Gangland UK: The Inside Story of Britain's Most Evil Gangsters (3 page)

In consequence, there remains an enormous amount that we can’t verify about Mr Hood. We don’t know how many people he robbed, nor how many people he and his band of followers killed. We don’t even know his real name. His life, according to many notable authorities, bore a striking similarity to accounts of the life of one Fulk FitzWarin, a Norman nobleman who was disinherited and became an outlaw and an enemy of the tight-fisted King John of England, who argued with the Pope, disputed with his own barons, and died from dysentery, most likely brought upon from a surfeit of poisoned ale, peaches and plums.

In the oldest of legends, Robin’s enemy, due to his role as a bandit, was the Sheriff of Nottingham. But in later versions (if any one of them are based on a shred of fact) the sheriff is despotic and gravely abuses his position, appropriating land, levying excessive taxation, and persecuting the poor – not unlike some senior local government officials today.

In some versions, Robin is a yeoman. In later versions, he is described as the nobleman, Earl of Loxley, who, like the venerable Fulk above, was unjustly deprived of his lands.

In other stories, Robin had served in the Crusades – although no one has defined precisely, somewhat conveniently, which specific Crusade this was – and, upon returning to England, he discovered that everything he owned had been pillaged by the dastardly sheriff.

If this was the case, it’s not hard to see that Robin
might be excused his dastardly conduct – he’d given up his day job, borrowed a substantial amount of money to buy a first-rate steed, floated across the English Channel in nothing short of a large coffin, and ridden 1,000 miles deep into the Byzantine Empire to fight a war that for centuries seemed to have no beginning and, at that time, no foreseeable end. Exhausted, Robin would have ridden all the way back to France, re-negotiated the dangerous English Channel to Dover, then dragged his emaciated horse 251 miles north to his Nottingham wattle-walled cottage. Upon his arrival, he would have found his home empty, having been pillaged by pals of the local sheriff.

So, in some tales, Robin is the champion of the people, fighting against corrupt officials and the oppressive order that protects them, while, in others, he is an arrogant and headstrong rebel, who delighted in bloodshed, cruelly slaughtering and beheading his victims.

Today, Nottingham has another so-called Robin Hood with his own band of Merry Men – a vicious outfit who will never be offered star billing as ‘principal characters’ on Nottingham’s official website. The faces that stare out at us, courtesy of a police charge room camera, are hooded-eyed Colin Gunn, and his brother, David, a ruthless crew who brought terror and mayhem to Nottingham by performing their civic duty carrying out murder, robberies, burglaries and beatings – on men and women – as well as torture, extortion, racial abuse, prostitution, drug distribution and the corruption of police officers. Single-handedly, they turned Bestwood into a place where no decent person dared to live.

The Sheriff of Nottingham in this case is replaced by a disconsolate Chief Constable, Steve Green, whose
officers – Charles Fletcher and Philip Parr – had been lured knee-deep into corruption and conspiracy to the degree that that they received 7 years and 12 months in prison respectively. At his wits’ end, Mr Green eventually set up a band of ‘Untouchables’ to snare the gang that held the local populace in their iron grip of fear.

In their early years, the Gunn brothers might have modelled themselves on Robin Hood. Maybe they identified themselves with the Kray brothers. But, in reality, what we do find are two completely nasty pieces of work who were prepared to make nightmares come true.

T
he Gunn brothers grew up in Bestwood, one of the many sprawling, low-rise estates in Nottingham. Built in the late 1940s and early 1950s, it once was one of the city’s nicest areas. With its modern, three-bedroomed houses and inside toilets, you were considered lucky if you moved there.

Not any more. Even though the Gunns are now behind bars, Bestwood residents still live in fear of the two men, and many on the estate refuse even to mention their name.

In their youth, the brothers were model kids, even featuring in a church magazine for chasing and catching a purse-snatcher. Then things changed. Their teenage years were littered with criminal convictions, including
violence, burglary and handling offences. In their early twenties, their ‘bling-bling’ jewellery and expensive cars were a magnet for every disaffected youth in the area as they bragged about the millions they had stashed away. Colin Gunn drove a car with the number plate ‘P
OWER
’.

