Damien Nettles: Who was Nicky McNamara?

In this seventh post of a series that examines the disappearance of 16-year-old Damien Nettles on 3 November 1996 from Cowes, Isle of Wight, I will be looking at Nicky McNamara – who he was, what he did and where he lived. If you have arrived here without having read the previous posts in the series, here are the links in order:

Damien Nettles – The facts
Damien Nettles – Murder, manslaughter or misadventure?
Damien Nettles – Language analysis of Unsolved: The Boy Who Disappeared interviews – Part 1: Chris Boon
Damien Nettles – Language analysis of Unsolved: The Boy Who Disappeared interviews – Part 2: Abbie Scott, Chris Boon and Davey Boon
Damien Nettles – Language analysis of Unsolved: The Boy Who Disappeared interviews – Part 3: The Weatherman
Damien Nettles – Language analysis of Unsolved: The Boy Who Disappeared interviews – Part 4: Shirley Barrett

Nicky McNamara

Many of the rumours surrounding Damien’s disappearance involve Nicky McNamara as a suspect in Damien’s death. According to a number of sources, Nicky was one of several drug dealers in the Cowes area and had a history of violent behaviour. The photo to the right that has become the public image of Nicky paints him as a shaven-headed thug with a crazed look in his eyes, a beer in one hand and the other in a fist, seemingly punching the air. I say paints, because the BBC chose to use this particular photo of Nicky for the documentary series Unsolved: The Boy Who Disappeared and to crop out his knee, which, as the comparison shows, his ‘fist’ is resting on. Additionally, the Adidas tracksuit that Nicky is wearing dates the photo to the mid-1980s when he was in his early twenties – a whole decade before Damien disappeared.

Newspapers (particularly tabloids) and broadcast media rarely present a critical or impartial view when it comes to covering stories about crime, or in Damien’s case, potential-but-as-yet-unproven crime. The fact is that crime sells. Sensational storylines sell. Speculative content sells. The news and broadcast media is a business machine whose purpose is to manufacture content, with the goal being to maximise readership, viewership, and therefore profit. When the media reports on crime and deviance it will often construct a narrative that feeds into existing moral and social issues (such as drugs) that historically have been the topic of biased and/or stereotypical reporting. As a result, the public’s view of such issues is often skewed and based on fantasy stereotypes, as opposed to the real social world. The longstanding fantasy stereotypes associated with cannabis use are a good example (as with all the photos in this post that contain text, click/tap to enlarge for easy reading):

Nicholas John McNamara was born on 2 October 1964. He was the second youngest of five siblings. Nicky was a tall man – he towered above his two sisters and stood several inches taller than his two older brothers, as the photo below left shows. His Giorgio Athletic sweatshirt dates the photo to the mid-1990s. This was the Nicky McNamara from around the time that Damien disappeared. He was 32 and close to his family. He was a father, and his daughter writes that he got caught up in taking heroin when it first came to the Island. The mother of his children writes that she hated what heroin did to the man that she once loved and remained close to until the day he died. She also writes that she saw him the day before he died and that he looked well – he had been clean of heroin for a while – but he told her that he was worried about money he owed and that he had some heavy people on his back. On 21 September 2002, Nicky died of a heroin overdose. He was found curled up and naked in his landlady Shirley Barrett's bath, which had no water in it, at Prospect Road, Newport. There were two empty syringes on the bathroom floor beside some clothes and a towel.

The UK’s heroin epidemics

There were two distinct heroin ‘epidemics’ that swept the UK. The first wave that began in 1982-3 primarily affected Merseyside, Greater Manchester, London, the major Scottish cities and the Republic of Ireland, and involved a minority of 18–25-year-olds who were predominantly unemployed and lived in deprived urban areas. Much of the rest of the UK remained relatively heroin-free until the second wave began in 1993-4. Initial outbreaks occurred primarily in large towns/small cities with a heroin ‘footprint’ from the past in the form of established dealer/user networks. By the latter half of the 1990s, heroin use was occurring in completely new areas with no heroin history. From the start of the second wave, heroin supplies arriving in the UK increased significantly. Heroin seizures both by Customs and Excise and the police were at their highest in the mid-90s, purity levels remained high with little cutting, and the retail price fell significantly in line with strong availability. The second wave peaked between 1993 and 2000, coinciding with the national crime peak of 1995.

