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Serial Killer Documentary - Dale Cregan · The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories

0:05
Speaker 1: 18th of September, 2012, Manchester, England. PC's Fiona Bone and
0:12
Speaker 1: Nicola Hughes were responding to a reported burglary. As they
0:16
Speaker 1: approached the house, they were mercilessly shot dead at point-blank range.
0:22
Speaker 2: I was a police officer for 31 years.
0:24
Speaker 3: I never saw anything approaching this in all my time
0:29
Speaker 3: in the police, and I hope to God I never
0:32
Speaker 3: see the like of it again.
0:34
Speaker 1: Their families were left devastated.
0:36
Speaker 4: You never expect to plan your challenge funeral.
0:41
Speaker 2: From then on, it was oblivion.
0:44
Speaker 1: They'd been lured into a trap by a notorious gangster,
0:48
Speaker 1: 29-year-old Dale Cregan. The callous hitman had a vendetta against
0:53
Speaker 1: the police.
0:55
Speaker 5: What makes Cregan such an evil killer is, firstly, his
0:58
Speaker 5: complete lack of remorse, and secondly, it's his narcissism, that
1:02
Speaker 5: he is basking in the attention that these murders brought
1:05
Speaker 5: with them.
1:06
Speaker 1: Driven by revenge, Cregan had been on a killing spree,
1:10
Speaker 1: taking four lives, including a father and son. Extraordinarily, he
1:15
Speaker 1: was the first criminal to commit murder on British soil
1:19
Speaker 1: using a grenade, a weapon of war. All of this
1:23
Speaker 1: makes Dale Cregan one of the world's most evil killers.
1:48
Speaker 1: The 25th of September, 2012, Manchester in the north of England.
1:55
Speaker 1: A week after Britain's first ever killing of two female
1:59
Speaker 1: officers in the line of duty, the nation mourned the
2:02
Speaker 1: loss of two young women, 32-year-old Fiona Bone and Nicola Hughes,
2:07
Speaker 1: who was just 23. Greater Manchester Police were coordinating one
2:13
Speaker 1: of the biggest manhunts in UK history, as well as
2:17
Speaker 1: dealing with the devastating impact of losing two of their own.
2:21
Speaker 3: People assume that police officers are immune to dealing with violence.
2:26
Speaker 2: We're not.
2:27
Speaker 3: We see some pretty horrific things as part of the job.
2:31
Speaker 3: But this was different. This had a feel of being
2:34
Speaker 3: something different. They were someone's mum, sister. and they had
2:40
Speaker 3: an absolute right to go home that night to their
2:44
Speaker 3: loved ones, and that animal.
2:48
Speaker 2: Took that away.
2:50
Speaker 1: Local gangster Dale Cregan had ambushed Fiona and Nicola during
2:55
Speaker 1: a routine call-out, then mercilessly fired 32 rounds at the
3:00
Speaker 1: unarmed officers.
3:02
Speaker 6: The impact on the nation was extraordinary. The killing of
3:06
Speaker 6: two innocent policewomen by police A madman, a monster.
3:11
Speaker 1: As Manchester lined the streets for Fiona and Nicola's funerals,
3:15
Speaker 1: grief brought the community even closer to the police. It
3:19
Speaker 1: would change policing in the city forever.
3:22
Speaker 5: I think this is one of those cases that people
3:24
Speaker 5: remember because the kind of level of fear and anxiety
3:28
Speaker 5: that this created was unprecedented. but also it highlighted how
3:33
Speaker 5: dangerous this job can be and how police officers put
3:36
Speaker 5: their lives on the line every day to keep the rest.
3:39
Speaker 1: Of us safe. In the four months leading up to
3:42
Speaker 1: the murders, Dale Cregan had already established himself as a
3:46
Speaker 1: ruthless killer. He shot father and son David and Mark
3:50
Speaker 1: Short dead in two gangland attacks, then used a grenade
3:55
Speaker 1: to blow up David Short's body.
3:58
Speaker 3: I remember at the time, there was a feeling of
4:00
Speaker 3: unease amongst the public. You don't expect grenades to be
4:03
Speaker 3: used on the streets of Greater Manchester. That was something
4:06
Speaker 3: which had never been encountered before and gave us an
4:08
Speaker 3: indication of how dangerous this individual was.
4:12
Speaker 5: For Cregan, it wasn't enough to kill his victims.
4:14
Speaker 7: He had to completely obliterate them.
4:17
Speaker 5: And this signature of the grenade that he claimed for
4:20
Speaker 5: himself does give this case something really sinister.
4:24
Speaker 1: This killer's story begins on the 6th of June, 1983.
4:30
Speaker 1: Dale Cregan was born in Ashton-under-Lyme. He grew up in
4:34
Speaker 1: nearby Droylston, a working-class suburb of Manchester. He was one
4:39
Speaker 1: of four with a brother and two sisters.
