Hitmen (8 page)

S
ylvia Paterson was the ultimate gold-digger, who used charm and ruthless cunning to drag herself from humble beginnings right up the ladder to the richest lifestyle imaginable. Her eye for the main chance helped transform her from a scruffy council house kid into a jet-setter with two planes, two Rolls-Royces, a Mercedes and two Range Rovers. Flamboyant Sylvia drove each car with her own £20,000 personalised number plate: CLA55Y.

Yet just months after she was born in Kent more than 50 years ago, her mother walked out on the family. Sylvia then spent a lot of time in a children’s home because her father couldn’t cope with her and her three sisters. Later she was looked after by three spinster aunts but didn’t find any real happiness until she married a soldier sweetheart called David Bardsley. The couple had a daughter, Julie, and a son, Tyrell. And Sylvia became a highly respected nurse, working
alongside top doctor Patrick Steptoe when he produced the world’s first test-tube baby in 1978.

Then Sylvia got her first real taste of the good life when she landed a £200,000-a-year job as personal assistant to a Lebanese business tycoon. Soon she was jetting around the world and discovering a lifestyle she hadn’t even known existed. Inevitably, her long absences from home put a lot of strain on her marriage and it eventually crumbled.

Sylvia openly admitted to friends she was more in love with those material gains than her husband. She even splashed out much of her high salary on privately educating Julie, now 33, at Cheltenham Ladies College and Tyrell, now 28, at Stowe. Sylvia then started dabbling in several businesses including a property speculation company in up-and-coming Cheshire. Then she met another property developer called John Holmes by chance when she called at his dry cleaning business as a customer following her divorce in 1981. The pair hit it off immediately and teamed up to form a property company called Paterson-Holmes acquiring properties in Hale, Cheshire, and Park Lane, London.

Sylvia impressed Holmes with her stories of jetting to New York on Concorde and he also greatly respected her business sense. ‘She is extremely clever. One of the best negotiators I have ever met,’ he later recalled. The pair talked about buying a nightclub called Yesterdays in Alderley Edge, which is near the Cheshire home of David and Victoria Beckham. They also planned to invest in a villa in France. Soon Sylvia was able to afford to buy her own £650,000 home in upmarket Wilmslow. 

Then she met retired company boss Ken Paterson at a local pub. His first wife had died a year earlier and Sylvia instantly set her sights on becoming his wife and heiress. But Ken’s son Paul and his wife Sarah almost immediately began to suspect Sylvia’s motives. Soon their relationship with Sylvia descended into utter hatred and contempt. They began trading insults in a flurry of faxes. One message from Paul and his wife Sarah to Sylvia read: ‘As soon as you cause Ken any measure of unhappiness, we will be there to comfort and support him. We will never go away.’

Soon elderly Ken was having to see his beloved grandchildren in secret behind Sylvia’s back. His son Paul then hired a private detective to find out more about the woman he still believed was trying to get her hands on the family fortune.

Paul and his wife Sarah even refused to attend Ken Paterson’s wedding to Sylvia the following year. And in another of their many faxes, Sylvia bizarrely claimed that her daughter-in-law had almost run her down when she was crossing a road in Wilmslow. In another fax, she called Paul and Sarah ‘wicked’ and accused them of waging a ‘futile vendetta’.

But the last straw for Sylvia came when she discovered that her husband intended leaving his multi-million-pound fortune to his son Paul – not her. That was when Sylvia Paterson turned to her business partner John Holmes for advice. She told Holmes she wanted both her stepson and his wife to ‘just disappear’.

To his friends and neighbours, John Holmes was a tireless
charity champion who’d once splashed out £3,600 for a painting by Prince Charles at a fundraising auction. But behind the benevolent façade lurked a vicious, cold-hearted man addicted to cocaine and spanking call girls. For while Holmes’ photo regularly appeared in high-society magazines rubbing shoulders with the rich and famous at champagne charity functions, he was so proud of his criminal associates he kept a photo of the Kray twins in his bathroom.

And none of Holmes’ influential pals from the wealthy ‘Cheshire set’ realised he’d also served time in jail for molesting a 16-year-old waitress. In August 1998, Holmes had been given a two-month jail sentence for groping the waitress during a party at a bistro in Knutsford. The court had heard how Holmes and another man tried to kiss the teenager and fondle her breasts. He’d even been placed on the sex offenders list. As one of Holmes’ work associates later explained: ‘He was completely ruthless and amoral. No one crossed him or stood in his way. He was determined to get what he wanted when he wanted it. That usually meant money and women. He loved sex.’

