The Hells Angels Motorcycle Club, an international outlaw biker gang, has been involved in multiple crimes, alleged crimes, and violent incidents in the United Kingdom. According to the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS), the British Hells Angels are involved in cannabis and amphetamine trafficking, as well as contract killing, extortion, prostitution, money laundering and credit card fraud. The NCIS called the Hells Angels "the fastest-growing organised crime group in the world" and also accused the club of being responsible for more assaults and murders than any other gang in the country.
Background Members of the San Francisco Hells Angels chapter were invited by the Beatles to visit England in 1968, and in May 1969, one of the first English Hells Angels chapter presidents, Peter "Buttons" Welsh, began "prospecting" for the San Francisco Hells Angels. On 30 July 1969, the first two HAMC charters in Europe were issued; the East London chapter was sanctioned by the San Francisco Hells Angels and the South London chapter was sponsored by the Hells Angels in Oakland. Both London chapters merged in 1973. By 1995, the club's United Kingdom faction consisted of twelve chapters and an estimated 250 members. In 2006, the British Hells Angels had a Nomad chapter (a chapter that covered the entire United Kingdom) along with chapters in London, Kent, Wessex, Lea Valley, Southampton, Tyne and Wear, Essex, Ashfield, Northampton, Manchester, Wolverhampton, Windsor and Wales.
The growth of the Hells Angels in the United Kingdom has been greatly aided by police indifference with the feeling being the Hells Angels were merely harmless. Nick Clark of the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) stated to the Canadian journalists Julian Sher and William Marsden that when he joined the NCIS in 1995 that he was the only one of two officers assigned full time to outlaw bikers. Clark told Sher and Marsden: "I was quite shocked to find that at the time outside of North America the U.K. has the biggest population of Hells Angels in the world". When Clark joined the NCIS in 1995, there were thirteen Hells Angels chapters in the United Kingdom and by 2006 the number had risen to sixteen. In turn, the British Hells Angels have waged a slick public relations campaign to promote the image of themselves as "lovable rogues". Despite the origins of the Hells Angels in the United States, the British Hells Angels have sought to wrap themselves up in the Union Jack both literally and metaphorically, depicting themselves as the ultra-patriotic defenders of British values. In June 2002, the London chapter led by the chapter president Alan "Snob" Fisher took part in the Queen's Golden Jubilee parade. Sher and Marsden wrote: "In no other country in the world do the Hells Angels get as easy a ride as they do in the UK—from politicians, the press, the public and even at times the police". Sher and Marsden noted that senior ministers in the Labour government of Tony Blair such as Hazel Blears, the Secretary of State for Crime Reduction, Policing, Community Safety and Counter-terrorism, openly took part in Hells Angels sponsored events without causing any controversy, which would not be the case in other parts of the Commonwealth such as Australia and Canada. Central to the image that the British Hells Angels seek to promote is the annual Bulldog Bash, where the club seeks to promote itself as patriotic and family friendly. The Bulldog Bash features young women serving as topless motorcycle washers; live entertainment; a 24-hour bar; an all-night dance tent; and a makeshift shopping village. The Daily Telegraph reported in August 2004 about the Hells Angels at the Bulldog Bash that what "a fine bunch of friendly, entertaining chaps they turned out to be".
Sher has stated: "I think England is one of the few countries where the myth of the Hells Angels as loveable rascals endures. I think it is in part because you have a biker culture—weekend warrior and more families associated with motorcycles. But if you look at the Hells Angels' history it is one of blood, violence, extortion and drugs. It is such an exclusive club that the excuse that it is the odd rotten apple to blame won't wash." Sher theorized that the British Hells Angels' reputation as "loveable rascals" has endured in part because of the club's publicity campaigns and in part because police task forces targeting motorcycle gangs have been disbanded.
Sher and Marsden wrote the "loudest" of all the Hells Angels chapters was the Kent chapter whose fortress-like clubhouse located on a farm in the Kentish countryside was more typical of the Canadian Hells Angels clubhouses than the type normally found in the United Kingdom. The best known British Hells Angel, Ian "Maz" Harris, was a member of the Kent chapter. Harris held the rare distinction of being a Hells Angel with a PhD, awarded at Warwick University for his dissertation "Myth and Reality: Motorcycle Subcultures". Harris served as the chief spokesman for the British Hells Angels and often appeared on television to defend the reputation of his club. Clark said of him: "I had a lot admiration for him as my nemesis". Harris owned the Kent Custom Bike Shop and was described as a successful businessman up until his death in 2000. Most of the members of the Kent chapter run businesses with Paul "Herman the German" McLean running a Home Services company; Andrew Messer owning several Cottage Craft stores; and Brian "Boz" Raybould running Boz Engineering. The prosperity of the Kent chapter is typical of the British Hells Angels. A police report noted: "Houses were purchased by chapters...Individual members who were either unemployed or employed in low paid manual labour, were able to purchase houses for themselves; they acquired high value Harley-Davidson motorcycles which they retain as status symbols".
