THEY are the world’s most iconic gang, cruising the roads on huge Harley-Davidson motorbikes.
Their arrival is heralded by a deafening din and a trailing fug of exhaust fumes.
They are proud of their “born to be wild” attitude and their appearance is menacing.
And on Sunday we saw just how much the Hells Angels live up to their fearsome reputation.
Biker Gerard Tobin was brutally gunned down as he rode home from the Bulldog Bash — a four-day event where motorbike enthusiasts from all over Europe meet at Long Marston airfield, near Stratford-upon-Avon.
The assassination was almost certainly the result of a deadly feud and carried out by a rival chapter of Hells Angels.
How do we know? A near-identical shooting happened after another Bulldog Bash rally six years ago.
Then, a 31-year-old Hells Angel was blasted in the leg while riding on the same motorway by a gunman leaning from a car window.
Unlike Sunday’s victim, he survived and the police treated the attack as attempted murder.
They refused to issue the biker’s name or reveal which hospital he was being treated at, for fear of someone finishing the job.
The pattern emerging from the two incidents is obvious — guns, violence and murder are all part of being a Hells Angel.

In sharp contrast to the romantic image of bikers portrayed in 1969.

When confronted, the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club (HAMC) deny that criminal activity is part and parcel of joining the gang.

Rather, they claim, it is down to a few bad individuals who just happen to belong to the club
The group was founded by disgruntled ex-servicemen after the Second World War and chapters can now be found in 22 countries.

The original group lived in a Los Angeles suburb. To mark Independence Day, they descended on the sleepy central Californian town of Hollister and ran riot.

They went drag-racing down the main street, tossing beer bottles in all directions, and terrifying locals by riding their bikes through the doors of the town’s saloon bar.

This and similar behaviour a year later inspired the screen-writers of the 1953 movie The Wild One, in which two rival motorcycle gangs terrorise a town after one of their leaders is thrown in jail.

The Hells Angels name may have come from a US Air Force bomber squadron. The gang insignia — a skull with wings and a motorcycle helmet — is known as The Death’s Head and can be found on Hells Angels membership cards.

Of their estimated 2,000 official members, around 400 are in the UK and 1,200 in the US. And it is an exclusive club.

The common misconception is that to buy a big bike and grow long hair is enough to grant entry to the Angels. Wrong. To be accepted you have to prove yourself to be fearless, ruthless and have a total disregard for the law.

In the UK, new members have to be nominated by an existing member. If they are accepted then they are allowed to become a “hangaround” or apprentice.

If they prove themselves they graduate to the status of a “prospect” before finally becoming a member. The process can take years and ends with the recruit being issued a jacket with the Death’s Head symbol on it.

Initiation ceremonies are barbaric. In a study of Californian Hells Angels in the late 1960s, a new recruit’s rite of passage was described by author Hunter S Thompson. He wrote: “Every Angel recruit comes to his initiation wearing a new pair of Levis and a matching jacket, with the sleeves cut off and a spotless emblem on the back.

The ceremony varies from one chapter to another but the main feature is always the defiling of the initiate's new uniform.

“A bucket of dung and urine will be collected during the meeting, then poured on the newcomer’s head. Or he will take off his clothes and stand naked while the bucket of slop is poured over them and the others stomp it in.”

One of the most notorious Hells Angels events took place in 1969 at a Rolling Stones gig in California.

The Stones are said to have hired the bikers as security and would pay them in beer. A shoving match erupted as Mick Jagger sang Under My Thumb, then someone in the crowd pulled a pistol.

After firing into a group of Angels he was quickly mobbed and stabbed to death. The bullet hit famous Hells Angel Sonny Barger.

Barger survived and another gang member was acquitted of murder on the grounds of self-defence. Last year police in Toronto raided a Hells Angels stronghold, arrested 15 men and seized 13 kilos of cocaine, 50,000 ecstasy pills, 23 kilos of marijuana and four kilos of hash and crystal meth.

Home-grown Hells Angels groups include chapters in London, Essex, Manchester, Kent and, most recently, Northern Ireland.

They have slick websites which chart the history of their chapter and their love of Harley-Davidsons.
But none give away the darker side of the gang.
There is speculation the M40 murder was the result of a feud between chapters.
Like the Mafia, Hells Angels take honour and respect very seriously. Arguments are sparked by simple insults or drunken slurs

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2007370480,00.html