Richard Parkinson

Richard Parkinson was shot in the chest on the night of 11 April 1999 at a nightclub where he was working on the doors.

He was a doorman at the Rex nightclub in Stratford and was shot as 2,500 people arrived for a gig by Beenie Man, a Jamaican reggae artist.

Two men were tried for ordering his execution at the Old Bailey but were acquitted.

Richard Parkinson worked for a security firm based in Walthamstow called Doors.

It was heard that one of the men tried was also in the security business and had contracts in the ragga music industry for security at events and that the security operation at the Rex nightclub was being run by Doors, a rival security operation to his own. It was said that when he had gone to the Rex nightclub he had been searched and that he had complained at the indignity of it and a row then broke out as he said that he didn't think that he should be treated like other punters.

It was then said that he had gone off and returned with a posse, including an armed bodyguard, who was also on trial for Richard Parkinson's murder, and that during another row in which the rival security businessman was being held, his bodyguard had pulled out a gun and fired about the foyer in the club hitting several people, including Richard Parkinson who was hit in the chest. Richard Parkinson had been wearing a bullet proof vest, but the bullet had gone through the edges of it.

Another man was hit in the arm and a bullet grazed the arm of another person.

Both of the men tried were cleared of murder, manslaughter, and possessing a firearm with intent to endanger life at the direction of the judge.

It was heard that during the trial the accused security boss had stormed out of the witness box and refused to stay in court for cross-examination by the prosecution. Also, whilst in court, before storming out, he had shouted across the court to the other man on trial and said, 'Did I get you to shoot anyone?' and that the other man had shouted back, 'No you didn't'. It was also said that the judge had left the bench as the security business man on trial had ranted 'I'm innocent, I'm so innocent.'.

In court he had admitted having a scuffle with the doormen at the nightclub, but said that he was walking away when someone started shooting. He also claimed that video evidence had been concealed to frame him and the other man on trial.

The judge admitted that it was unfortunate that security cameras at the back entrance to the club were of no use as they had been pointed at a drainpipe.

Their defence said that the men were scapegoats and that the murder had been carried out by a ticket agency boss, Keith Balfour, who ran Big Ballers, who was shot dead on the day that the security businessman and his friend were arrested. Keith Balfour's murder is also unsolved.

The music business man that was tried had also previously been acquitted in early 1998 of a hammer attack on three Jamaican men that had been left with broken skulls. His barrister had said at that trial that he had been fitted up for the crime because he had worked with the police to bring down the Brixton Yardie gangs in a major police operation. It was heard at Richard Parkinson's murder trial that the music business man had renounced his criminal past years earlier and that he had been a figurehead in the Lambeth gun firearm amnesty in 1997 and become a community-conscious citizen and had been on television promoting crime reduction. He had said that he was framed for Richard Parkinson's murder.

Richard Parkinson had been in the security business for about four years.