Yet, ironically, John Holmes came from the other end of the social scale to Sylvia Peterson. He was born at St Mary’s Hospital, Manchester, in 1956, the youngest of the three children of the respectable Evelyn and John Holmes. His father was a Desert Rat war hero who served under Field Marshal Montgomery at El Alamein. Holmes attended Prince Charles’s school, Gordonstoun, and left with two A-levels and five O-levels. He set out to make his fortune through a plant hire company, taxi firm and property speculation. His sister Marie married former Manchester City and England player
Colin Bell. His other sister, Jackie, was happily married with three children.

Holmes eventually used funds from the sale of his father’s vastly successful tyre business to Uniroyal to start Park Dry Cleaners in Hale, Cheshire. It was such an upmarket establishment that it once got a recommendation in the pages of
Vogue
magazine.

Holmes had married his wife Christine more than 20 years earlier. They had a daughter, Sophie, 17, who has a rare muscle disorder, and 11-year-old twins, Jon and Camilla. All three children went to expensive private schools. The family lived in a £1.2 million mansion in Hale, Cheshire. One of his neighbours was former soccer boss and England ace Bryan Robson. Holmes also owned a £500,000 art collection, which allegedly included works by David Hockney and Salvador Dali.

John Holmes boasted of a personal fortune of £2–3 million. He and his wife even splashed out £10,000 to decorate one of their children’s bedrooms like the cover of an Elton John album. And Holmes still found time to have an affair with escort agency boss Audrey Clarke as well as sharing hookers with his friends and work associates and regularly picking up women in bars. Audrey Clarke’s company Class Act provided Holmes with numerous women. She’d first met him when Holmes called her agency by phone saying he ‘needed a woman’.

Audrey arrived at Holmes’s mansion in the early hours of the morning to be greeted by a scene of complete decadence. Ladies’ underwear was draped around the bedroom. On a table were chopped-up lines of cocaine. A brunette woman
was slumped in a chair with a glass of champagne in one hand and a cigarette in the other. ‘I knew straight away that Holmes was an unusual man,’ Audrey later explained.

Holmes then waved his arm towards the rather
confused-looking
girl and asked Audrey if she could get rid of her. ‘At first I didn’t know what to do or say,’ recalled Audrey. ‘I was confused. I asked why he couldn’t just call her a taxi, but he just shrugged and said she wouldn’t leave. He looked so helpless that I decided to help him out. When I spoke to the girl I realised she was stoned out of her mind. But I’d agreed a fee of £300 with Holmes, and I thought, What the hell? I’ve had more unusual requests.’

Audrey dressed the unprotesting woman and put her in a cab. Holmes then mentioned there were still a few hours left of their ‘deal’ and pointed to the bedroom. Audrey later recalled, ‘John was a gentle lover, he reminded me of a little schoolboy. I don’t know what had been going on, but he kept telling me how grateful he was to me for getting rid of the girl.’

Afterwards Holmes and Audrey sat chatting in the lavishly furnished lounge of his luxurious home. ‘I remember putting my feet up on a huge marble coffee table and thinking, So this is what life’s all about in the Cheshire set.’ Then Audrey cracked open a new bottle of Bollinger and poured them both a drink. It was only then that Holmes properly introduced himself. He boasted about his wealth and important connections, even pointing to a photo on the mantelpiece of himself with then Tory leader William Hague and his wife Ffion. He talked about his contributions to charity, but also hinted at many criminal connections. 

The following day Holmes rang Audrey, said his wife was still away and asked to see her. ‘He also asked me to bring along another girl for a business friend.’ The foursome ate at a local restaurant before going back to Holmes’ mansion. Holmes then left Audrey and her friend alone at the house while they went out to buy some cocaine. Audrey refused to take any drugs when they returned, but found herself intrigued by Holmes’ lifestyle.

