Bernard O'Mahoney
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Patrick Bernard O'Mahoney (born 15th March 1960 in Dunstable, Bedfordshire, England) is an English born crime author of Irish descent.
Contents |
[edit] Life
Bernard O'Mahoney currently resides in Harborne, Birmingham, West Midlands. He has three children, Adrian, Vinney and Karis. In July 2004 he married 26-year-old Emma Elizabeth Turner, but she died less than five months later from Heart Failure resulting from a common flu virus.
[edit] Works
[edit] Soldier of the Queen
O'Mahoney, born in Wolverhampton, England, of Irish parents, was introduced to violence at an early age in the form of a brutal father.
The early part of the book traces his childhood and youth and the inevitable grudge against a society where other people were seen to grow up in relatively happy families.
He joined the army to avoid going to prison, and contrary to his expectations, made an early appearance in Northern Ireland. No lover of the military life, he was sufficiently detached from the bigots with whom he came into contact to see both sides of the conflict.
At the same time, though, he intended to survive his tour of duty in one piece. And he did so, for, as he says, "natural born hooligans" make the best soldiers.
The main part of the book offers an account of the everyday life of a squaddie in Northern Ireland 20 years ago.
[edit] Hateland
Only a month after his arrest for planting bombs which killed three people and mutilated dozens of others in London in 1999, Nazi nailbomber David Copeland began a passionate correspondence with a delightful young English rose called Patsy. As he awaited trial, Copeland bombarded Patsy with letters detailing his disturbed background, crackpot beliefs and most intimate feelings. Through letters alone, he fell madly in love with his tender-hearted penfriend.
But Copeland wasn't writing to the petite 20-year-old blonde of his imagination. His 'sweetheart' was in fact a burly 40-year-old nightclub bouncer called Bernard O'Mahoney, who in the past had used the same means to coax confessions from two child-killers. O'Mahoney's earlier hoaxes helped secure life sentences for these murderers and so too did his correspondence with Copeland when the letters surfaced at the nailbomber's Old Bailey trial.
But the extraordinary tale of how O'Mahoney snared Copeland is only a small part of Hateland's larger, more remarkable story. For the book is primarily the narrative of O'Mahoney's own gradual transition from Nazi thug to Nazi opponent. It marks his public renunciation of the hate-filled world he left behind and of the racist misfit he once was.
In Hateland, O'Mahoney writes with unblinking honesty about the violence he inflicted upon others, and that which he was subjected to, during his time as a foot soldier of fascism. His frank analysis of his background, motivation and actions produces a disturbing self-portrait that offers a chilling but often darkly comic insight into many of the strange individuals who constitute Britain's fascist movement.
Gradually disillusioned and ashamed - partly as a result of the unexpected bonds he formed with black and Asian friends - O'Mahoney's decisive break with his Nazi past comes when he infiltrates and exposes the obsessively secretive British chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. This episode contains the mixture of grim farce, twisted fantasy and psychotic violence that Hateland will lay bare as the hallmark of everything associated with Britain's Nazis.
[edit] Wannabe In My Gang
"Kray gang boss" Tony Lambrianou - who served a life sentence for the brutal murder of Jack "the hat" McVitie - has threatened to "kill him by smashing a hammer through his head".
"Dodgy" Dave Courtney, who claims to have murdered two gangland rivals, tried "‘to put him out of his misery", and "the most dangerous man in the country", John "Gaffer" Rollinson, has vowed to kill him "when he finds him."
But Bernard O'Mahoney, one time friend of the notorious Kray Brothers and former key member of the Essex Boys Firm, isn't concerned about their boastful threats because he knows the truth about the wannabe gangsters who have built their "reputation" on fantasy gleaned from Hollywood movies and "true" crime books written by their heroes.
This story is of a journey, a journey that spans two decades and involves the most infamous names and crimes in British history. It gives a unique insight into the Kray brothers "Firm" whose public image is a far cry from the truth.
Wannabe also reveals what happened to the remaining members of the Essex Boys Firm following the death of Ecstasy victim Leah Betts and the murder of three of its leaders, who were found in their blood spattered Range Rover one winters evening.
For the first time ever, O'Mahoney will expose the gangland myths that have made legends of those who claim to be responsible for mayhem and murder. He reveals the sordid secret of one of Britain’s most infamous gangsters and tells the truth about the impostors who make a living selling stories and writing books about events that have never even happened.
[edit] Flowers in Gods Garden
Focuses on some of the most high profile child murders in modern Britain - including, Sarah Payne, Holly Wells, Jessica Chapman, Hartlepool toddler Rosie Palmer at the hands of Shaun Armstrong and Yorkshire schoolboy Paul Pearson at the hands of Richard Blenkey. O'Mahoney used various pseudonyms to write to all of the killers while they were on remand. During their correspondence with O'Mahoney, Armstrong and Blenkey, who had pleaded their innocence to police, confessed to their crimes. Armstrong also revealed that he was planning to feign a mental illness in the hope of being convicted of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. O'Mahoney gave Armstrong and Blenkey's written confessions to the police and when confronted, both pleaded guilty to murder. Both were sentenced to life imprisonment. In September 2001, Armstrong was granted legal aid to pursue a £15,000 damages claim against O'Mahoney, but later dropped his case.
[edit] Essex Boys
"Violence is a messy business". Bernard O'Mahoney's words don't do justice to the casual brutality that litters his side of the Rettendon murders story.
And justice, as opposed to man-made law, is his pre-occupation throughout. Standing toe-to-toe with Tony Thompson's account, Bloggs 19, what drives O'Mahoney's uneasy narrative is the belief that the two men jailed for the murder of three Firm members are innocent.
