GANGSTA'S PARADISE
The King, The Crime Lord and The Tories
Sounding more like Al Capone’s Chicago than an Essex village, the clerk to Chigwell parish council opened a packed emergency public meeting with these words:
“There are allegations about property developers infiltrating the council. I am [also] aware there have been many allegations of fraud and corruption of previous councillors.”
The ten square miles of prized green belt land that makes up Chigwell has been Tory blue since the parish was formed almost 30 years ago and a magnet for organised crime and dirty money for a lot longer.
If the parish of Chigwell had a Mordor it would be a sixteenth century manor house to the north that became a watering hole for the Essex underworld since the raving lunacy of the ecstasy scene.
Now called Woolston Manor Golf Course and Country Club its overlord is a shadowy ‘legit businessman’ whose interests include waste management, property and getting what he wants; his name a franchise of fear.
If the parish of Chigwell had a Sauron, 63-year-old David Hunt would be it; someone the law regards as one of the best gangsters of his generation and the head of an organised crime syndicate suspected of laundering millions of pounds through property in Essex.
Welcome to Gangsta’s Paradise.