Graham Weeks of the NCIS said of the British Hells Angels: "They are up up there with the Triads and the Mafia and the East Europeans. They are up there with the best organised crime people in the world". Weeks stated that the British Hells Angels are closely connected with the Hells Angels chapters in the Netherlands, Sweden, New Zealand, Australia, and the United States and are involved in selling amphetamine, cocaine and ecstasy. Weeks told Sher and Marsden: "I know they're dealing large amounts of drugs. They're trafficking firearms. And we've never been able to hurt them". Weeks credits the success of the Hells Angels to corruption as he stated: "They are very crafty the way they invite people into their social world so they can use them—solicitors, accountants, telephone employees, Inland Revenue, police employees. They will try to court any type of civil servant that can help". A police raid on a clubhouse in the West Midlands revealed that the Hells Angels knew all of the radio frequencies used by the police along with a map showing which the areas for every police car and call sign. A raid made in the aftermath of the Battersea Arts Centre incident revealed the Hells Angels had a number of secret police documents and information from the Police National Computer. Two police officers were sacked on the suspicion of selling documents to the Hells Angels.
In 1998, the NCIS disbanded its anti-biker unit under the grounds that was not necessary. The NCIS reportedly spent an estimated one third of its annual budget on gathering intelligence about biker gangs. Many policemen have criticised the disbanding of the unit as causing a "complete fragmentation of intelligence" as there is no longer one office dedicated entirely to the Hells Angels. Weeks told Sher and Marsden: "In this country the senior officers and the government aren't bothered by the Hells Angels and the biker gangs...The Americans and the Canadians regard it as a war; soldiers in a war against serious and violent crime. In this country, the police don't regard that way. Here you just work on them a couple of years and then you go on to other things. Bikers don't. They stay loyal to each other for a lifetime or as long as they choose. And they develop an expertise, discipline and intelligence gathering. And they are far better at than we are because they stick to it". One serving officer who asked to be unnamed told Sher and Marsden in 2006: "NCIS has been absolutely castigated because there has now been a resurgence of bikers in the Midlands involved in the meth trade and there is nobody in the NCIS who has the intelligence on it—all the stuff there is five years old".
England The first Hells Angels chapter in the United Kingdom was founded in London on 30 July 1969. The HAMC has established seventeen chapters in England, with membership based primarily around the London, Manchester, Liverpool, Essex, Kent, Sussex and Tyne and Wear areas.
Violent incidents Three Hells Angels were jailed in Colchester for threatening behaviour likely to cause a breach of the peace in the aftermath of the August 1971 Weeley Festival, at which 39 club members fought with stall holders. Hells Angels' motorcycles were vandalised and a number of bikers needed medical treatment, some for severe injuries, after the Hells Angels destroyed catering equipment using iron bars.The 1971 Weeley Festival: T.Rex, Rod Stewart, Quo and 150,000 fans Steve Russell, East Anglian Daily Times (30 March 2017)
On 1 November 1972, three Hells Angels were sentenced to prison for their part in the rape of a fourteen-year-old girl who was seized from the street and sexually assaulted in front of laughing teenagers in a local café during a national Hells Angels convention in Winchester. Ian "Moose" Everest was convicted of raping the girl and sentenced to seven years, while Stephen "Boots" Ripley and Anthony "Chas" Mann were each given four years for aiding and abetting Everest. In sentencing the trio, judge Sir George Waller said: "We have heard of the Hells Angels as an utterly evil organisation which is vile and corrosive of young people. But I do not sentence you for being members of the Hells Angels. No doubt the evil nature of that organisation has led you into this situation". In 1982, at a Hells Angels party in Cookham Dean, a woman was dragged off the streets and tied to the ground via four stakes and proceeded to strip naked as the prelude to a gang rape. However, a fight broke when Hells Angel started to photograph the proceedings despite orders not to, which led to shootings.
Hells Angels member David Richards and his girlfriend were sentenced to a minimum of sixteen years' imprisonment in December 1984 for the murder of 16-year-old Michael Groves, who suffered 56 injuries in an attack with a hammer, a knife and a wrench at the couple's flat in West London. Richards wrote "Hells Angels" on the wall with Groves's blood. After serving 21 years of his sentence, and months before his scheduled release, Richards absconded from the open prison at HM Prison Sudbury in May 2006, fleeing to Ireland, where he was jailed for three months for robbery without his status as a fugitive in the UK coming to the attention of Irish authorities. He subsequently returned to England, settling in Wolverhampton. On 6 June 2014, Richards was apprehended at his home in Penn after the Metropolitan Police received a tip-off regarding his whereabouts, and he was sentenced to years in prison on 1 September 2014 after pleading guilty to escaping from custody.