One would be tempted to say that hoodlums assassinating hoodlums is itself a form of natural justice, and that Mick Steele and Jack Whomes were hardly angels, but that panders to the vengeful amorality endemic in that world.
O'Mahoney was head doorman at Raquels nightclub in Basildon, where the ecstasy tablet was procured which killed Leah Betts. The dead girl's father holds O'Mahoney primarily responsible for her death, as he was aware of the drug dealing in the club.
The first edition of this book, called "So This Is Ecstasy?", was initially withdrawn after Paul Betts objected to the use of the now-famous image of Leah on a life-support machine. Leah is one of the "victims" to whom the book is dedicated, while O'Mahoney's coldly staring eyes now fix you from the cover
Essex Boys - The New Generation Published Summer 2007
The story of the Essex ganglands and the ruthless men who took control of it after the murders of the original Essex Boys firm at Rettendon in 1995. Based in Southend, this younger but more violent gang committed murder, shot rivals in their homes and worked hand in hand with corrupt police officers in order to ensure their drug importation business operated without hindrance.
By 2006, this new firm of gangsters had, like their predecessors fell victim to a web of deceit and violence that left some members on the witness protection programme, others in jail and the more unfortunate lying in an early grave.
[edit] The Dream Solution
I hate Alison, the unwashed bitch. My Dream solution would be for Alison to disappear as if she never existed and then maybe I could give everything to the man I love.
These words of hate scribbled in a diary helped convict sisters Michelle and Lisa Taylor of the savage murder of newly wed Alison Shaughnessy.
Alison had been stabbed 54 times during a frenzied attack in her own home. At their sensational trial the prosecution alleged that 21-year-old Michelle Taylor who had been having an affair with Alison's husband - had murdered Alison in a jealous rage and that she was aided in her brutal attack by her 18-year-old sister Lisa.
The case was reported in the tabloid press under lurid headlines such as Love Crazy Mistress Butchered Rival Wife. The jury found the Taylor sisters guilty of murder Incredibly, having served less than one year of their sentences, the Taylor sisters were freed thanks in part to an exhaustive campaign by Bernard O'Mahoney.
Bernard, having witnessed their trial, was convinced that a major miscarriage of justice had occurred and with his help their appeal was successful. Following their release O'Mahoney sat down with the sisters to write a book about their ordeal. It was at this time that he and Michelle Taylor began a passionate affair.
He first became suspicious when she began behaving towards him in the obsessive way the prosecution alleged she had behaved towards her former lover, Alison's husband.
As O'Mahoney tried to extricate himself from the affair he stumbled across an incriminating letter that could mean only one thing: Michelle Taylor was guilty of Alison's murder. Following a heated confrontation she finally broke down and confessed her guilt.
The sisters fought for years in the High Court to gag O'Mahoney. But in a legal battle almost as dramatic as the one that saw the sisters freed, O'Mahoney won the case. The Dream Solution tells the story of his two crusades - the first to prove the sisters' innocence, the second to be allowed to tell the world of their guilt.
At a time when a series of high-profile cases have undermined public confidence in the judicial system, this book will provide incontrovertible proof of a different sort of miscarriage of justice - one in which the guilty have been set free.
Wild Thing: The True Story of Britain's One and Only Guvnor Lew Yates and Bernard O'Mahoney 2 Aug 2007
Synopsis
Everybody in the unlicensed fight game knows that only one man has the honour of being titled 'Guvnor' - and that man is Lew 'Wild Thing' Yates. Yates began boxing at the age of six and as an adult he was ruthless in pursuit of his dream of becoming world heavyweight champion. But when his licence was revoked following an assault on a referee, Yates turned to the murky world of unlicensed boxing.
By day, Yates trained hard in order to become king of the unlicensed ring. By night, he dealt with the gangsters and drug dealers foolish enough to take him on in the nightclubs where he worked. While he survived being shot at and stabbed, two of his associates were not so lucky.
Both were executed, shot through the head at close range. Their murders remain unsolved but Yates now imparts controversial information about the assassins and reveals why both men were killed. "Wild Thing" documents how Yates rose to the top of his bloody profession amid extremely turbulent circumstances in his personal life, which resulted in him raising his three children alone while struggling to make ends meet.
Along the way he made many friends, including boxing legend Nigel Benn, as well as enemies, such as international drug trafficker Mickey Green. This is his remarkable story.
Wild Thing: The True Story of Britain's One and Only Guvnor (Bernard O'Mahoney/Lew Yates)
Synopsis
Many hopefuls have all tried to claim the title as their own, but everybody in the unlicensed fight game knows that only one man has the honour of being titled 'The Guvnor'. And that man is Lew 'Wild Thing' Yates. Born in St. Helens, Lancashire, Yates began boxing at the age of six. As an adult, he bludgeoned and beat his opponents mercilessly in effort to fulfil his dream of becoming a world heavyweight champion. After having his licence revoked following an assault on a referee, Yates turned to the murky world of unlicensed boxing and focused his sights on being crowned 'Guvnor'. By day, Yates trained hard to reach the level of physical fitness required to become king of the unlicensed ring. By night, he pounded gangsters and drug dealers who were foolish enough to take him on in the nightclubs where he worked. He was shot at and stabbed but stood firm. Two of his associates were not so lucky. Both were executed, shot through the head at close range. Their murders remain unsolved but Yates imparts controversial information about the assassins and reveals why both men were killed. "Wild Thing" documents how Yates rose to the top of his bloody profession amid extremely turbulent circumstances in his personal life, which resulted in him raising his three children alone while struggling to make ends meet. Yates' no-nonsense approach has made him many friends, including boxing legend Nigel Benn, as well as enemies, such as international drug trafficker Mickey Green. This is his remarkable story.
