rough justice - bo bo ward with john mooney

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Rough JusticeMemoirs of a Gangster

rough justice 6/28/04 9:19 AM Page 1





MAURICE ‘BO BO’ WARDWITH JOHN MOONEY

Memoirs of a Gangster


Published by Maverick House,

Unit 115 Ashbourne Industrial Estate,Ashbourne, Co. Meath.

[email protected]://www.maverickhouse.com

ISBN 0 9542945 2 1

Copyright for text © 2004 Maurice Ward and John MooneyCopyright for typesetting, editing, layout, design

© Maverick House Ltd

The paper used in this book comes from wood pulp of managed forests. For every

tree felled, at least one tree is planted, thereby renewing natural resources.

The moral rights of the authors have been asserted

All rights reserved.No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form orby any means without written permission from the publisher, except

by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with areview written for insertion in a newspaper, magazine or broadcast.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the BritishLibrary.


For my children


Acknowledgements

I would like to thank a few people that were veryimportant in my life. Firstly, my good friend SeanieMorrissey. You know what you mean to me. Thanks tomy good friend, John Kelly, who restored my faith inpeople again. Victor Hackett has always been verygood to me and I’d like to say thank you to him.

I would like to sincerely thank the gardaí in Bandon,Co. Cork who investigated my abuse claims,particularly Sergeant Gerard Crowley for thekindness, understanding and humanity he showed me.

Thanks to my family – my brothers and sisters. Youprobably have a fair idea about what will be in thisbook, but I hope you understand why I wrote it.

I’d also like to thank my counsellor, Muriel Moran,who changed my life.

Lobbins, you gave me a wonderful home for somany years and stuck by me through thick and thin.Thank you for your loyalty and for our children.

Lila, there are so many reasons I need to thank youand I don’t say it often enough. Thank you for ourboys and for your continued love all these years.

I’d also like to thank my children for all their love.


On the night of 28 April 2002, two masked menknocked at the front door of Maurice ‘Bo Bo’Ward’s home on Greenfort Avenue in

Clondalkin, Dublin. When his partner Lila answeredthe door, one of the men forced his way into the houseand walked into the kitchen where Bo Bo was havingtea with his young sons.

The intruder was armed with a sawn-off shotgun.When Bo Bo saw his assassin coming, he remainedcalm and told the intruder he was in the wrong house.

The gunman did not respond but forced Bo Bo tohis knees. He then lowered his gun and shot him atpoint blank range in front of his screaming children.

Bo Bo fell face down on the floor in a pool of blood.The killer stood over his body and fired another shot

Introduction

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into his back before making his escape. A fighter tothe end, Bo Bo struggled to remain conscious but hisinjuries were fatal. He died minutes later.

No one knows why he was killed or who wasresponsible. Theories abound to this day.

Some people think he was murdered by a local drugdealer who blamed him for the murder of SimonDoyle, a heroin pusher from Clondalkin. Bo Bo hadkidnapped and threatened to murder Doyle forselling heroin to local youngsters.

Doyle died in a similar fashion to Bo Bo. He wasshot in the chest after answering a knock on the frontdoor of his home. He was also shot in the back as helay on the ground.

But the truth is that no one knows the identity ofthe gunman or who ordered the murder.

It was always likely that Bo Bo would die a violentdeath. He was 56 years old and had been a criminal allhis life. Ironically, just hours before he died, he hadfinished dictating this autobiography.

Bo Bo had begun writing the book in the autumn of1999 while campaigning on behalf of child sex abusevictims. He had been physically and sexually abusedin St. Patrick’s Industrial School in Upton, Co. Cork.

By his own admission, he emerged from St. Patrick’sa disturbed and violent young man who brutalised hiswife and children. He also became a major player inDublin’s underworld.

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Bo Bo sold heroin on behalf of the notorious Dunnefamily, he helped gangboss Martin Cahill to rob banksand also worked alongside Ireland’s biggest criminal,John Gilligan. Anyone who crossed swords with himsuffered the consequences.

His violent tendencies only subsided when hereceived professional help from a counsellor in thelater years of his life. Those who knew him personallysay he became a transformed character. You could saythat he saw the error of his ways.

Writing Rough Justice was a depressing and heartbreaking experience for him. When he examined hislife in detail, he fell into a deep depression. Herefused to forgive himself for the brutal beatings headministered to his wife, girlfriends and children.

His only wish was to make amends for the crimes hehad committed.

I regret that he never got to see the publication ofhis book. I hope Rough Justice does him proud, butmore importantly gives his children an insight intothe man their father was.

On a personal note I would like to thank FionaBarry and Michael Kealy of William Fry Solicitors fortheir legal advice on various aspects of themanuscript. Names that appear in italics have beenchanged to protect the privacy of the people involved.