4:42
Speaker 5: This was at a time when the city was kind
4:45
Speaker 5: of going into a bit of a post-industrial decline. The
4:48
Speaker 5: area where Cregan grew up was known for having quite
4:51
Speaker 5: a tough reputation. And I think when you look at
4:54
Speaker 5: these communities at this point in time, you've got this
4:57
Speaker 5: kind of culture of toughness and stoicism and resilience. And
5:02
Speaker 5: with that, there comes a particular type of masculinity, a
5:06
Speaker 5: kind of quite toxic form of masculinity that values violence.
5:10
Speaker 5: And I don't think Cregan had a very easy time
5:13
Speaker 5: of it as a child. He was bullied. He was
5:16
Speaker 5: smaller than the other kids. He was quite angelic looking.
5:19
Speaker 5: And that made him a bit of a target.
5:21
Speaker 1: At school, Cregan struggled academically.
5:26
Speaker 6: Dale Cregan was a remote, self-centered, ambitious boy who didn't
5:34
Speaker 6: fit in. At school, he always thought he was better
5:38
Speaker 6: than the rest. But what that meant was that he
5:41
Speaker 6: created his own private universe.
5:46
Speaker 1: The outsider would escape to the fields and mete out
5:49
Speaker 1: his revenge on the wildlife he found.
5:53
Speaker 8: Well, as a young age, Cregan started killing animals, and
5:56
Speaker 8: this desensitized him to killing. He also wanted to skin
5:59
Speaker 8: the animals and just show dominance over them and destroy things,
6:03
Speaker 8: destroy living things. It serves as a form of desensitization
6:08
Speaker 8: to killing and hurting living things.
6:12
Speaker 1: The hunting and skinning of wild rabbits meant young Cregan
6:16
Speaker 1: also became adept at using a knife. This progressed into
6:20
Speaker 1: something more sinister.
6:23
Speaker 8: He started with a fascination of knives and an increase
6:26
Speaker 8: to weapons and to guns. Anything involved with killing, destroying, weapons, hurting, violence,
6:35
Speaker 8: this all was very interesting to Cregan, and that was
6:38
Speaker 8: part of his personality.
6:40
Speaker 6: Hurting people or animals gave Cregan a sense of reality.
6:45
Speaker 6: He knew full well that he could use violence to
6:48
Speaker 6: re-tip the scales. He thought that it made him more powerful.
6:54
Speaker 1: Through his hunting adventures, Cregan also escaped the troubles at home.
7:00
Speaker 1: When he was young, his father walked out on the family.
7:04
Speaker 6: Basically, Cregan decided that he would take on the adult role.
7:09
Speaker 6: He would man up. and look after the family. And
7:12
Speaker 6: that altered the way he saw himself.
7:15
Speaker 5: At the same time, he's been bullied and demeaned and
7:18
Speaker 5: suffering the effects of that. He has to kind of
7:20
Speaker 5: step up and be the man of the household. So
7:23
Speaker 5: he's quite conflicted. And I think this is.
7:26
Speaker 7: Something that underlies the violence he goes on to commit.
7:30
Speaker 1: At the age of 16, Cregan left full-time education. The outcast,
7:36
Speaker 1: who was once bullied, found a new sense of belonging
7:40
Speaker 1: and the respect he craved by joining local gangs.
7:45
Speaker 6: Cregan wanted to make his mark in Manchester, which was
7:48
Speaker 6: dominated by gang culture. Gangs were everything. If you were
7:53
Speaker 6: in one, you were a man, you were someone to
7:55
Speaker 6: be respected. If you weren't, you were nobody. Cregan embraced
8:00
Speaker 6: that completely. He wanted to be part of a gang,
8:05
Speaker 6: a man to be feared. It gave him a sense
8:08
Speaker 6: of belonging.
8:10
Speaker 5: There's a sense of territorialism, and very often you don't
8:15
Speaker 5: have a lot of empathy for who you consider to
8:17
Speaker 5: be your enemies. His role models are violent men. The
8:21
Speaker 5: people that the community look up to are people who
8:24
Speaker 5: aren't afraid.
8:25
Speaker 7: To use physical force to get the things that they want.
8:28
Speaker 5: So it's incredibly important in shaping him.
8:31
Speaker 1: Although he touted himself as a plasterer, soon Cregan made
8:35
Speaker 1: his real money on the side as a drug dealer,
8:37
Speaker 1: selling cannabis on his local patch.
8:40
Speaker 6: At school, Cregan had experimented with cannabis. As soon as
8:44
Speaker 6: he left, he started selling. He also started using and
8:48
Speaker 6: selling cocaine. It was something that he felt gave him
8:53
Speaker 6: power and control over vulnerable people. He was someone to
8:57
Speaker 6: be respected and taken seriously.
9:01
Speaker 1: At the age of 19, Cregan set off on a
9:03
Speaker 1: working holiday to Tenerife in the Canary Islands. Here, he
9:08
Speaker 1: had his first taste of organized crime, persuading elderly holidaymakers
9:12
Speaker 1: to invest their life savings into a timeshare racket.
9:17
Speaker 6: Cregan was eminently believable. He could persuade people, perhaps who
9:23
Speaker 6: were a little gullible, to part with many thousands of
9:27
Speaker 6: pounds for a timeshare, which, in fact, didn't exist. But
9:31
Speaker 6: that was one of Cregan's great abilities, one of his talents.