But as the relationship developed over the next few months, Audrey began to see her lover in a disturbing new light. ‘I realised that he used people quite ruthlessly and didn’t seem to care who he hurt,’ she said. ‘He treated his staff like slaves. Then he started to let me down. He was always late, but one night he went too far. Out of the blue, he asked me if he could whip me. I was appalled. I told him I wasn’t into that sort of thing.’

Holmes even asked Audrey if she could provide him with a girl who might be willing. A few weeks later there was an incident in which one of Audrey’s ‘girls’ locked herself in the bathroom of one of Holmes’ apartments after being told three men in the flat were expecting to have sex with her. Audrey forgave Holmes for the incident after he apologised and said he’d been drunk. But then he upset her again by showing her a set of photos of a woman who’d been severely whipped.

But the last straw in their so-called relationship came when Holmes asked Audrey to a charity function. She turned up to find him sitting at a table with his wife. Holmes saw her and persuaded her to stay. A few days later, Holmes arranged to meet Audrey in a local pub. He said he was also meeting a man known as Banjo. Holmes was late, as usual, so Audrey
introduced herself to Banjo who immediately hinted at a mysterious background in the Armed Forces. ‘I met him several times over the next couple of months. I knew he was involved in some big business deal with John, but I never dreamed they could be plotting a double murder,’ Audrey later recalled.

In fact, John Holmes had recruited his ex-cellmate Paul Thorlsog – a former travelling circus clown known as Banjo – as the hitman who would wipe Sylvia Paterson’s stepson Paul and his wife Sarah off the face of the earth. Banjo later recalled, ‘I was asked if I was going to be discreet and I said, “Yes – I am a professional.” But I had no intention of carrying out any killing. My intention was, once I got some money in my pocket, I’d disappear. Sylvia offered me £20,000 per person. But she couldn’t make up her mind how she wanted it to happen.’

It was eventually agreed that Banjo would murder Paul and Sarah as they celebrated their 14th wedding anniversary on 27 April 1999. As Banjo later explained: ‘For Sylvia it was all a matter of diabolical greed. She wanted to get her hands on the money. For John it was all a game. He liked to act like God and didn’t want to look stupid in front of his criminal friends. He always had to be the big man.’ However, 12 days before the designated day of the hit, Banjo the clown panicked and went to the police.

Detectives immediately launched Operation Gatehouse and sent in an undercover cop, whom Banjo introduced to Holmes and Peterson as a soldier more willing and able to carry out the contract. Paterson and Holmes were secretly tape-recorded as they talked about the intended murder and
their scheme was uncovered before the killings could take place. At one stage, Holmes even told the undercover cop he could easily get ‘Ruud Gullits’ – rhyming slang for bullets. And he referred to someone being sent to a ‘warm place’ – a grave.

The next day both Holmes and Paterson were arrested.

At their trial at Manchester Crown Court, circus clown Banjo donned his civvies – a dapper grey pinstripe suit, a flat-top haircut and handlebar moustache – to tell the jury how Holmes and Paterson tried to recruit him as a hitman. Banjo/Thorlsog told the court: ‘I was just interested in making some money. Who wouldn’t?’ He said he discussed the double hit during a series of meetings with Holmes and Paterson. He even said she admitted she wanted her stepson and his wife dead so she could reclaim her stake in the family business.

In court, Sylvia Paterson claimed she hired Banjo the clown purely to spy on her husband, whom she suspected was having an affair with a married woman. She also revealed to the court the full extent of her appalling relationship with her stepson Paul and his wife Sarah. How they’d first met at the couple’s house when Sylvia was going with Ken Paterson to a cocktail party in December 1993. Dressed in a
camel-coloured
frockcoat, Paterson turned towards the jury and said, ‘I was probably there for 15 minutes. Paul had a discussion with his father and Sarah didn’t say anything. I was trying to talk to their little boy but it was difficult because he was having his dinner. We then went straight out of the front door and I have never been back since.’ Sylvia and her elderly
husband, Ken, had started divorce proceedings just before the trial started but Ken loyally stood by his wife and was even called as a defence witness during the proceedings.

Manchester Crown Court then heard how John Holmes had stayed in close contact with escort agency boss Audrey and she’d even visited him in prison while he awaited trial. However, after giving evidence against him, Audrey received two death threats, which were taken so seriously that she was given round-the-clock police protection. ‘All my feelings for him have now disappeared. But I really did love him despite everything,’ Audrey later explained.