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Topless bike washes and the dark hearts of the Hell’s Angels cult
The topless ‘bike wash’ was proving popular.
Handing over £10 each, a group of middleaged men with giant paunches and black leather biker jackets – emblazoned with the Death’s Head insignia of the Hell’s Angels – were enjoying a bikers’ festival in Shakespeare country.
Four young girls pulled their tops up, exposing their breasts to the summer sunshine, and proceeded to cover them in washing-up liquid.
The men then went on their way, eager to see what other delights might be on offer at the biggest Hell’s Angels event ever held in Britain.
They could choose between target shooting using .22 rifles, watching drag-racers at 180mph or availing themselves of the illegal ‘hash cookies’ clandestinely on sale.
In all there were some 25,000 bikers at the Bulldog Bash, many of them calling themselves Hell’s Angels – but most were very unlike the hardened Hell’s Angels of myth with their reputations for violence and drug trafficking.
Some were from motorcycle fanclubs.
Almost all were weekend enthusiasts – paunchy, middle-aged and possibly working in middle management.
Now the killing of biker Gerard Tobin has served as a reminder that, for all the innocent fun of driving fast bikes along British roads in the sunshine, the Hell’s Angels have their roots in murder, prostitution, drug-running and protection rackets.
They go back to the 1940s when they were formed by U.S. Second World War pilots looking to replicate the thrills they experienced during the war.
The Deathshead insignia of a winged skull in front of a ball of flames can be traced to two military insignia – the 85th Fighter Squadron and the 552nd Medium Bomber Squadron.
The Angels crossed the Atlantic in the 1960s and are now estimated to have 1,800 members in 22 countries, including around 250 members in the UK.
Tony Thompson, who has written on organised gangs, said that according to legend, new members had to bite the head off a chicken, rape a woman over the age of 60 and have sex with a girl of under 16 if they wanted to join – although there is no evidence these acts ever took place.
According to Andrew Shaylor, who spent four years photographing British members for his book [about] the Hell’s Angels Motorcycle Club, the majority of this ‘inner circle’ are working class family men, with a smattering of ex-convicts, soldiers and orphans.
Describing it as like a Masonic brotherhood where fellow members help each other through life, he says they distrust ‘normal life’ and that the club is ‘antiauthoritarian and cherishes the concept of freedom’.
So far Britain has, by and large, escaped the violence that has swept Hell’s Angels gangs in America, Europe and Australia – violence that has led to more than 200 deaths.
But detectives were last night investigating whether the killing could spell the end of the long peace between Britain’s Hell’s Angels and the police.
For all the thousands with the time and money to buy classic bikes there is a hardcore minority of British bikers who police believe are linked to organised crime.
Their ‘spiritual leader’ is Sonny Barger, founder and president of the U.S. Hell’s Angels Motorcycle Club, a violent gangster who moved into drugs and protection rackets as the movement spread to Europe.
Hell’s Angel: The Life and Times of Sonny Barger and the Hell’s Angels Motorcycle Club
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(Amazon.com USA)
(Amazon.co.uk UK)
In his book Hell’s Angel, Barger reveals how he was sentenced to 30 years’ in jail – he served just five – because of his addictions to ‘bikes, booze, girls and good times’.
Few dared cross him.
After a rival gang stole Barger’s Harley Davidson, he hunted down the person responsible, before beating him senseless and breaking his fingers one by one with a hammer.
But Barger, like the rest of the founding fathers, is getting old now.
He walks with a limp and cannot speak properly after having surgery for throat cancer, the result of smoking too many Camel Lights.
In Britain, biking criminals join gangs by invitation only, often through contacts made in prison.
The key requirements for membership are a love of fast bikes and a penchant for violence.
Membership is for life, and the gangs operate by word of mouth to run drugs and prostitution syndicates.
While their love of biking means they attend all the main official Hell’s Angels events, they jealously guard their secrecy.
Recently, Customs officers working with Canadian Mounties seized two trawlers owned by members of a British Hell’s Angels gang.
There were more than three tons of cocaine aboard.
When the police attempted to board, the Angels on board blew a hole in the ship, sinking it 250ft below the waves.
Other British bikers have been arrested in Holland, Spain and Belgium for crimes ranging from gun-running and drug-smuggling to extortion and murder.
Members of the UK’s Serious and Organised Crime Agency are also currently investigating whether some of the various Hell’s Angels groups are simply a front for a highlysophisticated criminal syndicate, primarily involved in the drugs trade.
“These bikers are not angels,” a police source told the Mail.
There is no suggestion that the organisers of this weekend’s event have any role in illegal activities: they are simply indulging their love of bikes and taking advantage of the lucrative Hell’s Angels brand.
With tickets at £50, the event raised £1.2million in ticket sales alone.
But while the bars and stalls were open to every guest over the weekend, there was one where average putners were not welcome: this was where the real Hell’s Angels drank, a bar manned by two burly, tattooed security guards.
Asked what was going on inside, one of the guards said: “If you need to ask, you don’t need to know. Now b***** off.”
For all the public ‘gentrification’ of the Hell’s Angels, and the parties and drinking at the Bulldog Bash each year, it appears that some things never change.
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