9:36
Speaker 8: Cregan stealing money from older people doesn't surprise me at all.
9:41
Speaker 8: Older people are weak. They're a target. He could get
9:43
Speaker 8: over on older people. And so he'd rip them off.
9:46
Speaker 8: That means nothing to him. This is how he sees
9:48
Speaker 8: the world. He was anti-social to the core. This is
9:53
Speaker 8: the lifestyle he chose.
9:55
Speaker 5: Here we've got somebody who is not afraid to break
9:57
Speaker 5: the rules to get what they want, where that's instrumental
10:01
Speaker 5: things like money or whether that's expressive things like power
10:05
Speaker 5: and a feeling of worth, status, or recognition.
10:08
Speaker 1: Cregan returned to his drug dealing. He made a lot
10:12
Speaker 1: of money quickly, and this funded exotic trips to all
10:15
Speaker 1: corners of the globe. One, though, would cement his reputation
10:20
Speaker 1: as a hard-man criminal.
10:22
Speaker 5: Cregan allegedly lost his eye in Thailand, where he tried
10:26
Speaker 5: to rip off a local gangster, and that local gangster
10:29
Speaker 5: had tortured him and gouged out his eye.
10:32
Speaker 7: Now, for most people, this kind of thing.
10:34
Speaker 5: Would be incredibly traumatic and very destabilizing, but Cregan took
10:39
Speaker 5: it as something that he could use to carve out
10:41
Speaker 5: a brand, to carve out an identity.
10:45
Speaker 8: He used his gouged out eye as a badge of
10:48
Speaker 8: honor to show just how tough and how ruthless he is.
10:53
Speaker 6: In the wake of the loss of his eye, he
10:55
Speaker 6: looked terrifying. Cregan was now what He wanted people in
11:01
Speaker 6: Manchester to think of him. Swashbuckling, frightening, hard man.
11:06
Speaker 1: 28-year-old Cregan had built up a reputation as a violent,
11:10
Speaker 1: drug-dealing criminal with 17 convictions, including affray and assault. He
11:16
Speaker 1: was deeply entrenched in organized crime.
11:21
Speaker 3: Cregan was very well known to the police. He was
11:23
Speaker 3: a violent, serial offender. He was a prominent member of
11:27
Speaker 3: the organized crime groups. He was a vile individual and
11:31
Speaker 3: a blister on the side of Greater Manchester. He was
11:35
Speaker 3: a threat to anybody who he encountered.
11:39
Speaker 1: Two rival criminal families, the Shorts and the Atkinsons, had
11:43
Speaker 1: been involved in sporadic clashes, both vying for control of
11:49
Speaker 1: their local turf. The Shorts family was headed by its patriarch,
11:54
Speaker 1: David Short.
11:56
Speaker 3: At the time, we were well aware that, There was
11:59
Speaker 3: a really dangerous situation brewing, and some quite drastic measures
12:03
Speaker 3: had to be taken to try and intervene and arrest
12:06
Speaker 3: the offenders.
12:07
Speaker 2: And arrests were made at the time.
12:09
Speaker 3: But we work in a criminal justice system as checks
12:12
Speaker 3: and balances, and it's very, very difficult to take people
12:16
Speaker 3: off the streets.
12:18
Speaker 1: On the 13th of May, Manchester City had beaten arch-rivals
12:22
Speaker 1: Manchester United to the top of football's Premier League. At
12:26
Speaker 1: the Cotton Tree Pub in Droylston, drinks had been flowing
12:29
Speaker 1: all day, and tempers between the Shorts and the Atkinsons
12:33
Speaker 1: began to fray.
12:35
Speaker 6: Football rivalry gone mad, but it gave Dale Cregan the
12:40
Speaker 6: opportunity to redress the balance amongst the Manchester gangs, and
12:44
Speaker 6: it started with a bottle thrown away.
12:47
Speaker 5: These are two individuals who are associated with apparently rival
12:51
Speaker 5: families in this area, and because this isn't the kind
12:55
Speaker 5: of thing that is left to lie, it was never
12:58
Speaker 5: going to end with this.
13:00
Speaker 1: Dale Cregan was close to the Atkinson family, so he
13:03
Speaker 1: wanted to settle the score on their behalf. To do this,
13:07
Speaker 1: he had rival patriarch David Short clearly in his sights.
13:12
Speaker 6: Because of this apparently meaningless incident, everything was ratcheted up
13:16
Speaker 6: a notch or two, and revenge was necessary. Cregan decided
13:21
Speaker 6: that he would take it on behalf of the Atkinsons.
13:24
Speaker 1: Two weeks later, on the 25th of May, Cregan and
13:28
Speaker 1: three accomplices drove to the scene of the first argument,
13:32
Speaker 1: the Cotton Tree Pub in Droylston. He was armed with
13:36
Speaker 1: a 9mm Glock pistol.
13:39
Speaker 5: I think for Cregan, this was something that was very significant.
13:43
Speaker 5: This was going to cement his reputation as this fearsome
13:46
Speaker 5: gangster who would stop at nothing to get what he wanted.