John MooneyJune 2004


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Crime is the most addictive drug in the world. Itconsumes you. When you commit a crime for thefirst time, the feeling overwhelms you. There is

no turning back. You never forget it. That rush ofadrenaline pumping through your veins; it makes youfeel invincible and drives you to commit more crimes.You develop an attitude; fuck the law and everyoneelse. You spend the rest of your life searching for thatspecial feeling.

I know this now. Hindsight is a great thing but therewas no talking to me all those years ago. And even ifsomeone had tried to sit me down, I would not havelistened. I would have told them to fuck off. That wasmy way of dealing with people. If I didn’t like what I

chapter one

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was hearing, I gave them a smack, kicked the shit outof them and burned down their house.

Sometimes I wonder would I have become acriminal if I had been born into a different back-ground. Would things have been different?

I am middle aged now. I have fathered loads ofchildren and made a mess of my life. I have beenbrutalised and tortured and I have brutalised andtortured others. I am a victim and an abuser in one.

To be honest, I don’t want to write this book. I wantto forget about what happened to me. I want torewrite my life story. Start afresh as the posh peoplewould say. If I could get a brain transplant to forgeteverything I would. I would give anything to start outagain but I can’t. It’s funny, I spent my whole lifetelling lies to the gardaí and to my wife but now I’mtrying to remember the truth that I desperatelywanted to keep from everyone. That’s the thing: thereis only one truth.

I believe I became a robber to survive. Like most bigtime criminals, I was just a kid when it all started. Ahungry, little, innocent kid, who took opportunitiesthat landed at his feet because he had no choice. Icould say the same about most of the gangsters that Ibefriended over the years. We all started out on theroad to jail when we were still in short trousers.

The first time I robbed a shop was both the best andthe worst experience of my life.

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How could it be both, you might ask yourself ? Well,I’ll start at the beginning and see if I can explain alongthe way.

I was born in the Rotunda Hospital on 24 March1946. My parents, just like any other young couple,were over the moon at the birth of their baby boy, orso they told me when I was a little older.

By the time I came along, my Ma and Da alreadyhad my older sister Mary though I was their thirdchild. My older brother James had died of meningitistwo years before I was born.

My father’s name was Patrick and my mother wascalled Esther. They loved each other in their own wayand did what they had to do to survive. In those daysbabies were not planned. They just arrived but my Daalways told me that he loved me and wanted me.

When I was old enough to understand, he would sitme down and tell me about the day I was born. Heused to say that he was on his way to the hospital tosee Ma when I entered this world. I’d have you knowthat I had lots of black hair and blue eyes, just like myfather.

Apparently he held me in his arms, kissed me andpromised to never let any harm come to me.

That’s what they told me when I was old enough totalk but I do think Dad was delighted when I wasborn. You see, they were devastated when my olderbrother James died.

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In those days it was survival of the fittest. The law ofthe jungle ruled because no one gave two shits aboutmy people.

We were the poorest of the poor; we weren’t evenworking class because my parents couldn’t even findregular work. You get the picture.

We lived in one of the old tenements in Summerhillin Dublin’s north inner city. There was only one roomfor us all – me, my sister Mary, and Ma and Da. It wasa shit hole.

The only people who know the type of desperatepoverty I’m talking about live in the poorest countriesof the Third World. I’m not exaggerating; it wassqualor.

The actual flat we lived in was over a bread and cakeshop. A stairwell, which led down to a lane, joined allthe flats together.

Our tenement was used as a toilet by the locals.When the men would fall out of the pubs at night,they would come into the lane and relieve themselvesby urinating on the walls and on the ground. A lot ofthem did more than piss – they let everything out oftheir bodies. I will never forget the smell of that place.Can you imagine living in a building that people usedas a toilet? The contrast between the beautiful smellof fresh bread and cakes mingled with piss and shitwas overwhelming. I’m not kidding but I can stillsmell the piss and shit. It’s lodged in my nostrils. Itnever went away. Even to this day I don’t like using

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public toilets; it brings back too many old memoriesand smells that make me sick to my stomach.

But I suppose the smell of piss and shit made meimmune to fear. Most people can’t stand the sight ofother peoples’ shit, but I was forced to wade throughit as a child. That made me strong although I didn’trealise it until recently. When you can look at otherpeoples’ shit, you can do anything. But it also mademe want to get my own back on the world.

When I was a boy I harassed the people that used ourstairs to piss and shit. There were old wooden raftersthat hung over the lane. I used to climb up on therafters and hide but I’d never play hide and seek. I gotjam jars full of water and piss and when the womencame into the lane to have a piss, I would be there inthe rafters overhead and I would drown them.

It was my way of getting back at them for what theydid every night. The people who lived in thetenements were forced to walk through their shit –you could not avoid it. That smell is the only memoryI have retained of being a young child.

The smell of the bakery used to fuck me up. It wasbeautiful so you can imagine what it was like to godown the stairs smelling the bread and then having towalk into shit and piss and everything, because there’dbe piles of shit everywhere along the lane.

To avoid it I always climbed out a window at theback of the flat and down a drainpipe across the waste

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rough justice - bo bo ward with john mooney

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