DANIEL REECE
Danny Reece was accused, and found guilty, of murder. He’s now serving life in Whitemoor Prison, Cambridgeshire.
He’s also been accused of being a grass. He pleads guilty – with mitigating circumstances.
You, the reader, be the jury and decide.
On a tape he sent to me, he tried to put the record straight once and for all.
He was on a prison landing when a 60-year-old lifer called Ronnie Easterbrook hissed, ‘So you’re the grass?’
It takes a brave man to stand toe to toe with Danny Reece; all the cons feared Danny. Everyone was aware when he was on the landing. Nobody approached him, or had eye contact with him, let alone insult him by calling him a grass.
So when Ronnie Easterbrook arrived and made his accusation, everyone noticed how he didn’t move out of the way or avert his eyes. Ronnie had obviously heard about Danny. His sheer size and strength made him unmistakable.
‘So you’re the grass?’
A breathless hush swept across the landing.
Danny later told me, ‘I felt my blood boil; the palms of my hands began to sweat. I looked into the face of a 60-year-old man who dared to call me a grass. A fucking grass. Being called a grass is the worst insult anyone can give you.
‘Everyone on the landing expected me to go berserk, but I didn’t – I decided to tell Ronnie Easterbrook the truth like I’m telling you. The man involved was a murdering rapist called Dave Lashley.
‘Yeah, I suppose you could call me a grass if you count taking a dirty, rotten, filthy nonce off the streets for the rest of his natural life. The way I saw it was that it could have been my mother, sister or daughter that he’d raped and murdered. I felt I had to do something.
‘At the time, I was in Brixton Prison in South London. I was given a job in the woodmill and was allowed to train in the gym twice a week. It was there that I met Dave Lashley, a huge black man who was as strong as an ox. We worked together, trained together and had a laugh. I didn’t know what Dave was in for and I didn’t ask – it’s not the done thing.
‘It was just another Tuesday morning and a screw had loaned me a copy of the Sun.
‘The headline screamed out: BLACK RAPIST JAILED FOR TEN YEARS.
‘Dave read the headline. “Ten years,” he scoffed. “He should have killed the bitch, he wouldn’t have got any more time.”
‘I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
‘“The fucking rapist,” he went on. “I killed my bitches. He raped one and got the same as me. The mug.”
‘For once I was speechless. This man was a rapist, a murdering, fucking rapist and I’d been knocking about with him. Before I could say anything, Dave grabbed my head, his huge hands held my skull.
‘“This is how I done the bitches,” and he began to demonstrate how he killed by pushing his fist into my windpipe. That’s when I snapped. I hit him so hard it lifted him off the ground. As he flew backwards, the screws pushed the panic button but it was too late, I was on top of him. I really lost it.
‘By the time they pulled me off him, both of us were covered in blood. They assumed the blood was mine until they discovered a big piece of black flesh still in my mouth.
‘I testified against him in St Alban’s Crown Court and the rapist received a natural life sentence. So yeah, I grassed – on a rapist.
‘Unfortunately, in prison, things are exaggerated and every time the story is told it gets bigger and bigger. I’ve even been accused of grassing on Linda Calvey – the woman I love, my own wife!
‘What I’ve said here is the truth. I’ve put the record straight. Believe it, if you want to; if you don’t, then fuck ya …’
BACKGROUND
I’ve lived in East London for most of my life. I was born within the sound of Bow Bells in Mile End, Bow, which makes me a Cockney.
All I ever wanted was to be like my Uncle George. He was my boyhood hero. I never knew my dad when I was growing up – he gave my mum seven kids then fucked off. I’m the eldest of the seven – I have three sisters and three brothers. Mum did her best for us but quite often we only just had enough to eat.
We lived in an old pre-fab in Manor Road, Stratford. ‘The Round House’ we called it – it was just like a dome with two bedrooms at the back, a small kicthen, a sitting room-cum-diner in the front and an outside toilet. There was no electricity or gas so Mum cooked on an open fire.
Bringing up seven children obviously took its toll on Mum and she fell seriously ill. This was the early Fifties. Social Services were called in and they wanted to put us into care but Mum’s sisters stepped in and the family, us kids, were split up.