13:50
Speaker 1: 11.49 p.m., CCTV shows a car pulling up outside the
13:57
Speaker 1: cotton tree with its hazard lights flashing. Inside the pub,
14:02
Speaker 1: David Short and his 23-year-old son Mark were playing pool
14:06
Speaker 1: with family and friends. Armed and wearing a balaclava, Cregan
14:11
Speaker 1: ran into the pub.
14:14
Speaker 6: In less than half a minute, Cregan had fired seven shots.
14:20
Speaker 1: With David Short nowhere to be seen, Cregan shot son
14:24
Speaker 1: Mark three times in the chest. Three men with them
14:27
Speaker 1: were also wounded. CCTV shows Cregan's getaway. The whole incident
14:35
Speaker 1: lasted just 24 seconds.
14:38
Speaker 7: It's just utter devastation in this pub.
14:41
Speaker 5: And just to give some sense of how quickly this happened,
14:44
Speaker 5: David goes off to the toilet, leaves everybody having.
14:48
Speaker 7: A good time, playing pool, having a drink.
14:50
Speaker 5: And when he returns, he finds that his son is
14:54
Speaker 5: fatally injured.
14:55
Speaker 7: Other people are injured as well.
14:59
Speaker 1: David Short sobbed as son Mark died in his arms.
15:05
Speaker 8: They wanted to kill Short's father. The father wasn't there,
15:08
Speaker 8: so he killed the son. Kill somebody in the family.
15:10
Speaker 8: It was a revenge killing.
15:13
Speaker 1: But soon, David Short's grief would turn to anger.
15:18
Speaker 5: This is an absolute blitz on this family, on this community.
15:23
Speaker 5: It's absolutely shocking stuff.
15:26
Speaker 1: Cregan.
15:27
Speaker 6: realized at once that only killing Mark Short and not
15:32
Speaker 6: his father David left him with a big problem. There
15:37
Speaker 6: were going to be repercussions, and there were going to
15:40
Speaker 6: be violent repercussions. Revenge was necessary.
15:45
Speaker 1: Despite David Short potentially having a clear idea of the
15:49
Speaker 1: identity of his son's murderer, in his gangland world, it
15:53
Speaker 1: wasn't as simple as relying on the police to bring
15:56
Speaker 1: Cregan to justice.
15:59
Speaker 6: Not surprisingly, David Short wasn't keen to talk to the police.
16:05
Speaker 6: That would be to break the omerta of the Manchester gangs. No, no,
16:09
Speaker 6: there was never going to be any firm evidence. It
16:13
Speaker 6: was going to be done privately.
16:16
Speaker 1: In order to avoid the revenge of the Short family
16:19
Speaker 1: and awkward questions from the police, Cregan fled to Thailand
16:23
Speaker 1: while the dust settled.
16:25
Speaker 5: I think it reveals how hedonistic he is, that he's
16:28
Speaker 5: only concerned about him having a good time and is
16:32
Speaker 5: prepared to just kind of draw the line and forget.
16:34
Speaker 7: That he's just murdered somebody.
16:36
Speaker 5: But also, I think he would have feared for his
16:39
Speaker 5: own life at this point and feared that retaliation, so
16:42
Speaker 5: he needed that distance to figure out what he was
16:44
Speaker 5: going to do next.
16:46
Speaker 1: When Cregan flew back into Manchester on the 12th of June,
16:50
Speaker 1: the police were waiting for him at the airport. He
16:53
Speaker 1: was arrested and taken in for questioning, but lack of
16:56
Speaker 1: evidence made their job extremely difficult.
17:00
Speaker 6: Greater Manchester Police had their suspicions about Dale Cregan, but
17:05
Speaker 6: what they didn't have was firm evidence to put before.
17:08
Speaker 2: The Crown Prosecution Service.
17:10
Speaker 3: Greater Manchester Police did everything it possibly could to take
17:14
Speaker 3: him and his associates off the streets, but there are limitations.
17:18
Speaker 2: We can only do so much.
17:21
Speaker 3: I know from my experience at the time how many
17:24
Speaker 3: resources were put into this, but sadly, policing's an imperfect science.
17:30
Speaker 3: We can't always achieve everything with 100% success. On this occasion,
17:36
Speaker 3: it led to tragic consequences that he was able to
17:38
Speaker 3: evade arrest.
17:39
Speaker 1: Over the next three months, the police built the case
17:42
Speaker 1: against Cregan. Once they had more evidence, they attempted to
17:46
Speaker 1: rearrest him at home on August the 7th, but he
17:49
Speaker 1: was nowhere to be seen. Cregan had disappeared further north
17:54
Speaker 1: to Bowness in the Lake District after hearing his accomplices
17:58
Speaker 1: had been arrested. Whilst on the run, he made plans
18:02
Speaker 1: to finish the job he'd botched the first time around,
18:06
Speaker 1: the execution of David Short.
18:09
Speaker 6: It was now a race to kill or be killed.
