Who he is
Darren Nicholls was a small-time drug smuggler from Braintree, Essex. He had worked with Michael Steele importing cannabis from Holland through the early 1990s. When the police caught him, he was facing serious time of his own.
The deal
Nicholls agreed to give evidence against Steele and Whomes in exchange for a reduced sentence on his own charges and entry into a witness protection programme. He claimed that Steele and Whomes had told him directly that they had committed the Rettendon murders.
The case
Nicholls’ testimony was the centrepiece of the prosecution case. His description of Steele’s account of the killings, combined with the mobile phone records placing Steele and Whomes in the area, was enough for the jury to convict.
But Nicholls was also an admitted drug smuggler, a man who had every reason to say what the police wanted to hear, and his testimony has been picked apart in every appeal that has followed.
After the trial
Nicholls was given a new identity and a new life under witness protection. He co-authored a book about the case in 2000. His current whereabouts are not public. For many of those who have followed the case, the question of whether Nicholls told the truth – and whether his evidence was enough to convict on its own – remains the central question of the Rettendon case.