What happened
On the evening of 5 December 1995, Tony Tucker, Pat Tate and Craig Rolfe drove out to a remote farm track at Workhouse Lane, Rettendon, near Chelmsford in Essex. They believed they were going to discuss a robbery. They were wrong.
The three men were shot dead inside a metallic blue Range Rover, registration F424 NPE. Their bodies were discovered the following morning, 6 December 1995, by farmer Peter Theobald and his friend Ken Jiggins. Each man had been shot at close range. The execution had been planned and coordinated.
The victims
- Anthony ‘Tony’ Tucker, 38: leader of a security firm that controlled the doors at nightclubs across Essex. Reputed to be the head of the firm.
- Patrick ‘Pat’ Tate, 37: an amateur bodybuilder from Rochford, recently released from prison and known for his unpredictable violence.
- Craig Anthony Rolfe, 26: the youngest of the trio, the driver, a man with a chaotic upbringing and a hunger to prove himself.
Why
The official line was that the three had fallen out with drug smuggler Michael Steele over a shipment of cannabis from Holland that turned out to be worthless. The trio had a reputation for not paying, for threatening, and for taking what they wanted. Many believed they had pushed the wrong man too far.
Others have pointed to the death of Leah Betts a month earlier, to a long list of enemies Tate and Tucker had made, and to the possibility that someone else entirely pulled the trigger.
The legacy
The Rettendon murders became one of the most written-about gangland killings in British history. They have inspired multiple feature films, including the Rise of the Footsoldier franchise, books by Bernard O’Mahoney and Carlton Leach, and ongoing legal challenges to the convictions that followed.