18:12
Speaker 6: Cregan knew that he should have killed David Short and
18:16
Speaker 6: that he had to do so. Short, for his part,
18:19
Speaker 6: was already threatening Cregan and his family. It was only
18:23
Speaker 6: a matter of time. It was simply a question of
18:26
Speaker 6: who got there first.
18:29
Speaker 1: In order to plan his next move, Cregan familiarized himself
18:33
Speaker 1: with 46-year-old David Short's movements. The grieving father visited his
18:39
Speaker 1: son's grave at Droylston Cemetery every day. This was the
18:43
Speaker 1: opportunity Cregan had been looking for.
18:46
Speaker 8: I don't think that bothered Cregan at all. That short
18:48
Speaker 8: was at a grave site mourning his son. That didn't
18:50
Speaker 8: bother him. His job was to kill him. And so,
18:53
Speaker 8: kill him.
18:53
Speaker 4: That's it.
18:54
Speaker 8: Wait till he goes to the grave. He's going to
18:56
Speaker 8: be unarmed, by himself, out in the open.
18:58
Speaker 1: Kill him there.
18:59
Speaker 8: In Cregan's mind, that was a good idea. It was
19:01
Speaker 8: a good way to accomplish the goal.
19:04
Speaker 1: On 10th August, Cregan and another violent criminal acquaintance, Anthony Wilkinson,
19:10
Speaker 1: waited at the cemetery for David to arrive. On this occasion, however,
19:15
Speaker 1: David broke his routine. When their target didn't appear, Cregan
19:21
Speaker 1: and Wilkinson were driven by another accomplice in a rental
19:24
Speaker 1: van to David's house just over a mile away. Here
19:28
Speaker 1: they lay in wait for their moment. Before long, it came.
19:34
Speaker 5: On this particular day, David was going to have a
19:36
Speaker 5: family barbecue. He was carrying some chrome furniture through from
19:41
Speaker 5: the car into the house. And he was chatting with
19:44
Speaker 5: his neighbors. Everything appeared to be normal. And he leaves
19:47
Speaker 5: the front door open as he's taking things in from
19:49
Speaker 5: the car. Now, Cregan and his associates seize this opportunity.
19:54
Speaker 5: They very quickly exit the van and run into the
19:57
Speaker 5: house after David.
19:59
Speaker 1: Cregan and his sidekick Wilkinson shot David multiple times. As
20:04
Speaker 1: they cornered him in an alleyway, Cregan delivered three final
20:08
Speaker 1: bullets to the head at point-blank range.
20:12
Speaker 6: David Short was clearly dead, but Cregan did not want
20:17
Speaker 6: to stop there. He wanted to be infamous, the Manchester
20:20
Speaker 6: gangster everyone remembered. And so he took out a grenade,
20:24
Speaker 6: a weapon only used during war, and exploded it on Cregan.
20:28
Speaker 6: David's body, literally destroying him.
20:37
Speaker 1: This was the first time a grenade had been used
20:40
Speaker 1: in a murder on mainland British soil.
20:44
Speaker 9: The scene would have been one of absolute devastation. This
20:47
Speaker 9: is a military weapon. This is not the sort of
20:49
Speaker 9: thing that you come across even in very serious crime.
20:53
Speaker 9: This is absolutely unprecedented, and the injuries that he suffered
20:58
Speaker 9: would certainly have been comparable with those that one would
21:00
Speaker 9: expect in a war zone.
21:03
Speaker 1: Cregan and his fellow gangsters then drove back to Droylston,
21:07
Speaker 1: where he hurled a second grenade at the home of
21:09
Speaker 1: another family they had a grievance with. Then he used
21:15
Speaker 1: a third and final explosive to blow up their van
21:18
Speaker 1: before fleeing the scene. Luckily, there were no further casualties,
21:23
Speaker 1: but gangster Cregan had left his mark.
21:28
Speaker 7: There's a very powerful message being sent out here.
21:30
Speaker 5: I'm not just going to kill this person, I'm going
21:32
Speaker 5: to absolutely obliterate them. And the grenade becomes part of
21:36
Speaker 5: Cregan's signature.
21:38
Speaker 7: This is my calling card.
21:40
Speaker 1: Unfazed by the devastation they'd left in their wake, Cregan
21:43
Speaker 1: and his accomplice stopped to buy ice pops during their getaway.
21:49
Speaker 1: 29-year-old Cregan had succeeded in making himself one of Manchester's
21:53
Speaker 1: most feared gangsters. He was on the run after murdering
21:57
Speaker 1: Mark and David Short, but this was no ordinary killing.
22:02
Speaker 1: For the first time in mainland Britain, a grenade was
22:05
Speaker 1: used in a murder. A bomb disposal unit was brought in,
22:09
Speaker 1: and residents were evacuated due to a ruptured gas main
22:13
Speaker 1: caused by the explosion. In response, Greater Manchester Police launched
22:19
Speaker 1: Operation Dakar to hunt Cregan down.
22:24
Speaker 3: Greater Manchester Police through absolutely everything that we had in
22:29
Speaker 3: the search for Cregan. He was the number one wanted
22:34
Speaker 3: individual in Greater Manchester, if not the whole of the UK.
