Politics
Inside Manchester’s brutal gang wars where rivals burn enemies’ ears with blowtorches & use rape as punishment
IN a harrowing 999 call a woman screams: ‘I swear there’s no money here’ and begs for help as her husband is kidnapped at gunpoint.
Moments later, as armed cops arrive, a small child can be heard asking: “Did Daddy die?”
DS Julie Connor says violence among rival gangs is on the rise[/caption]
Paris Bostock was jailed for his role in the shocking crime[/caption]
The shocking footage forms the opening scenes of the new BBC2 documentary The Detectives: Fighting Organised Crime, which airs tonight.
Filmed in Manchester, with unprecedented access to police operations, the series followed the Major Incident Team (MIT) for two years as they tackled the growing violence amongst rival gangs.
The kidnap victim, beaten and abducted by five men in front of his terrified wife and kids, was tortured for 24 hours.
He had his ears burned with a blowtorch, hot irons put on his knees and was forcibly injected with heroin before being released for a ransom of £34,000.
But Detective Sergeant Julie Connor says extreme violence is becoming the norm as profits from drug smuggling and people trafficking soar.
“We’re seeing increasing violence in these gangs, with people being shot in the legs, stabbed, having their faces cut,” she says.
“If a girl disrespects a criminal male, they have their head shaved. Rape is used as a punishment. I’ve dealt with all those things.”
Unidentified armed police prepare to raid a gang members home[/caption]
A gun seized in a raid is later linked to the kidnap[/caption]
‘Are you going to kill Daddy?’
In the year ending September 2020, over 278,000 crimes are reported to Greater Manchester Police, the highest crime rate outside London.
There were over 88,000 violent crimes and 47 murders.
But while most murders take just weeks to solve, catching members of an Organised Crime Gang (OCG) can take years.
DS Connor is one of a team of seven whose sole purpose is cracking OCGs, and she says Manchester is rife with gang violence.
“We’ve got people smugglers, drug smugglers, people who commit wide scale fraud,” she says.
“There’s a lot of kidnaps that happened in Manchester and the violence used is escalating.”
In the first kidnap featured in the show, the terrified wife of the victim told officers: “They beat him up in front of the kids, and said ‘we’re gonna shoot you in the head if you don’t do what we’re saying.”
Her seven-year-old son asked the gunman: “Are you going to kill my daddy?”.
Chillingly, he replied: “Don’t worry, your daddy will be home tonight, if he gives us what we want.”
The kids – clearly traumatised by what they have seen – are heard telling officers “They’re going to kill Daddy. He had a gun, a revolver, a six shooter.”
While shocking, kidnaps in front of family are no longer rare in the city.
“With the rise in drugs there’s a lot of money swimming around and there’s a lot of criminals targeting other criminals,” says DS Connor.
“Gangs make more of an impact if they terrify them in their own home, so whatever is being demanded they’ll pay.”
Hotplates used to burn the man’s knees are examined by forensics[/caption]
DS Connor examines CCTV footage of the crimes[/caption]
Stabbings and shootings go unreported
Despite horrific injuries the kidnap victim, a car dealer, refused to cooperate with police after his release.
But with rival gangs increasingly targeting each other, it’s common for brutal crimes to go under the radar entirely.
“A lot of crimes in Manchester are going unreported in the criminal underworld – shootings, stabbings, kidnaps,” says DS Connor.
“It happens in the hours of darkness, away from witnesses, street lights and CCTV cameras so we are always playing catch up.”
After CCTV showed two men picking up a bag, containing the £34,000 ransom money, the unit intercepted their car and arrested gang member Paris Bostock for the crime.
The stepson of known crime boss, Darren Berkeley – feared for his use of extreme violence – Bostock has a string of convictions going back to the age of 16.
“He’s had the influence of Darren Berkeley in his life. He’s seen violence, he’s been around violence,” says DS Connor.
A surveillance officer also reports seeing Bostock and others at a crack den on the day of the kidnap and, on raiding the property, found a paint-stripping gun, a hotplate and a ring of duct tape used as a gag or a binding for arms.
Hair and DNA on the tape belonged to the victim and Bostock.
Darren Berkeley was suspected of being the gang leader[/caption]
Tied to chair and beaten with iron bars, hammers and pistol
Just four weeks after the first kidnapping, two members of the public report “loads of screaming” as a second victim is dragged from his Fallowfield home and thrown into the boot of a car.
Three hours later, the police find the man, legs and arms bound with cable ties, dumped on the street.
He had been beaten with iron bars, had his feet smashed with hammers and his face was so badly swollen that he couldn’t open his eyes.
He was later found to have a bleed on the brain.
The known drug dealer told police: “They put a hood over my head, they took me to an address, to an empty room with a chair in it.
“They got bars and beat my feet asking me for money. They’d beat me for two or three minutes , stop for two or three minutes, throw water at me and, at one point, put a gun to my head.”
Despite demanding £200,000 from the man, then £50,000, no ransom was paid.
“It was chaotic,” says DS Connor. “They lost the plot and decided to just batter him.
“That’s what happens in a gang situation, the adrenaline going, testosterone going – the gangs are prepared to use extreme violence. It quickly goes out of control.”
The residential street where the brutal kidnapping took place[/caption]
Harrowing CCTV footage showed the victim being pistol-whipped and beaten as five men in balaclavas forced him into a VW Golf, with one recognisable as Bostock.
The seats of an abandoned VW Tiguan, found near the site of the abduction, were “absolutely sodden” with blood and two live cartridges from a gun were discovered on the pavement.
A baseball cap, also recovered at the scene, led them to a gang member’s house where the gun was recovered and later found to have traces of DNA from Darren Berkeley and another associate, Blake Evers.
In disturbing scenes at the police custody suites, Paris Bostock is seen threatening male and female police officers with violence.
DS Connor says he is among the “volatile, unpredictable types” they have to deal with and she admits she is often afraid.
“When you first walk in and you’re faced with the criminal you’ve been hunting down for weeks or months, it is exhilarating,” she says.
“But these serious criminals are very intimidating. The crimes they’ve committed have been particularly violent. You’d be daft not to get scared.”
Bostock threatens officer in the custody suite[/caption]
Forensic teams examine false number plates on the VW car[/caption]
Crime bosses harder to snare
In January 2020, Paris Bostock, 26, and Elliot Cummings, 29, were sentenced to nine years and six years respectively for their parts in the kidnappings.
Berkeley, 43, was given 12 years and 24-year-old Blake Evers, who had no previous convictions, received a 19 year sentence.
For DS Connor, it’s gang leaders like Berkeley who are the ultimate prize – and often escape justice.
“With gangs there’s a hierarchy, there’s someone at the top, pulling the strings. Generally they are older, smarter, and are distanced from the actual crime,” she says.
“Those lower down are the visible ones, they get the heavier sentences, they’re easier to catch, they make more mistakes. For us to catch those at the top is rare.”
Episode 2 of the documentary shows a shocking murder caught on camera, with men in balaclavas peppering a van with gunfire in broad daylight, as children play on the street nearby.
While gangs are getting more brazen, DS Connor says the problem goes back decades and men involved have been schooled in violence from a young age.
Blake Evers got the longest sentence of 19 years[/caption]
Episode 2 details a shocking daylight shooting on this residential street[/caption]
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“These gangs have roots in gangs from 80s and 90s in Moss Side, Salford, Fallowfield, Cheetham Hill – when Manchester was known as Gunchester,” says DS Connor.
“It’s the children and the grandchildren of those gang members that we’re now finding are in gangs.”
The Detectives: Fighting Organised Crime airs on BBC2 at 9pm tonight
