BBC News, Essex
BBCThe convictions of the two so-called Essex Boys murderers are being reviewed again, the BBC can reveal.
Jack Whomes and Michael Steele were given life sentences in 1998 for shooting dead Craig Rolfe, Tony Tucker and Pat Tate in a Range Rover near Chelmsford.
The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) said appeal applications had been received and a “thorough review” was under way.
Essex Police said the case had been “exhaustively examined” both prior to the killers’ prosecutions and since they were jailed.
The Parole Board approved 82-year-old Steele’s release from prison on Thursday, four years after Whomes was freed.
“It would be inappropriate for us to make any further comment while the applications are under review,” a CCRC spokesperson said.
The gangland executions on a farm track in Rettendon inspired the 2000 film Essex Boys, starring Sean Bean, as well as the Rise of the Footsoldier television franchise.
Various other documentaries and books examined its links to the 1990s rave scene.
David McKelvey, a retired Met Police detective chief inspector who was involved in the original investigations, said he was “absolutely convinced” the wrong men were convicted.
It was Mr McKelvey who arrested Darren Nicholls in May 1996 for drugs offences, before the suspect turned so-called supergrass and gave evidence against the defendants.
The former detective chief inspector, now a private investigator, said he was contacted with new evidence about the case “almost on a weekly basis”.
“[Steele] should never have been convicted in the first place,” said Mr McKelvey, speaking to BBC Essex on Friday.
“There is absolutely, categorically, new evidence.
“More importantly, there was evidence at the time within [Essex Police’s] systems that would prove categorically who actually did kill these people.”
Despite having arrested him, Mr McKelvey said Nicholls’s witness account contained “blatant lies”.
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An Essex Police spokesman said: “This case has been exhaustively examined over the last 27 years.
“We will of course always work with the CCRC and keep any new information under review.”
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