22:37
Speaker 3: We knew he was a very dangerous individual.
22:42
Speaker 9: The use of hand grenades in crime is almost unprecedented.
22:46
Speaker 9: They are totally indiscriminate and will cause serious and significant
22:50
Speaker 9: injury to anybody who is within quite a few yards.
22:55
Speaker 9: So to use a weapon like this shows a total
22:58
Speaker 9: disregard for human life and for the concerns of anybody
23:03
Speaker 9: else who might be in the vicinity.
23:05
Speaker 1: It wasn't only his vendetta against the Short family that
23:09
Speaker 1: made Cregan the prime suspect. Forensics work on the half-destroyed
23:14
Speaker 1: van he left near the scene found fingerprints belonging to
23:17
Speaker 1: the killer and his accomplices.
23:20
Speaker 6: Now the police had a clear target. and forensic evidence
23:24
Speaker 6: to back it up, which put Dale Cregan firmly in
23:28
Speaker 6: the frame.
23:31
Speaker 1: The police also found Cregan's DNA in saliva on an
23:35
Speaker 1: ice-pop wrapper left in their abandoned getaway car. Here, too,
23:40
Speaker 1: they discovered Cregan's fingerprints all over the inside of the
23:43
Speaker 1: Ford Fiesta, together with empty ammunition cases and the gun magazine.
23:49
Speaker 1: All evidence was pointing towards the one-eyed gangster.
23:53
Speaker 3: It was obviously incredibly important to put Cregan behind bars.
23:58
Speaker 3: We knew that this feud was escalating out of all proportion.
24:03
Speaker 2: And at the time, we didn't know when it was
24:05
Speaker 2: going to end.
24:06
Speaker 1: 14 armed response vehicles were patrolling Manchester at any one time. Meanwhile,
24:13
Speaker 1: Cregan and his accomplices had fled 45 miles northeast to
24:17
Speaker 1: Leeds before traveling another 250 miles south to Herne Bay
24:23
Speaker 1: in Kent.
24:25
Speaker 6: The police issued a photo fit of Dale Cregan and
24:29
Speaker 6: warned everyone that he was potentially armed and dangerous.
24:33
Speaker 1: By the middle of August, a price was put on
24:36
Speaker 1: Cregan and Wilkinson's heads. First, the police offered a £ 25, 000 reward.
24:43
Speaker 1: Two weeks later, this was doubled. The pressure proved too
24:46
Speaker 1: much for Wilkinson, and he handed himself in. A £ 50, 000
24:51
Speaker 1: reward still stood for information on Cregan's whereabouts, but people
24:56
Speaker 1: who knew Cregan were too afraid to come forward.
25:00
Speaker 3: The people who had contact with him knew exactly what
25:03
Speaker 3: he was capable of. And you can't spend that money
25:06
Speaker 3: if you're dead. And they knew exactly what threat was
25:10
Speaker 3: to them. So sadly, they don't think any amount of
25:14
Speaker 3: money would have caused people to have given him up.
25:18
Speaker 1: Wanted posters were put up across the city of Manchester,
25:22
Speaker 1: and Cregan's face even appeared on the big screens at
25:25
Speaker 1: football matches. Cregan's family and close criminal associates were placed
25:30
Speaker 1: under the watchful eye of the police. But nothing led
25:34
Speaker 1: the investigators to the killer.
25:37
Speaker 6: Cregan was well aware that the police were after him.
25:42
Speaker 6: He was intent on not giving up without a fight,
25:45
Speaker 6: and so he laid a plan. His plan was to
25:48
Speaker 6: go out in infamy.
25:51
Speaker 1: On the 17th of September, just seven miles from his home,
25:55
Speaker 1: Britain's most wanted man forced his way into the house
25:58
Speaker 1: of a former acquaintance. He threatened him with a grenade
26:02
Speaker 1: placed on his mantelpiece if he didn't keep his silence.
26:06
Speaker 5: He goes to the house of a barber and essentially
26:09
Speaker 5: holds him hostage. and gets him to trim his hair
26:12
Speaker 5: and trim his beard. This is a guy who wants
26:15
Speaker 5: his mugshot to look as good as it possibly can look.
26:20
Speaker 7: So this is real premeditation. This is real narcissism.
26:25
Speaker 1: Well, it's his image.
26:26
Speaker 8: Before he knew he was going to be arrested and
26:28
Speaker 8: be on TV and so on, he wanted himself to
26:30
Speaker 8: look good. That's Cregan. Everything is his image.
26:34
Speaker 1: As the barber's partner and young daughter cowered upstairs, Cregan
26:39
Speaker 1: binged on beer and cigarettes as he enjoyed what he
26:42
Speaker 1: planned to be his last night of freedom. The next day,
26:46
Speaker 1: on the 18th of September, Cregan loaded his Glock semi-automatic
26:51
Speaker 1: pistol with extra ammunition for his final act of terror.
26:56
Speaker 9: The Glock pistol that he used normally has a 17-round magazine.
