FOR millions of television viewers coming home to the 7.30pm start of Coronation Street has been an essential ritual every Monday and Wednesday for decades.
An alibi based on the indelible time stamp of the ITV soap was even used by a drug smuggler convicted of the controversial 1995 Rettendon Range Rover triple murder case.
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Police inspect Range Rover still containing bodies from 1995 murder case Credit: Andrew Styczynski – The Sun
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The three victims of the ‘Essex Boys’ murders in Rettendon, Patrick ‘Pat’ Tate, Tony Tucker and Craig RolfeCredit: Enterprise
But today The Sun dismantled the Corrie timing that put Micky Steele at home, half an hour after the murders of Essex boys Pat Tate, Tony Tucker and Craig Rolfe 40 miles away.
Defense witness Steele told the trial at the Old Bailey in 1998 that she was in Coronation Street when she and her mother visited him at home on the night of the murders.
It was implied that Steele had been unable to take part in the carnage just before 7pm and had returned home in time for the programme.
But Corrie did not go on air at its usual time on the evening of December 6, 1995, when Tate, 37, Tucker, 38, and 26-year-old Rolfe were executed in a remote, snow-covered Essex country lane.
The program was delayed until 21:20 as the Champions League football match between Blackburn Rovers and Norway’s Rosenborg was broadcast live on ITV.
In that case, Steele and Jack Whomes were found guilty of triple murder.
But their convictions have remained shrouded in doubt ever since, and both continue to protest their innocence.
Splattered with blood
In the latest attempt to clear the names of Steele and Whomes, a team of former Scotland Yard detectives handed the file to the legal watchdog the Criminal Investigations Commission after a three-and-a-half-year investigation.
The team claims Steele, now 80 and still a Category A prisoner at HMP Wakefield, West Yorks, and car mechanic Whomes, who was released last year, are victims of a miscarriage of justice.
Former Detective Chief Inspector Dave McKelvey says: “We have no doubt that Steele and Whomes are innocent.”
At the heart of the case is the disputed evidence of an informant, Darren Nicholls, who claims to have been the killers’ getaway driver.
It was claimed that Steele – known as “Micky Pilot” in reference to his drug smuggling by air – and crack addict Tate had fallen out over a cannabis deal.
Steele is accused of luring the three men to their deaths under the pretense of showing them a location for a future plan to smuggle cocaine by plane.
Nicholls told the Old Bailey how he dropped Whomes off at a farm in Rettendon, a village of fewer than 2,000, before the bloodbath.
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Jack Whomes found guilty of triple murder Credit: Getty
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Micky Steele was also found guilty of the murdersCredit: Collection
Meanwhile, Steele allegedly met Tate, Tucker and Rolfe at a pub in nearby Rayleigh.
According to Nicholls, Whomes, now 61, hid until Rolfe drove a dark blue Range Rover down the street and stopped at a gate that led to the fields.
It was claimed that Steele then got out of the car to open the door as the Whomes emerged from the shadows and shot Rolfe, Tucker and Tate with seven rounds from a shotgun through the open back offside door.
At 6:59 p.m., Whomes called Nicholls from the scene of the murder and allegedly asked him to pick him and Steele up.
Prosecutors argued Tucker, Tate and Rolfe were killed moments earlier, with cellphone evidence showing they were at the crime scene at the time.
The last call any of the three dead men answered on a mobile phone was at 6.44pm, when Tate’s girlfriend Sarah Saunders called.
Nicholls claimed Steele and Whomes were spattered with blood and said Steele jokingly referred to himself as the “angel of death”.
The journey from Rettendon to Steele’s home in Great Bentley, near Colchester, takes around 55 minutes by car.
But Steele claimed he was out with his second wife Jackie Street at the time of the murders and returned to their home at 7.25pm.
Phyllis Stambrook, the sister of Steele’s first wife, and her daughter Gemma told the Old Bailey they visited the couple that night.
Jackie said Phyllis and Gemma arrived while she was talking to Steele’s mother between 7.27pm and 8.17pm.
Gemma said: “The TV was on but apart from Coronation Street I can’t remember what was on.
“Coronation Street had probably already started by the time we walked in and sat down.”
She mentioned three more times during her testimony that the soap opera was playing.
Former Essex Detective Inspector Paul Maleary said: “There is no indication that Gemma was not telling the truth about Coronation Street when she was there.
“But when her evidence was compared with the times given by Steele and Jackie Street, the jury would have got the distinct impression that it was something after 7.30pm.
“After all, the whole country knew that was when Coronation Street started.
“If that were true, Steele would never have been able to get home from Rettendon in time to be cleared.
“But the fact that the program came out much later that night gave him plenty of time to come back.
“It is of enormous importance to the entire case and destroys Steele’s alibi – and with it his claims of innocence.”
The Rettendon murders have spawned a number of theories and rumors about what was behind them.
Among them was that it was revenge for the ecstasy death of 18-year-old Leah Betts, from a pill bought from a dealer that Tucker “licensed” to work at the club where he ran security.
Shoot him in the head
Police were able to discover when supergrass Nicholls spilled the glass after he was arrested for importing cannabis six months after the murders.
He said the origins of the feud between Steele and Tucker, Tate and Rolfe lie in a cannabis smuggling operation gone wrong.
Detectives were given the name “Micky Pilot” very shortly after the murders when Rolfe’s girlfriend told them he had gone to see a man of that name the day he died.
Steele and bodybuilder Tate met in prison while Tate was serving time for armed robbery and Steele was serving nine years for importing cannabis.
Tate also worked on the doors of nightclubs in Essex for Falklands veteran Tucker – a close friend of boxer Nigel Benn – who ran a security company and “licensed” drug dealers in the clubs. Rolfe was his right hand.
After Tate was released from prison 14 months before he and his associates were killed, he tried to resume selling cars. But then he teamed up with Steele to smuggle cannabis by ship from Holland.
The two enjoyed each other’s company and together with their wives went out for meals and drinks.
But relations soured over a botched batch of cannabis, angering their investors, including brothers Billy and Eddie Blundell, underworld figures who put £40,000 into the shipment.
According to Nicholls, Steele gave Tate money to repay the brothers after the Dutch criminals reimbursed themselves for poor quality cannabis.
But it is claimed Tate told the Blundells otherwise and said Steele did not want to return their money – because he had pocketed it himself.
Tate promised to bring Steele to the brothers and, according to Nicholls, told them he would shoot him in the head if he continued to lie about the money.
It is said that the threat was passed on to Steele by Tate’s partner Sarah, who became close to both Steele and Jackie.
Nicholls’ account was challenged in court and he was accused of lying to save his own skin.
But his evidence is supported by friends of the three victims in the film – Essex Boy Murder: Blood and Betrayal, which was released on digital streams this week.
Billy Blundell and one of Tate’s closest friends, car dealer Barry Dorman, both now dead, confirmed details of the cannabis plot that led to the murders.
Retired detective Ivan Dibley, who led the investigation into the Rettendon murders, says in the film that he is certain Steele acted against Tate to “get him first”.
He added: “Sometimes you have to listen to the facts.
“If you listen to the facts, you will see that these characters did what they did and they were punished for it.”
Additional reporting by Grant Rollings.
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Officers inspect Range Rover containing dead bodies of Essex boy Credit: Rex
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