Gun crime had arrived in Nottingham in early 2000, some time before the Gunns arrived on the scene and, in keeping with many other cities, it was predominantly a phenomenon of the African-Caribbean community. But by the end of 2002 and into 2003, it was becoming increasingly clear to police fighting on that front that there was another dynamic in the city, one that was causing more insidious problems –gun crime was emerging in the white community, and the Gunns were at the heart of it.

Chief Constable Green said, ‘We increasingly formed the view that in the centre of all that was Colin Gunn. I think that led us to conclude that we would never resolve the gun crime until we confronted the Colin Gunn problem.’ And what a problem it was turning out to be.

The Gunns had soon caused Nottingham to be nominated fourth place in the country’s gun crime league and, if we are to give the brothers any credit, the statistics are impressive and speak for themselves. In 2002, at the height of their notoriety, 54 guns were fired, causing 36 injuries. After the Gunns’ arrest in 2005, the figure plummeted to 11 guns fired and just 5 injuries.

In 2002, there were 21 murders involving firearms in Nottingham; that equates to 24 per cent, compared with 8 per cent nationally. After their arrest, the tally dropped to 14 homicides, of which 0 per cent were gun related, compared with 7 per cent nationally.

During the police operation to capture the men,
£
10.1 million in assets were seized, along with a staggering
£
73.5 million in drugs. Police carried out more than 80 operations and arrested more than 100 people to get to Colin Gunn, who was by now serving 35 years after being convicted, in June 2006, of the murder of an elderly couple whose son had killed a friend of the Gunn family.

41-year-old Gunn, a shaven-headed bodybuilder, was charged with conspiracy to commit misconduct in a public office. Police officers Charles Fletcher and Philip Parr were also found guilty of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

Gunn and his gang (including his brother, David, who also has an extensive history of serious crime, and is now serving 8.5 years for conspiracy to supply amphetamines) based their operations on the Bestwood Estate. They ruled by fear and intimidation. They were involved in selling drugs and guns, torturing and murdering those who crossed them.

The Gunns even threatened senior police officers with death, and they paraded their wealth, boasting of their millions to unemployed teenagers. But police found it impossible to implicate Colin Gunn as the mastermind as he rarely got his hands dirty by ordering his henchmen to carry out beatings and murders. Detectives also suspect that Colin had been involved in many murders and punishment beatings on both men and women.

Police also believe that Colin Gunn ordered the shooting of a social worker who dared to give evidence against his gang, but the cops have no evidence to prove those allegations. On Monday, 17 May 2004, 50-
year-old
Derrick Senior was shot after he helped to convict a gang that had racially abused and beaten him in the Lord Nelson pub in Bulwell, including tearing out one of his dreadlocks. Senior, who should have sought police protection, but didn’t, claimed that he would not give in to criminals. He was shot several times as he reversed out of his drive on the Heathfield Estate three days after his abusers had been convicted.

Senior had been having a drink with a female friend when a group of drunken men started picking on her. When he went to her defence, they turned on him, dragging him into a corner of the pub by his dreadlocks. He suffered a fractured eye socket and a broken rib during the attack. He was racially abused and the drunks paraded the dreadlock around as a ‘trophy’. Robert Watson, 25, Joseph Graham, 23, Lee Marshall, 24, and John McNee, 24, were jailed for
racially-aggravated
assault.

On the day of the attempted murder of Mr Senior, John McSally, 50, a gangland ‘enforcer’ for Colin Gunn, rode up on his motorbike and opened fire, yelling, ‘You grassing bastard.’ Senior was hit in the chest, stomach and legs, but survived after playing dead, slumping over the steering wheel of his car.