27:01
Speaker 9: The fact that Cregan used a 32-round magazine... just shows,
27:05
Speaker 9: if you like, that he really wanted to do as
27:08
Speaker 9: much harm, cause as much damage as he possibly could,
27:11
Speaker 9: and those 32 rounds could be fired without changing the magazine,
27:15
Speaker 9: of course. All he had to do was keep pulling
27:17
Speaker 9: the trigger.
27:19
Speaker 1: That morning, police officers Fiona Bone and Nicola Hughes were
27:23
Speaker 1: starting their early shift. 32-year-old Fiona was making plans for
27:29
Speaker 1: her forthcoming civil partnerships. She had a daughter, age five,
27:34
Speaker 1: with her fiancé.
27:35
Speaker 2: I actually knew Fiona.
27:38
Speaker 3: I was the shift inspector at Tameside when she joined
27:41
Speaker 3: the shift as a brand-new recruit from training school. She
27:44
Speaker 3: was bubbly, she was friendly, she did everything he asked
27:48
Speaker 3: of her with a smile on her face, she was
27:49
Speaker 3: keen to learn. She was just everything you would expect
27:53
Speaker 3: of a young police officer.
27:55
Speaker 1: Her 23-year-old colleague, Nicola, was only three years into her
28:00
Speaker 1: job as a police constable.
28:02
Speaker 4: You get that sense of pride that much of what
28:05
Speaker 4: she's doing, she's out policing the streets, she's out protecting
28:07
Speaker 4: the public, and she was proud of what she was doing,
28:09
Speaker 4: she was proud of wearing the uniform. She was just
28:12
Speaker 4: life and soul of the party at 6 o'clock in
28:14
Speaker 4: the morning when they're all just going on shift, she's
28:16
Speaker 4: laughing and joking. I knew there'd be times where she'd
28:19
Speaker 4: face dangerous situations and assaults and fights, but Yeah, I mean,
28:24
Speaker 4: the overall feel was quite proud.
28:26
Speaker 1: Partway through Nicola and Fiona's morning shift, at 10.14am, Dale
28:32
Speaker 1: Cregan made a 999 emergency call.
28:36
Speaker 5: Police emergency.
28:37
Speaker 3: Someone just threw a big concrete slab through that window
28:40
Speaker 3: and ran off.
28:42
Speaker 1: Britain's most wanted man posed as a worried resident, Adam,
28:46
Speaker 1: who'd been a victim of crime.
28:49
Speaker 2: Was he a white male? He was a male, though, yeah.
28:53
Speaker 8: Yeah, he was a male.
28:56
Speaker 1: Cregan was planning an ambush on the police. With a
28:59
Speaker 1: clear view of the road ahead, he lay in wait.
29:03
Speaker 1: He had chilling words to end his call.
29:06
Speaker 3: All right, then.
29:06
Speaker 4: Thanks very much. OK.
29:08
Speaker 3: I'll be waiting. The call was pretty innocuous, the sort
29:12
Speaker 3: of thing which, you know, Greater Manchester Police officers deal
29:16
Speaker 3: with every day. so Nicola and Fiona went to investigate.
29:22
Speaker 1: 38 minutes later, unarmed, Fiona and Nicola arrived at the door.
29:27
Speaker 6: As the two policewomen walked up the path towards the
29:31
Speaker 6: front door, Cregan threw it open and began firing. 32
29:36
Speaker 6: shots had been fired.
29:42
Speaker 5: So the brutality of this attack was horrific. He was
29:46
Speaker 5: just utterly remorseful as he kept going. He kept deciding
29:49
Speaker 5: to pull that trigger. There was no hesitation whatsoever.
29:54
Speaker 1: Despite being hit between five and eight times, Fiona tried
29:58
Speaker 1: to deploy her taser gun. Cregan's response was a final
30:02
Speaker 1: shot through the heart, killing her instantly. Her colleague, Nicola,
30:07
Speaker 1: couldn't move after a bullet had severed her spinal cord.
30:11
Speaker 1: Cregan then mercilessly shot her three times in the head
30:15
Speaker 1: at point-blank range.
30:17
Speaker 7: After he'd emptied his firearm, that was not it. It
30:20
Speaker 7: was not over. He takes out a grenade... and throws it.
30:26
Speaker 5: So he's not just killing his victims, he's obliterating them.
30:30
Speaker 5: And I think that's what he wants to be known for.
30:33
Speaker 5: By killing two police officers, he's securing that attention that
30:37
Speaker 5: he so desperately wants.
30:40
Speaker 1: The whole attack lasted just 31 seconds.
30:43
Speaker 2: I think.
30:45
Speaker 3: It's fair to say that the moments after the attack,
30:48
Speaker 3: the minutes after the attack, The police control room was
30:52
Speaker 3: absolute chaos, but very quickly, a picture started to emerge,
30:56
Speaker 3: and Greater Manchester deployed armed officers into Tameside straight after
31:00
Speaker 3: the attack.
31:02
Speaker 1: In a desperate attempt to save their colleagues, unarmed units
31:06
Speaker 1: nearby rushed to the scene.
31:08
Speaker 2: That shows the bravery of police officers. They're not armed.
31:13
Speaker 2: They knew something horrific had happened.
