Danny Dyke was leading a double life. To mates and colleagues in the Swansea area he was an osteopath.
A former rugby player for Rosslyn Park and Eastbourne before knee injuries cut his playing prospects short, he’d also had a spell as a physio for Neath and Aberavon rugby clubs.
However, as revealed in CBS Reality’s Murder by the Sea, he wanted more. This led to his developing a dangerous sideline – that of a drug dealer with a sophisticated network.
To anyone who looked he seemed to have it all for a time. This was the early 1990s. Rugby union was on the verge of going professional and Dyke had plenty of rugby contacts.
Osteopath’s dangerous double life
So he had his day job, but on the quiet was providing anabolic steroids to rugby players and clubbers. But he also had a lifestyle that was beyond the means of the average physio.
He had developed contacts in London who could supply him with the drugs he distributed in south Wales. The problem was that sooner or later he was going to do business with some seriously nasty criminals.
One London man who knew the scene said Dyke was a nice fella who had no muscle behind him.
I watched this episode recently on CBS Reality but only caught part of it, I would have liked to see the whole episode but can’t find anywhere online to catch up. I guess it struck a chord with me as he was the same age as me, I also had knee cartilage problems from a sports injury (I avoided having mine removed though), will be training to be a physio, frequently cycle up the hills around Garnswllt and at one stage have been too involved with the wrong characters.
The whole story is very sad really. 3 mens lives lost/ ruined and that of their families… all for what would now be around £30,000 given inflation since 1994. You have to be seriously psychopathic/ desperate to murder someone for any amount of money let alone 30k.
The irony that Welsby and Wilson ended up seeking protection at Cockett police station because Dykes contacts were looking to recover their money following his disappearance.
I wonder if Danny Dyke even thought that they would murder him over such a comparatively small amount of money.
It’s a shame Dyke didn’t have any extra muscle with him that fateful day. Hopefully he would have returned to his true path before much more damage was done, the path that he would have spent years on end training for- helping people live a more active, pain free life through his day job.
CBS Reality repeats everything, so you should get another chance to catch this. And I agree – a sad story
Have a look on i player- ‘dark land’ season 2, there’s an episode on this case