A High Court judge today (THURS) hit out as tens o

A High Court judge today (THURS) hit out as tens of thousands of pounds were wasted in an attempt to seize ‘paltry’ assets from a notorious triple murderer.

So-called Angel of Death Michael Steele, who ordered the execution of three rival Essex drug dealers in 1995, was forced to hand over just pnds stlg 2,000 in August 1999.

But the 57-year-old drug baron contested the ruling because it was made out of time and his decision to fight the ruling was backed by a High Court judge sitting at the Old Bailey today.

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And ordering that the money be returned Lord Justice Judge said he wondered whether ‘quite so much effort and expense’ was justifiable over such a ‘paltry’ figure.

‘In the result, the cost to the community has been wholly disproportionate,’ Mr Justice Judge added.

The expensive confiscation process which includes Steele’s appeal against the order has taken nearly two years and involved at least eight hearings.

Each time special security measures have been put in force with armed police guarding the court itself and the streets outside.

But today’s decision came as a hollow victory for Steele, who has always maintained he was framed by corrupt cops using a rogue informant.

The case was listed six times before Judge Geoffrey Grigson finally ordered him to pay pnds stlg 2,122 in August last year.

An amount matching that figure had been found at Steele’s home in St Mary’s Road, Aingers Green, Great Bentley, Colchester, Essex, when he was arrested.

Steele, who is serving three life terms, was told he would serve 45 days imprisonment in default of payment of the confiscation order.

The prosecution initially believed he amassed over pnds stlg 300,000 from cannabis dealing and they wanted to seize all his traceable assets including properties in Essex.

But Steele claimed that Judge Grigson’s decision was unfair because it had exceeded the time limit allowed under drug trafficking legislation.

The Essex gangster said the court had repeatedly delayed the decision to confiscate his assets.

‘There had been an extension which meant the Crown infringed the envelope of time allowed to bring this action.

‘This extension exceeded the three month time limit, and this is the basis of my submission.

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Steele received three life sentences in January 1998 for the murders of Patrick Tate, Tony Tucker and Craig Rolfe, who were gunned down in a country lane near Rettendon as they sat in a Range Rover.

In addition he received eight years jail for importing cannabis resin that had been shipped into the country using inflatable boats.

Steele arranged the violent execution as the result of a fallout over a poor-quality shipment of cannabis.

But he has always maintained his innocence in respect of the murders and the drug smuggling.

His lieutenant, Jack Whomes, 37, of Staff House, Main Road, Brockford, Suffolk, also received three life sentences for his part in the brutal slayings.

Further charges against Steele relating to a cannabis trial at Woolwich Crown Court were dropped in March 1998.

The lifer, who has been moved down to Belmarsh jail in southeast London from Long Sutton in York for the appeal, had argued that the confiscation process against him should have begun earlier.

He argued that the ‘time envelope’ had closed and there was no jurisdiction to make a confiscation order against him.

And Lord Justice Judge said in a lengthy ruling that after Steele was given three life terms ‘the proceedings drifted in a somewhat unfocused fashion, so that in the end the confiscation order was not made until 20 months after sentence.

‘

‘One might reasonably wonder whether quite so much effort and expense can possibly have been justified in order to establish the relatively paltry liability of a defendant already serving three sentences of life imprisonment.

‘More important however, for present purposes, is that in our judgment Mr Steele is right.

‘The second time envelope, as well as the first, had closed without any decision of the court to extend time which was sufficient to provide an acceptable foundation for the order made against him.

‘This appeal therefore must be allowed.

‘
ends