On Friday, 1 June 2007, McSally, of Plaza Gardens, Basford, was jailed for life for shooting Senior. Gunn had offered Senior a ‘substantial amount of money’ to withdraw his testimony against the four drunks, but he refused. Sentencing McSally, Mr Justice Pitchers said, ‘You are an incredibly dangerous man – ready, for money, to kill without a second thought.’ Ordering McSally to serve at least 35 years, the judge added, ‘Even
by the warped standards of those who enforce their will by violence, these were evil offences.’

McSally, allegedly acting on Gunn’s orders, had also shot gang associate 46-year-old Patrick Marshall outside the Park Tavern pub in Basford on 8 February 2004. Marshall was Colin Gunn’s odd-job man, but he had got on the wrong side of him after going on a
£
100,000 cocaine run to Lincolnshire without his boss’s permission. Then word spread around that Marshall was trying to get a gun to shoot associate ‘Scotch Al’ after a feud. Marshall contacted McSally, who found a gun and went to meet him. But instead of handing him the weapon, McSally blasted him in the head in the pub car park. The getaway car was recovered by police and had Colin Gunn’s overdue phone bill inside it and three photographs of his brother, David. McSally is now serving a life sentence for this offence. His co-accused, Craig McKay, denied any involvement in the shooting and was cleared by a jury.

Today, tales abound on the Bestwood Estate about Gunn’s ruthless streak. It is said that he once broke the arms of one of his own men after he drove badly and ‘disrespected’ him. People were shot through their hands for carrying out burglaries on the estate without his permission. People moving to the estate were visited and told that Gunn ruled the roost. Many were too scared to stay.

A senior officer said, ‘These are not normal villains. They would shoot someone to get respect. They are extremely vicious and brutal people. The smallest slight to Gunn would end with a severe beating. Some of his guys are just psychopaths. There are a lot of bodies –
dead and alive – that have the hallmark of Colin Gunn. I don’t think there is anyone who is grateful for ever having met him.’

Police realised that, if they were to bring down Gunn, they would have to establish a new way of working. Knowing that at some stage they would come across corruption in the force, they set up operations within operations, like a Russian
matrioshka
doll. These were kept so secret that officers outside the squad had no idea that they existed.

To capture Gunn, officers identified his lieutenants, thugs and drug-dealers and started at the bottom, taking them out one by one, piling the pressure on Gunn to encourage him to get involved personally. Chief Constable Green told his men, ‘Shake these criminals to the core and lock them away in any way that is ethical and lawful.’ The main operation was called Stealth, and beneath that, cloaked in secrecy, was Utah, which had been set up solely to catch Gunn.

It soon became known that Gunn was heavily involved in the murders of 55-year-old textile worker John Stirland and his wife, Joan, 53, who were tracked down and murdered at their seaside bungalow in Trusthorpe, Lincolnshire, on 8 August 2004. Mrs Stirland’s 22-
year-old
son, Michael O’Brien, had shot dead an innocent man outside a Nottingham pub in 2003. The victim, 22-
year-old
shop-fitter Marvyn Bradshaw, was a friend of Jamie Gunn, Colin’s nephew. It later emerged that Bradshaw, a family man with no links to crime or gangs, was killed after being mistaken for someone who had assaulted O’Brien in The Sporting Chance pub with an ashtray.

There had been a ‘lock-in’ during the night in
question. Customers were inside enjoying a late drink and, at the door, a young man was refused admission. He was Michael ‘JJ’ O’Brien. He had already been turned away from two other pubs for wearing trainers and a tracksuit top.

A scuffle took place and O’Brien, a small-time
drug-dealer
, who had already served jail time, now the worse for wear with drink, was hit in the face with an ashtray. O’Brien, who was with his mate, 31-year-old Gary Salmon, retreated to Salmon’s flat nearby, where they changed into dark clothes and balaclavas. They also picked up a
single-barrel
shotgun to commit what was to become the seventeenth shooting in Nottingham that August.