During this second wave, crack-cocaine use featured almost simultaneously with heroin, and hard drug use accounted for at least one-half of the rise in acquisitive crime (burglary and other theft offences) in England and Wales to 1995. Young female users often became involved in shoplifting or prostitution, and usually had drug-using boyfriends who pulled them further into criminal careers as home-based dealers. Young male users got further involved in drug dealing, theft and burglary to fund growing drugs bills, either for the first time or through amplified criminal careers. However, virtually all studies agree that just a few individuals committed the bulk of offences, or to put it another way, the majority of heroin/crack users at the time committed little or no crime (apart from personal possession of Class A drugs). 

Heroin on the Isle of Wight

Addicts Index figures for notified heroin users indicate that heroin may have been on the Isle of Wight as early as the mid-1970s, however, because data is recorded by police force area and represents users in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight combined, it is impossible to find precise dates and figures. As the table below shows, data for Merseyside, Greater Manchester and London show a clear jump in numbers of new heroin users in 1983-4 (in mid blue), whereas those for Hampshire show a small increase that plateaus until 1989, before increasing again through 1990-2, and then dipping at the start of the second wave in 1993-4. The figures in dark blue indicate the highest numbers of new heroin addicts for each area for the period from 1981 to 1996:

Increase in heroin use within the Hampshire police force area didn’t coincide with the beginnings of the two epidemic waves, and the only significant jump was in 1992. How many new addicts were living on the Isle of Wight at that time is unknown – it could be all, some or none. Nicky McNamara may have started using heroin in 1991-2, but his criminal history (explored later) indicates that his theft offences began in earnest in 1995.  

Heroin epidemics go unnoticed to start with but can spread rapidly, beginning with personal contact – experienced users facilitate novices with the ‘knowledge’ about price, purity, how to smoke, chase or inject, what feelings to look for, etc., and this gets passed on between associates and friendship networks. In a full-blown epidemic, this ‘microdiffusion’ occurs simultaneously in numerous locations across densely populated urban areas. Over time, these locations join up and spread to neighbouring areas through ‘macrodiffusion’, for example, supplier/dealer movement to avoid surveillance or opening a new market, or the migration of users to a ‘quieter’ area or town.

The Isle of Wight probably differed from this urban model simply due to its unique geography in that the reach of the spread of heroin had a natural boundary (the sea) and therefore ‘macrodiffusion’ would not have occurred. Instead, spread would have likely remained at the ‘microdiffusion’ level facilitated via a hierarchical, three-layer business model: 

• established regional buyer/seller arrangements based on family ties, legitimate business fronts, social networks and norms that go back several generations
• main town dealers with connections to established criminal networks and the illegal economy as well as the drug trade
• local home-based and mobile dealers who sell to vetted end-user customers via a closed, social network market (for more information about illicit drug markets and distribution systems see the fourth post in this series). 

It all sounds very organised doesn’t it? That’s because the Isle of Wight is a seasoned player in the organised smuggling and trading of illicit goods – from brandy, wool, tea, tobacco, coffee and spices, to more recently, drugs. At the time that my great-grandfather was born on the Island, the village in which I grew up was described by 19^th century poet, Sydney Dobell, as follows:

The whole population here are smugglers. Everyone has an ostensible occupation, but nobody gets his money by it, or cares to work in it. Here are fishermen who never fish, but always have pockets full of money, and farmers whose farming consists in ploughing the deep by night, and whose daily time is spent standing like herons on lookout posts.

When I say ‘established regional buyer/seller arrangements based on family ties, legitimate business fronts, social networks and norms that go back several generations’, it’s not a fanciful comment.

The figure left is representative of regional level heroin distribution in the mid-1990s. In episode 3 of Unsolved: The Boy Who Disappeared, Damien’s friend, Vicky, speaks of a dealer who came to sell cannabis, and later, heroin, to her boyfriend at the time. Mobile dealers who visit their customers are typical of Class A drug ‘retailing’ because delivering drugs to buyers draws less attention from neighbours and the police than having a ‘shopfront’ at home with a stream of customers visiting at all hours of the day and night.

Was Nicky McNamara a violent drug dealer?

Nicky McNamara was a drug user, and at one point, a heroin addict – this is not in any doubt. According to various sources, he was also violent and a drug dealer. In episode 6 of Unsolved: The Boy Who Disappeared, Shirley Barrett who was Nicky’s landlady in 2002, claimed that he was violent to everybody – boys and girls. In a comment on YouTube under the same episode someone named Charlie Smith writes that when working in a bar in Newport in the summer of 1997, Nicky got angry and ‘then it was pint glasses and ashtrays flying across the room’. Valerie writes in her book that he was ‘a nasty man with a violent temper’. In contrast, in episode 8 of Unsolved: The Boy Who Disappeared, Nicky’s friend, Jonathan ‘Bunny’ Iles, said that he had never seen Nicky start trouble, and although they’d had a few fights in their time, everyone got home at the end of the night and were drinking in the pub together the next weekend. So who is right? Perhaps Nicky’s criminal history holds the answer.

