven but I did not take any further notice. We got into our vehicle which I believe was a Vauxhall Frontera which had been loaned to TATE by Barry DOORMAN, and left. A couple of days later Craig told me that STEELE had been arrested by Customs Officers whilst he was taking his boat from the water.
This was following him dropping the cannabis off at a safe point on the coastline about three miles away. That same day TATE was arrested during the early afternoon having crashed TUCKER's Porsche car in Southend. I was at work and would have finished at 1500 hours that day. Craig picked me up from work and told me what had happened to STEELE. About 1600 hours TUCKER phoned Craig on his mobile phone and told him about his car and what TATE had done to it.
About 1800 hours that day Craig and I drove to Southend Police Station to collect TATE. Once in the vehicle I became aware that TATE already knew about STEELE being arrested. He then used Craig's mobile phone to ring Jackie STEELE. He asked her if everything was 'safe'. I took it that it was as a result of TATE's manner and subsequently what he said to Craig. He said that it was all 'safe', I took this to mean that the drugs had not been found.
On this occasion I did hot know where the meeting between STEELE and the others was to take place but after a couple of days Craig brought his share of the cannabis round to our house in Chafford Hundred. Because the cannabis had already been sold on, the same day Craig and I took it up to the Golders Green area of North London where Craig handed it onto a coloured male called Gary.
No money was exchanged because the cannabis was what's known as 'laid on' Gary for him to sell and then pay Craig. The agreed amount per kilo worked out to be approximately ten thousand pounds for the lot. Already the others had placed their own share with other dealers but very quickly they started receiving phone calls telling them that the cannabis was very poor quality.
I learnt through Craig that TATE and TUCKER were very agitated because STEELE during this time was trying to push the price that he wanted up. In affect this was eating into their personal profit from the deal. They contacted STEELE and told him that they wanted their money back because the cannabis was rubbish. STEELE didn't want to take it back. TATE and TUCKER then started putting real pressure on STEELE to recover the money.
By pressure I mean through intimidation. I can not say exactly what they did, because I do not know, but I recall hearing conversations they had with STEELE on the phone where they were renting and raving at one another and pacing up and down. I understand that STEELE finally agreed to return the cannabis and get their money back for them. TATE in a fit of temper about the whole affair smashed each slab before it was returned.
STEELE had told them that a parcel the same size had been picked up by mistake and that's how the problem had come about. I am not certain but I think that on this occasion STEELE had to collect the cannabis from TUCKER's home address in order to return it. STEELE arranged to hand the money back to them on the continent. He was going to return the goods to his suppliers and then take the money to a pre-arranged location where he was to meet Craig, TUCKER and TATE.
The day they were going to meet coincided with Tony TUCKER's birthday which was the 171100. His girlfriend, Anna, had pre-booked a surprise night in a London hotel prior the trip to collect the money being made. Therefore Tony was not going to go. They wanted a group of people to go over in order that the money could be divided up to bring it back into this country.
Craig asked me to go but I refused because I was not happy about getting involved and didn't want to go. The eventual party consisted of Barry DOORMAN and his wife who went in their own car. Pat TATE and Craig with three girls. Donna GARWOOD, Liz FLETCHER and Gaynor HAYZER. They travelled in the Range Rover and left via Harwich. Craig did tell me where they went to but I can not remember the location or where they stayed.
I know that they stayed overnight in a hotel and were met by Mickey STEELE. I was told that he met TATE and they went into a separate room. They returned the next day with the money. Whilst all this was going on I was told that STEELE was promising TATE that he had a 'big job' lined up for him. Craig told me that STEELE had approached TATE and asked him to nick someone elses gear from them.
I understood that STEELE had been asked by a London based drugs firm to import 30 kilos of Charlie (Cocaine) and I believe that he was going to bring it in by plane from Holland. He had told Pat TATE that he was going to be given fifty thousand pounds as an up front payment to take to Holland and he was going to bring the Charlie back in company with a member of the London firm.
The idea was that Pat TATE and Tony TUCKER would rob the firm of the Charlie when it arrived over here. STEELE had stated that he wanted to share it between them and had told the firm that he was going to land near to Clacton. Craig told me that STEELE was planning to actually land in South Essex but I never knew exactly where this was likely to be. Craig, Tony and Pat had previously obtained a machine gun from a man called Mad Mick BOWMAN and the details of this are subject of a previous statement.
TATE and TUCKER were going to use the gun on the man from the firm in order to take the Charlie. I knew that they had made sure the gun worked but I did not know how far they were planning to go when they robbed the firm. STEELE was going to land the plane and TATE and TUCKER were then going to take the complete load. It was going to be split, eventually, ten kilos each, and was going to be taken to John MCCARTHY.
Craig told me that MCCARTHY was going to pay them nearly one million pounds for the load which was for TATE or TUCKER to divide. Not long after Craig had told me about this he told me that TATE and TUCKER had decided that he was going to drive the load away once it had been taken and go to MCCARTHY'S with it. They had told Craig that they intended to rip STEELE off by cutting 3 kilos of the Cocaine into ten kilos of impure.
This would have resulted in TATE and TUCKER having twenty seven kilos between them. The remaining three kilos was going to be taken to Mick BOWMAN and he was going to cut it for them. I do not know what the arrangements were to get the three kilos to BOWMAN or to get the ten kilos of impure back to STEELE. By this time I was getting very worried by Craig's involvement and told him that I didn't want him have any part in it.
He told me that STEELE didn't know that he was going to be driving and he convinced me that he wasn't as heavily involved as the other two in what was going to happen. He also talked about the money which was likely to be coming their way and how that would enable us to go ahead with whatever plans we wanted. I realised that I wasn't going to be able to talk him out of it and, albeit I really didn't want him to go through with it, I gave up in the end.
I believed that by this he was in too deep. Craig told me that the money had been paid to Mickey STEELE who had taken it to Holland. The weather had changed and there was now snow on the ground. Craig told me this was causing them delay and they were waiting for it to clear. On the day of the murder I was working as normal and was due to finish at 1500 hours. That evening Tony TUCKER and his girlfriend Anna, Craig and I and Pat TATE and a girlfriend named Clare, were all going to the Global Net Cafe restaurant in Romford.
We were going out because they believed they were coming into money and they were going to have a pre-celebration. Graig phoned me at work in the afternoon and told me that Mickey STEELE had contacted Pat TATE and said that he wanted to meet with TATE and TUCKER to go and look at somewhere they could land a light aircraft. Craig mentioned to me that they had been to or were going to, I can't remember which, to the T.G.I. Fridays restaurant at Lakeside. I later found out that this had been TATE, TUCKER, and Craig and a person railed Peter CUTHBERT.
I do not know why they met or what was discussed. I left work at 1500 hours that day and went home. The meal at Romford was booked for 2000 hours. I was busy wrapping Christmas presents when Craig returned home with our daughter Georgie. We were at home together for about an hour and a half. Craig told me that I was to be ready for 1900 hours to go out. He was going with the others to look at the air strip and then would come to collect me.
Craig wanted me to have something new to wear for the evening and took me to the Lakeside shopping centre at 1745 hours. He was driving the Range Rover and left me to go and pick Tony TUCKER up. Craig told me that he was going because he didn't want Tony to be in a position to say that he hadn't had any part in the arranging. I also understood that Craig was going to collect Tony TUCKER from his home and they were going to meet TATE and STEELE later. I did not have contact from Craig, TATE or TUCKER after this point.
D L JAGGERS SIGNED STATEMENT
TAKEN PLACE:
TIME:
DATE: 140396
WITNESS TO SIGNATURE:
OFFICERS SIGNATURE:
