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The strength to carry on
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After an astonishing and brutal attack at its haulage yard which left
one person dead and two others critically injured, a West Yorkshire haulier has refused to quit. Bridget Carter reports.
CM EXCLUSIVE The date of 14 September 2005 began as nothing special at West Yorkshire transport and recycling firm M&B Haulage And Waste Paper. Trucks came and went, drivers had their little moans traffic, customers, that awkward tip the usual minutiae of haulage life. In fact, business was booming at the Dewsbury firm and there seemed little on the horizon to worry director Clive Hoyland. Sure, there had been a bit of unpleasantness earlier in the year, but now the police had that matter in hand.
Within a matter of hours, though. Hoyland was lying in a pool of his own blood with critical stab wounds. Moments earlier he had seen his nephew David Burrows murdered and his half-brother and business partner David's father Darrell Burrows stabbed in a frenzied attack by Gavin Hogg. The mentally unstable mechanic from a neighbouring business had driven at speed into M&B's yard, crashing into Hoyland's car before launching his attack.
Hogg had climbed from the ear brandishing a knife before lunging at David, a 36-year-old father who was looking forward to his wedding. The attacker plunged the 10-inch blade into David before turning on Darrell, who suffered a shallow gash in his back. As Hogg went to stab Hoyland,David yelled:"He's got a knife!"
Hogg was hiding the weapon behind his back. Hoyland says Hogg stared into his eyes before saying. "You bastard." and plunging the blade into him several times, penetrating his colon, bowel, stomach and heart. Hoyland, speaking slowly and emotionally, explains: "That's how close I was to death. You could see the evil in his eyes, and the hatred. He smashed me on the shoulder and in the other hand he had a knife. He plunged it into my side and twisted it. I was on my toes because the pain was unbelievable."
Fatal wounds Hogg then withdrew the blade and ran off the entire attack had taken only 37 seconds. As Hogg fled the scene. David collapsed in the yard. His wounds were fatal.
-He just ran off and left us there all bleeding." Hoyland recalls"David managed to w-alk,even though he was stabbed, and went down by the fence and just collapsed. He never got back up. He was stabbed twice through his diaphragm and aorta,and just bled to death."
Others helped Hoyland into his office as he desperately tried to call his partner, who was at the hairdresser. By the time the ambulance had arrived, he had slipped into unconsciousness: "I thought I had died; it was like being in a white cocoon, like an out-of-body experience. I remember a medic sticking a mask on my face, and I was taken to hospital and operated on straight away."
Lying next to Hoyland in the hospital was David. Later, when the director heard staff talking about a fatality, he didn't realise at first that it was David they were referring to. "But then I just worked it out," Hoyland recalls.
However, after four days in intensive care and two weeks in hospital. Hoyland was on the phone, talking to people at work and returning to the yard. He found it incredibly emotional and difficult to do, but refused to be beaten."Building up this business has taken a lot of years, and I didn't want us to dwell in self-pity," he says.
"I stayed in touch with work. Nobody really took over, and everyone was grieving as it was effectively a family business." Hoyland points out that customers were equally supportive and sympathetic, with flowers by the vanload arriving in the office. "The support was absolutely gratifying," Hoyland adds.
He says taking calls from well-wishers was also difficult:"I was highly charged emotionally. I couldn't concentrate properly, and still can't to this day. Every time I look out the window of my office, the memory is still there."
The next chapter in the saga was in March this year when Hogg's case came to trial. After a gruelling few weeks recounting the events in court, Hogg was given a life sentence for David Burrows' murder.
Before last September's events, things had been going well for Hoyland and M&B. Since it began 65 years ago with only one truck. it had grown into a thriving operation with 67 employees, a £6.5m turnover and pre-tax profits of around £250,000.
But when Gavin Hogg arrived on the scene, their whole world was turned on its head. "He was like a petulant child, always wanting his own way. He was one of those people who seemed to get his own way by intimidation," says Hoyland.
At one stage, Hogg threatened to burn the firm down. Hoyland took the threat seriously and often came back to check that the property was safe. Hogg, who had spent time in a psychiatric hospital, blocked the entrance to the haulage yard at one point, in protest over changes that lloyland was making to the premises. The intimidation escalated and in another incident. Hogg threatened to kill Darrell Burrows. In May 2005, he grabbed Darrell from his car and tried to drag him to a canal in an attempt to drown him. Hogg was later charged and found guilty of common assault. He was sentenced on 13 September.
The following day he came back, looking again for Darrell, and the tragic events of 14 September unfolded. In the year following the murder and after two operations with a third soon to come, Hoyland is back in the director's chair in the office and it is business as usual, although lie admits he is still grieving.
At the moment, MSzB is in the middle of building a new office block which will be dedicated to David. Flowers were ceremonially laid in the premises to mark the first anniversary of the tragedy,hut all the company's employees refuse to let it bring them down. "We've continued seamlessly. There is no other way of dealing with it," explains Hoyl and. •