The Isle of Wight County Press archive contains a total of 31 articles relating to Nicky’s criminal activities between September 1983 and August 2001. The final article on 24 August 2001 states a 23-year long criminal history, and so if this is correct, Nicky began offending at the age of 14. His offending between the ages of 14 and 18 as a minor would not have been covered by the media at the time. There is a strong argument for the criminal justice system itself being criminogenic – that once caught in its net, it is difficult for young people to break free, and this gets harder and harder over time. Whilst young Nicky was getting caught by the police for anti-social behaviour and petty offences, there will have been dozens of other boys committing the same types offences but without attracting police attention. The police weren't watching them – they were watching Nicky, and that is why he kept getting caught. There is every chance that like the many other teens who offend but go uncaught, Nicky may have grown out of his adolescent 'risky-rebellious' behaviour, found legitimate employment, and settled down into a normal, non-criminal adult life. 

In the 23 years from ages 14 to 36, Nicky committed a total of 115 offences. However, only two were for violence:

14 May 1989 – Aged 24, Nicky head-butted and punched his girlfriend in the face after she told him that she was seeing someone else. This resulted in a swelling on her forehead, a lump on the back of her head, and a swollen lip. He admitted what he had done, pleaded guilty to ABH, and was fined £50 plus £15 compensation.

1 August 1997 – The landlord of The Painters Arms in Cowes had barred Nicky in December 1996, and for seven months afterwards refused to allow him back in despite Nicky’s repeated pleas. Nicky felt aggrieved by the landlord’s treatment of him and on 1 August 1997 he went into the pub. The landlord told him to leave, which he did, but then he returned and asked to be readmitted. They argued. The landlord was rude, which brought the argument down to a personal level. Nicky spat at the landlord’s face. The landlord removed his saliva-covered glasses and put them on a ledge behind him. Nicky lashed out several times, broke three beer pumps, and threw a drip tray and plastic ashtray at the landlord. The ashtray hit the shelf and broke the landlord’s glasses. Nicky was alleged to have said that he was going hurt the landlord and burn down his pub. Nicky pleaded guilty to common assault and criminal damage, for which he received a 3-month prison sentence.

The majority of Nicky’s other crimes were made up of theft offences (burglary from businesses, shoplifting, handling of stolen goods) and driving offences (without a licence, insurance, MOT or road tax), plus three criminal damage, three possession of cannabis (four immature plants growing in his garden in November 1994, a small amount of resin in January 1997 and a single plant in August 1998), two drunk and disorderly, two possession of a deadly weapon (an unloaded shotgun that he claimed he didn’t know was in the car that he was delivering for someone to earn himself £50 in January 1993, and a wooden baton that he claimed was for protection against his landlord in May 2000) and offences related to arrests, charges and sentencing such as resisting arrest, failing to surrender to bail, and breaching a community order.

Nicky also received 44 convictions – 41 were for theft, two were for benefit fraud, and one was for ‘using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour’ alongside Jonathan ‘Bunny’ Iles in an incident directed at the owner of Cowes Tandoori restaurant in October 1995. Two weeks prior to this, the owner of the restaurant – who had previous convictions for violence – had beaten up Iles. 

Nicky was certainly no saint, but his extensive criminal history does not paint him as a violent man. The two violent offences that he pleaded guilty to and was punished for were highly personal in nature – one in response to his girlfriend dumping him, and the other (in which he didn’t actually punch anyone) in response to the landlord of his local pub repeatedly refusing to readmit him for seven months. Throughout his life, Nicky was in continuous unemployment, living off benefits and residing in rented rooms and bedsits. He did rent rooms at Fellows Road and Mill Hill Road in Cowes between January and October 1995, but lived mainly at addresses in Newport from 1983 until July 1996 when he was made homeless from his bedsit in Hunnyhill after the police found the four immature cannabis plants growing in the back garden. Between September 1996 and early 1997, he was sofa surfing – a friend’s house in Ryde is mentioned in September 1996 in connection with him finding it difficult to comply with his community order that had to be served in Newport. He was a petty criminal who stole to support his heroin addiction. Added to this the numerous times that he was caught by the police for driving and theft offences and had his person, vehicles and properties searched to the point that he claimed police harassment, he is only reported to have resisted arrest once, and was never convicted, charged or even arrested for intent to supply – not even cannabis, never mind Class A drugs.

