Blood and Guilt

By David Burton

He remained a myth throughout his life – almost a horror story. To many just a rumour, and to others, UK’s most feared gangster!

Nobody knew him. Now it was his turn to tell his story and expose several truths regarding organised crime and corruption.

But how much can he reveal – how much can we believe?

A life of blood, fear and regret compiled with a search for understanding and empathy. Is he looking for forgiveness? Or does he only have a tale to tell?

We’ve all read about villains – hard men. It has captivated us, shocked us and in some cases inspired us, but in this book, Paul Reddy looks to educate and inform us, and to a lesser extent, looks to entertain us too.

The shocking story of Britain's most infamous gangster in his own words!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Jul 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9781398486478

David Burton

David Burton is an American writer living in sunny Southern California. He traveled by motorcycle through Mexico, US, Canada and Alaska. From motorcycles he turned to the ocean, building and sailing his own boats to Mexico, Tahiti, Hawaii, and through the Panama Canal to Florida. He spent a lot of time reading while on the water, so he decided to write books he would have wanted to read at sea.Having swallowed the anchor he now mops floors and collects trash for money, writes for a living, and has become a (temporarily?) unrequited sailor.

Book preview

About the Author

David Burton has lived in County Durham all of his life and was schooled and educated there also. He has a passion and desire for stories and storytelling. From reading to films and later to writing. A desire to turn the most simplistic situation and character into a tale; to create heroes and villains from the ordinary. David still regards himself as being in continuous education.

Dedication

For all of those who believe in the truth and looked to make the streets a safer place.

Copyright Information ©

David Burton 2023

The right of David Burton to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781398442634 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781398486478 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2023

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

1 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5AA

Acknowledgement

I’d like to thank Austin Macauley Publishers for providing me with this opportunity.

I’d also like to thank those who believe in me; my mum and dad along with Peter, Jacqueline, Joseph and Ellie.

I often take time to stop and to think about other people; other people, who have suffered such unimaginable loss and heartache. Something I know that I couldn’t deal with. I only hope that I could never cause such a tragedy. For, in my experience, I’ve always been able to see the light at the end of the tunnel and it’s always been something to cling on to in the years and months that I’ve spent in prison. I mean, which convict hasn’t at least tried to convince themself that they will ‘go straight’ or ‘toe the line’, and even if they aren’t able to do so, the possibility is always, or nearly always, there for them. Not to have a chance to regain your life has always been a notion which has terrified me. Some people suffer occurrences which makes a normal life impossible to live. On the other hand, I do feel that some people deserve everything that they get, and possibly more! I do believe in giving people a second chance, as long as they understand that any mistakes that have been made, must be paid for.

My name is Paul Reddy and I was born a good few years ago in a place not too far from where I live now. I come from an Irish background, as my grandfather was a Dubliner, and you may have heard of me, or you may not know me at all. I have had a fairly comfortable and stress-free childhood, during which I was picked on only a little, simply for being quite short and quite quiet. It was nothing really! The only major tragedy that I was to suffer as a boy was the unfortunate death of a pet hamster, Hannibal. Although, that was a traumatic affair. They do say that your school days are the best days of your life, but to me that just wasn’t the case. It’s not that I didn’t particularly enjoy them; I’ve just preferred my current life since then, but each to their own. Some people never become happier or achieve fulfilment in their adult lives, so they spend all of their time, or even most of it, reminiscing about the past. Personally, I feel now that I’m big enough and strong enough to deal with anything, and I mean anything; whereas, as a child, I couldn’t really cope with an issue or a set-back, no matter how small or trivial. You could call it growing up; and I’ll emphasise the word ‘growing’. One thing that I do recall from my childhood is seeing drunken violence close up; not domestically, but virtually on my doorstep. I would play football or cricket on a green near a pub about half a mile from my home, and me and my friends often saw people stagger out of the bar, across the green, totally paralytic and barely able to walk, and it was something I could never understand. What was the point in becoming in that state, completely losing control. So many times, I would also witness violence, often sickening violence, before they would even reach the green. People punching, biting and headbutting each other. People being struck with blunt instruments and broken bottles. I even witnessed a fatal stabbing on one occasion which led to my first encounter with the police, but only as a witness. These sightings and experiences only caused my parents to really worry about me playing out after a certain time, but after a while, it became normal to me and my friends and we had little or even no fear of these people and these incidents, because we knew that they had no intention to harm us or even bother us.

A little later in life, I experienced minor bullying at school, largely due to the fact that I wasn’t particularly tall or broad, and wasn’t a noisy kid. Although it was mainly just harassment. I preferred to just keep myself to myself, and other than a very few chosen friends, didn’t associate with too many people. Some people saw me as ignorant, so I had to endure a mild form of bullying – nothing I couldn’t handle, and after a while, I became immune and almost amused by it. My main concern was seeing people getting bullied who didn’t deserve it, which I suppose is everyone – and people who couldn’t handle it. I mean people at school, for whom it really became a problem. Even at a young age, I thought that this was very unfair and felt that I should really be doing something about it. This was the early development of my protective gene.