Back at The Sporting Chance, four men left the premises and climbed into a silver Renault Laguna car. At the wheel was Marvyn Bradshaw. Sitting beside him was his longtime friend Jamie Gunn. As the car edged out of the car park, a shot was discharged and Bradshaw, hit in the head, slumped sideways. He died later in hospital; having been shot from such close range, death from the head wound was inevitable. The lad had most certainly been killed in a case of mistaken identity. Indeed, neither he nor Jamie Gunn had been involved in the ashtray incident.

After the shooting, the two men returned to Salmon’s flat where O’Brien boasted to two teenage girls, ‘I shot him… he was a bad man.’ Scared to death, they contacted the police. The loud-mouthed O’Brien’s bragging proved to be his downfall, and that of his parents, too.

As the result of the shooting, the Stirlands were forced to flee their Nottingham home after several shots were fired into their living room. Thugs had warned the couple
to leave the area or ‘stay and face the consequences’. They immediately packed up a few possessions and left without telling friends where they were going.

First, they moved to Humberside, but it is believed that they may have been forced, once again urgently, to abandon their new home because they turned up at a second address, a bungalow in Trusthorpe, on the Lincolnshire coast, in December 2003, with only the clothes they stood up in.

In April 2004, they told Nottinghamshire Police that they had moved and senior officers in Lincolnshire were made aware of the problems and their background.

In July, their son, 23-year-old O’Brien, was sentenced to life for murdering Marvyn Bradshaw. O’Brien rubbed salt into the wounds of the dead man’s parents, taunting them from the dock, ‘I’m not bothered, I’m a bad boy. It means nothing to me. Your son looked like a doughnut with a big hole in his head. I know where you live.’ Before being escorted away, he threw a beaker of water towards Mr and Mrs Bradshaw, screaming, ‘I will do my time standing on my head.’ Quite understandably, Colin Gunn was livid when he heard of this.

Three days later, 53-year-old Mrs Stirland rang Nottinghamshire Police to say that fresh threats had been made against her and her family. Lincolnshire Police were informed the next day. Despite this, when she rang Nottingham Police at 11.30am on Sunday to say that there had been a prowler in her garden the previous night, the police did not consider it immediately necessary to inform their neighbouring force. Instead, an officer Mrs Stirland knew rang her back at 2.00pm. After a
seven-minute
conversation, the officer called Lincolnshire Police
to tell them of the prowler, but did not ask for a patrol car to drive past the bungalow. She did not want to call 999 because she didn’t want police cars swooping on the house and alarming her neighbours.

Within minutes of speaking to the Nottinghamshire officer, and almost three hours after first reporting the prowler, the Stirlings were shot dead. Two men wearing blue boiler suits were seen in the vicinity of the murder scene. Witnesses described them walking or running away from the bungalow while a black Volkswagen Passat was parked nearby with its hazard lights flashing. The car was later found ablaze in a quiet country lane. The two men were spotted close by. The car had been stolen on 31 July, from Nottinghamshire.

Chief Constable Green said, ‘The ruthlessness with which Gunn tracked the Stirlands down after they fled Nottingham was characteristic of a man who led a bloodthirsty and violent regime.’

But, the question now was: how had Gunn tracked down the Stirlands so quickly? A former Nottingham neighbour explained that the couple’s rented address had become local knowledge in the city after a family friend, who lived on the same estate, accidentally met the Stirlands in Mablethorpe, just four miles from the bungalow.

Another rumour was that the couple’s daughter had been followed when she visited her parents the day before they were killed. Or was it because, just two weeks before they were murdered, the couple took the risk to returning to Nottingham to attend the wedding of Mr Stirland’s son, Lee, and his fiancée Adele?

More revelations were to follow. According to Nottingham residents, Mrs Stirland, a children’s care
nurse at the Queen’s Medical Centre, had previously been heard in a Nottingham pub praising her convicted son. She told fellow drinkers that O’Brien had vowed to take revenge on the people who put him away, which would have done nothing to endear her, her husband and her mindless son to Mr Colin Gunn.