This should be enough to make anybody seriously question whether Nicky was the violent and notorious Cowes drug dealer that sources who never actually knew him have painted him to be. If he was dealing drugs in the mid-1990s, he wasn’t very good at it. No luxury yachts or mansions for Nicky. He didn’t even have money for a new pair of boots. There is just one account that mentions him as being a drug dealer that can be considered true, and that is from his daughter, who in relation to Medina Housing Association evicting Shirley Barrett from her Prospect Road property in June 2003 gave evidence in court against Shirley and is quoted as saying: 'Dad and the defendant were also drug dealers. Every time I visited, a stream of people, sometimes as many as 15, would come and buy drugs from them.' In late October 2003, the police told Damien's mother, Valerie, that they thought they had identified one of the unknown men the Yorkies CCTV footage – 'a well-known drug dealer from the area’ who had died the previous year. Valerie asked an Isle of Wight County Press journalist who this drug dealer might be, and the journalist told her that she thought it would be Nicky McNamara. I can't help but wonder – if the report about Shirley Barrett's eviction order four months prior to this hadn't included the quote from Nicky's daughter, would Nicky's name have even been mentioned?

Nicky has become the 'folk devil' in the stories surrounding Damien's disappearance, but did he kill him, or has he been made into a convenient scapegoat for someone else? In the next post I will be creating and analysing various timelines of accounts of when Nicky’s name is mentioned or implied to see whether this provides any answers to when his name became linked with Damien’s, and how strong those links actually are.

Damien's disappearance remains an active missing person case. If you have any information that could help find Damien, please contact Hampshire Police on 101, quoting ‘Operation Ridgewood’, or if you would prefer to remain anonymous, Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

Sources

BBC3 (2016) Unsolved: Meet the people linked to Damien’s case – Nicky McNamara.

BBC News (25 July 2016) Damien Nettles: The Boy Who Disappeared.

Cohen, S. (2002) Folk Devils and Moral Panics. Third edition. London: Routledge.

Crocker, R., Webb, S., Garner, S. & Skidmore, M. (2017) The impact of organised crime in local communities. Perpetuity Research & The Police Foundation.

Facebook.

Home Office (1977) The Addicts Index – Table 1: New heroin users notified to the Addicts Index, by police force area, 1977-1996.

Isle of Wight County Press archives (16 September 1983 to 20 June 2003) Results for “Nicholas John McNamara”, “Nicholas McNamara”, “Nicky McNamara” and “Nick McNamara”. Search conducted 23 May 2024 (special thanks to Matt for the no-charge 7-day subscription).

Isle of Wight County Press (9 June 1989) Man punched girlfriend.

Isle of Wight County Press (31 October 1997) Jail for Cowes man after pub attack.

Isle of Wight County Press (7 March 2003) Man in bath died of drug overdose.

Morgan, N. (2014) The heroin epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s and its effect on crime trends – then and now. Research Report 79. London: Home Office.

Nettles, V. (2019) The Boy Who Disappeared. London: John Blake Publishing.

Newman, T. (2013) Criminology. Second edition. Abingdon: Routledge.

Parker, H., Bury, C. & Egginton, R. (1998) New Heroin Outbreaks Amongst Young People in England and Wales. Crime Detection and Prevention Series: Paper 92. London: Home Office.

Platt, R. (2011) Smuggling in the British Isles: A History. Stroud: The History Press.

Southern Daily Echo (20 June 2003) BOOTED OUT.

Streetmap.co.uk

UK Parliament (6 June 1989) Hansard: Population Statistics – Volume 154.

Unsolved – The Boy Who Disappeared: 3. The Suspect (2016) BBC3, 27 July. YouTube.

Unsolved – The Boy Who Disappeared: 6. The House of Death (2016) BBC3, 30 July. YouTube.

Unsolved – The Boy Who Disappeared: 8. The Dig (2016) BBC3, 1 August. YouTube.

Wightliving (13 February 2010) Drugs Kill – Isle of Wight: Nicholas John McNamara. Comments section.

Young, J. (1973) ‘The amplification of drug use’ in Cohen, S. & Young, J. (Eds) The Manufacture of Deviance. London: Constable.