This protective gene was the main thing that developed me as a person and led me on the path that I was to follow in my early to mid-teenage years. One incident in particular, that I witnessed at the age of twelve, was the bullying and humiliation of a fat kid I knew, called Robert Dewhurst. Robert was a sitting duck for these people, because of his weight issues and bad skin. Nor was he the brightest kid in class. Poor Robert, what chance did he have! One day, walking home on his own from school, two rough kids by the names of, well, let’s just say ‘Andy and Brian’, decided to capture him and lead him down toward the local river. They proceeded to pin him down on all fours and by grabbing the back of his neck, they forcibly dipped his head into the river. They made sure that an audience gathered to watch and laugh at him. They didn’t inflict any actual harm on him, so he had no physical evidence to ‘grass’ on them; and even if he had, it would have just made matters worse. When I heard of this incident, I felt instant anger towards ‘Andy and Brian’, along with sympathy for Robert. The two people involved had a few unpleasant words to say about me when I was a year or two younger, but it was nothing that I was concerned about.

I and a close friend, Pete Tanner, tried to console Robert and convince him that this bullying wouldn’t last, but he just wouldn’t believe us so we felt obliged to do something about it. Now, Pete came from a fairly tough family. His upbringing was comfortable, but his dad had been a very good amateur boxer and his elder brother, Dave, had been in and out of trouble, and later joined the army. Pete could take care of himself but had never really had the chance to prove it. Like myself, he had kept himself to himself during his early school years, but it seemed after the incident with Robert Dewhurst, Pete was both ready and willing to show people that big brother Dave wasn’t the only Tanner that could make a name for himself. Looking back now, I often regret following Pete to confront ‘Andy and Brian’ behind the school gymnasium that afternoon. The bullying of Robert had continued for a few more weeks following the river incident, as the two cowards involved had realised that they could get away with it. Or so they thought! I just wonder how my life would have turned out if I had turned a blind eye to the bullying or maybe just informed someone about them. I couldn’t have done either. My actions, or our actions, weren’t ideal or perfect, but I felt at the time that they were correct and I still do. We caught up with them, having a smoke behind the gymnasium, once again thinking that they were big, and decided to ask them why they chose to pick on poor Robert. Neither coward was able to provide an answer other than a mumble or a stutter, so Pete continued to interrogate the pair. Why don’t you pick on me, eh? he asked. Or even Paul like you used to, years ago. All they could manage for a response was ‘Dunno’ a couple of times. Pete grinned. He grabbed the cigarette out of the hand of Andy, and stubbed the still-lit ‘tab’ out just beneath his eye. I and Brian just looked on, almost in disbelief; and Brian, unsurprisingly, dropped his cigarette immediately. I’d never seen Pete act like that before or show any inclination to do so, but I could tell that he enjoyed it. Enjoyed the control, and to be honest, I enjoyed the incident too and the control that we both had that day. I’m not about to claim that two wrongs actually do make a right, or that I or Pete were even better than the other bullies, but I do feel that we were within our rights to do what we did and I don’t regret it. Some of our actions or behaviours, later on in life, however, were deeply regrettable, which I am very ashamed of.

When I was in my teens, I enjoyed playing football and rugby immensely. Unfortunately, these days I rarely get the chance. I always felt that I was pretty good at both, especially football, but in reality, there were always better players at school. It wasn’t until I turned sixteen that I decided to join a boxing club, along with Pete of course, and enjoyed being involved in that sport a whole lot more, despite the size disadvantage. I took that decision because there was a risk of getting hurt; I mean ‘really hurt’, and I could get the chance to hurt other people too; people whom I saw as an enemy. I continued to box until my early twenties and I feel that I became really good, almost as good as Pete, and often wondered if I could have taken it further, but I didn’t. Oh, what could have been!

Living at home was always comfortable for me as both of my parents had decent jobs. My dad was a civil servant and my mum was a school teacher. Nothing exciting, but steady and definitely respectable, and it allowed me and my older brother, David, to have a good and enjoyable up­ bringing. David was five years older than me so, although we were close, we didn’t spend a massive amount of time together when we we’re young, but became much closer when I reached my teens. When I was sixteen and David was twenty-one, he and his girlfriend had a baby boy, Liam. When I first heard about the pregnancy, I must admit that I was being a little bit sceptical and unsure, and I wasn’t as excited as the rest of the family were; I thought he was too young for parenthood, and I was worried that I would lose my big brother and my mate. Because of this, I was fearful that I might even resent the child when he was born and keep my distance. I should not have worried. As soon as I saw young Liam for the very first time, I was hooked on him. I worshipped the ground he lay, crawled and walked on, throughout his early years. I would have done anything for him, I mean ‘anything’ and I still would. I wanted to be his chief protector, even ahead of his mum and dad. As soon as he was born, I was getting ready for war.

I try not to be too cynical when I look at the world today. I understand change and the need for it, and I actually quite like it. It’s impossible not to look back at my schooldays and reflect on some good, bad and indifferent times; but, mainly, different times. Particularly, being victimised during