Bouncers: Clubs and crime

The gunman lured his victim to a disused towpath by a canal and shot him twice in the back. As the body lay sprawled on the ground he fired twice more, into the prone man's head. This was not a gangland killing, or part of a turf war between drugs dealers. It was a deal done in a bar, between a regular and the bouncer who stood by the door. Yvette Luffman wanted her ex-husband dead, and she knew who to ask.

"She said she had heard I was the sort of person who was willing to do certain things for money," said Thomas Convery, doorman and bouncer at the Chambers club in Nottingham. "I said yes." Luffman and her lover gave him the name of the target but the bouncer didn't know who they were talking about. Unluckily for Simon Luffman, he was drinking in Chambers at the moment this deadly conversation was taking place. His former wife pointed across the room and told the would-be assassin: "Him."

The fee was £30,000. Convery did not get away with it. Last year he was convicted of murder, without giving details of the contract. But he was sickened by the sight of Yvette Luffman comforting Simon's mother during the trial, and so gave evidence against her. She and her lover, Wayne Briscoe, were jailed for life earlier this month for their part in the murder plot.

The case comes at a time of renewed concern over levels of violence and criminality within the world of bouncers and nightclub security. Eight top London nightclubs were shut earlier this month after police uncovered evidence of a planned turf war involving rival doormen.

The clubs affected by the closures included Movida, Pangea, Crystal and Chinawhite, all favoured by celebrities, the last by Prince Harry. Police intelligence had suggested that a petrol bomb attack or drive-by shooting might take place. Although the clubs have since reopened, security remains high.

An estimated 100,000 bouncers are at work in the UK today, as the industry has moved beyond clubs into pubs, restaurants and even hotels. The vast majority are law-abiding, but it is an open secret that many use their jobs as cover for drug dealing or other illegal activity.

Most local authorities now have schemes which ensure that bouncers do not have criminal records and that they undergo proper training before being allowed to work, but the schemes are full of flaws. Routine sweeps by police have shown that dozens of unlicensed bouncers are still at work, often moving from town to town.

The lack of a criminal record is no guarantee of a lack of potential criminality. "The vast majority of people only get into one or two fights in their entire lives, usually at school," says Colin, a 38-year-old bodybuilder who works part-time as a bouncer in several south London clubs. "But when you're a doorman, you can end up having a bit of a fight every time you go on duty. And like anything, the more you do something, the better you become."

Once people realise you're a bit useful, he says, it's only a bit of time before the offers come in. "Someone offers you £500 to beat someone else up and you think, 'Well I get paid £80 a night to beat two or three people up so that's a really good offer.' Once that happens, you're on the slippery slope. If you're of the right disposition, you can easily find yourself agreeing to break someone's leg or even kill."

Many of those involved in such work see the illegal approaches as a mark that they have truly arrived. Asked how he felt about being approached to kill Simon Luffman, Convery told police he had been "extremely flattered".

Crown Prosecution Service clerk Mark Herbert was working part-time as a bouncer when he approached representatives of the notorious Adams family in order to sell them confidential information about informers that he had gathered from police files. Herbert had correctly guessed that working as a doorman would give him the right profile to make the initial approach. The underworld is full of characters who made their start in this way, including the notorious Liverpool cocaine baron Curtis Warren and the Noonan family in Manchester.

A recent two-year academic study found that bouncers are becoming the main law enforcers in inner-city areas, with the police too stretched to cope with drunken louts.

Professor Dick Hobbs of the London School of Economics, who led the study, said: "We found that the police are utterly overwhelmed. In some cities you could have up to 30,000 people being policed by maybe a dozen police, but there would be a couple of hundred bouncers there."

Three members of the research team actually signed up to become bouncers to assess the quality of the training schemes. The researchers encountered bouncers who still viewed violence as part of the job. "There are young men coming into the business who view it as a career in leisure management," said Professor Hobbs, "but there are still the old-style bouncers who throw a punch first and ask questions later."

Ever since the Kray twins bought Esmeralda's Barn, clubs and crime have been inexorably linked. The situation mushroomed during the late 1980s, fuelled by the acid-house scene and a sudden growth in the number of clubs and quasi-legal parties. Ecstasy was the drug of choice and it didn't take long for a few savvy businessmen to see an opportunity to vastly increase their profits. If you control who goes in or out of a club, you control who deals drugs on the dance floor and therefore ensure that you get a cut of every pill, tab or snort that is sold.

One popular West End DJ, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals, said: "It's all down to the doormen. It makes sense, really. How else can they search everyone at the door but still have people getting in with drugs and guns and stuff? They usually confiscate any drugs they find and give them to one person to sell."

Almost without trying, the head of a doorman agency can find himself being courted by criminals thanks to the fact they have dozen of burly men at their beck and call. This was the case with Viv Graham, a Newcastle bouncer and gang leader murdered by rivals in 1993. It was Graham's death that sparked a fresh call for the industry to be licensed.

The calls were led by MP Ian McCartney who, soon after his campaign began, started receiving death threats. During a campaign meeting in November 1996, one bouncer headbutted him, breaking his nose.

With so much money and power at stake, disputes between rival firms are all too common. Scottish nightclub owner Eddie Tobin was shot in his home in November in what was said to be part of a wider dispute over nightclub security.

Violence from rival firms is only one part of the equation. Doormen remain in the front line when it comes to aggression from members of the public who have been refused entry to a club.

There are risks for the public, too. Last year, boxing champion Gary Delaney was convicted of the murder of Paul Price. Delaney had killed him with a single punch, while throwing him out of a hotel bar in Woodford.