I went off to live with Aunt Maud and Uncle George in Leytonstone in East London. I loved it from the start. George took me everywhere with him. He owned a scrap yard and I used to watch him throw car engines across the yard like they were cardboard boxes. I used to search cars for lost money which I kept.
George always had time for me and I wanted to be strong and respected just like him. Maud became like a second mum to me and I loved them both.
When Mum recovered from her illness, we had to go back to the pre-fab. I didn’t want to go – I dreaded it. I had experienced living in a proper house with gas and electric; going back to that poxy pre-fab was the last thing I wanted to do. I had to take drastic action. Things are simple when you’re young – in my mind, if the pre-fab wasn’t there, then the problem would be solved … if we didn’t have the pre-fab, the Council would have to rehouse us in a proper house just like Uncle George and Auntie Maud. So I went berserk, smashed the windows, ripped doors off hinges, smashed down walls. I totally destroyed the pre-fab. I wasn’t caught. My plan worked. The Council were forced to rehouse us.
LIFE OF CRIME
My first court appearance, when I was young, was for criminal damage – I was caught smashing up the toilets in Stratford Station.
Then there was Approved School, then Detention Centre, then prison. Crime goes in steps. You could liken it to an apprenticeship. It starts with small-time thieving, then it progresses to bigger jobs, then the big time, with the odd bit of malicious damage and grievous bodily harm thrown in for good measure until you reach the ultimate goal: armed robberies and murder.
I’ve been a criminal all my life. I’ve spent over 20 years in jail for armed robbery and violence. At the moment, I’m serving life for murder.
IS PRISON A DETERRENT?
No.
Prison used to be a simple place. You served your time, deprived of your freedom, living to rules and regulations that dominated your every hour. But prison today is a far cry from simple. It is full of drugs and people connected with drugs, people who live by drugs and for drugs. The drug tests are a complete waste of time and money; they achieve nothing but have created a prison system which is supposedly there to correct but in reality it corrupts.
Heroin is expensive and very addictive. Consequently, the young kids are constantly in debt and are forced into prostitution to pay for their habit. I wish people would understand the stupidity of drugs. The only way out of any situation is to face up to it, confront it, acknowledge it – and change it.
DO YOU BELIEVE IN CAPITAL PUNISHMENT?
Child killers should be put down the same as rabid dogs.
WHAT WOULD HAVE DETERRED YOU FROM A LIFE OF CRIME?
Nothing would have stopped me from a life of crime – it was what I wanted.
HAVE YOU EVER BEEN STABBED/SHOT?
I’ve been stabbed five times. Shot – no.
SCARIEST MOMENT?
Watching my sons being born.
SADDEST MOMENT?
The death of my son John – it was complete hell.
WHAT RATTLES YOUR CAGE?
Petty people – and people that don’t keep their promises. In prison, you meet the very worst sort of human being imaginable and bullies are ten-a-penny. I despise bullies; all bullies are cowards and hide behind the fear they instil in others. But confront a bully and he usually turns into a coward.
HAVE YOU EVER REALLY LOVED ANYONE?
Apart from my sons and my sister’s daughter, Tania, I’ve loved Jennifer, my lovely wife Linda and a little Gremlin.
My future is with Linda, every day and every night I think of her and I write to her every day. I am able to speak to her every fortnight and, if I’m lucky, I get an hour but sometimes it is only for ten minutes.
WHAT FRIGHTENS YOU?
No human being frightens me – I suppose love frightens me the most.
DESCRIBE A HARD BASTARD
Someone that never gives up. Someone who believes in blood for blood and always gets his revenge.
NAME A HARD BASTARD
Ronnie Easterbrook – the only man I’ve given 100 per cent respect to. The Colonel and Ken Pugh.
WHERE DO YOU SEE YOURSELF IN FIVE YEARS?
I see myself lying on some exotic beach with my dream girl, counting my millions – or maybe playing in the fields of heaven with my son John.
ANY REGRETS?
Not meeting Ronnie Easterbrook 20 years ago – what fun we would have had! And not being there to pick up my son from school.