31:15
Speaker 3: They drove straight to the danger to help the colleagues
31:18
Speaker 3: and help the public.
31:20
Speaker 2: Sadly, it was too late.
31:22
Speaker 1: Nicola was rushed to Thameside Hospital by paramedics, where she
31:26
Speaker 1: later was pronounced dead. Her father, Bryn, was driving home
31:31
Speaker 1: from work when he got a call from the police.
31:35
Speaker 4: There was a to-and-throwing of, like, where are you and what's,
31:38
Speaker 4: you know, I need to speak to you. And then automatically,
31:41
Speaker 4: then you start to think something's not quite right here.
31:44
Speaker 4: And they said, well, you know, tell me what's wrong.
31:47
Speaker 4: I'm outside your house. And then when you hear those words...
31:50
Speaker 4: I'm outside your house. That's when alarm bells start ringing
31:54
Speaker 4: and you panic. And it didn't even, I didn't even
31:57
Speaker 4: register what was being said as well at the time.
32:01
Speaker 4: And eventually I said to him, don't you dare tell
32:02
Speaker 4: me she's dead. And that's when he said, you know,
32:05
Speaker 4: there's no easy way of saying it. And from then
32:09
Speaker 4: on it was, you know, oblivion. I didn't know where
32:13
Speaker 4: I was or where I was driving. And it was
32:17
Speaker 4: a journey that would take usually 10, 15 minutes more
32:20
Speaker 4: It seemed to take hours.
32:24
Speaker 1: Cregan's first two victims had been embroiled in the feuding
32:27
Speaker 1: gangland world he was part of, but these two young
32:32
Speaker 1: police officers were completely unknown to him.
32:36
Speaker 6: By this time, Cregan had realized that there was no escape.
32:40
Speaker 6: He chose to kill two innocent policewomen because it was
32:45
Speaker 6: to be his gravestone, his legacy. the thing that ensured
32:51
Speaker 6: his infamy in the hierarchy of infamous criminals.
32:56
Speaker 5: He wants to be the biggest gangster in Manchester and
32:59
Speaker 5: be seen as this fearsome character who nobody's going to
33:02
Speaker 5: mess with.
33:03
Speaker 3: On this day, we saw the worst that any police
33:08
Speaker 3: force can ever experience.
33:12
Speaker 2: Two innocent young officers murdered.
33:17
Speaker 1: As Greater Manchester Police was learning the devastating truth about
33:22
Speaker 1: their fallen comrades, Dale Cregan had already decided on his
33:26
Speaker 1: next move.
33:29
Speaker 3: He lured unarmed, unprotected young officers to the door of
33:34
Speaker 3: that house and murdered them in cold blood.
33:37
Speaker 2: He then went to the police station and.
33:39
Speaker 3: Handed himself in because in his pathetic mind, he thought
33:45
Speaker 3: that the colleagues may shoot him.
33:48
Speaker 5: The reason he's doing this is firstly to stay in
33:51
Speaker 5: control because for Cregan, being in control, being the director
33:55
Speaker 5: of his own gangster movie is very important to him.
33:58
Speaker 7: But there's also an element of fear here. He does
34:01
Speaker 7: not want to die. He does not want to be killed.
34:03
Speaker 5: And I think he's actually afraid of being killed in
34:06
Speaker 5: a police shootout. He thinks they're not going to show
34:08
Speaker 5: him very much mercy because he's just cold-bloodedly murdered two
34:12
Speaker 5: of their officers.
34:13
Speaker 7: So he's in self-preservation mode at this time.
34:16
Speaker 1: Seeing two of their own killed in the line of
34:19
Speaker 1: duty sent shockwaves throughout Greater Manchester Police.
34:23
Speaker 3: Walking into that police station, I'll never forget it. The faces,
34:27
Speaker 3: people had a thousand-yard stare. Nobody could believe that you
34:32
Speaker 3: come on work and this happens. Fiona was planning a
34:36
Speaker 3: wedding in a break time, and then she wasn't there.
34:42
Speaker 3: Imagine the impact that has on family members friends, colleagues,
34:47
Speaker 3: who were sat at seven o'clock in the morning, making
34:50
Speaker 3: cups of tea and chatting about what they were gonna
34:52
Speaker 3: do that day. It just beggars belief that they were
34:57
Speaker 3: put through that. And they came back to work and
35:01
Speaker 3: policed the streets of Greater Manchester. And what a fantastic
35:04
Speaker 3: tribute that is to their memory, that they kept going.
35:09
Speaker 3: They were professional, committed, just like Nicola and Fiona.
35:14
Speaker 1: Cregan, however, seemed to revel in his killings. In custody,
35:18
Speaker 1: he told the police it was revenge for hounding his
35:21
Speaker 1: family whilst on the run. He only seemed to have
35:25
Speaker 1: one regret.
35:27
Speaker 7: Cregan says, I'm sorry that they weren't men.
35:30
Speaker 5: He wants to be this kind of old-school-style gangster who
35:34
Speaker 5: doesn't hurt women and children.
35:36
Speaker 8: Because killing two female is not as high status in
35:40
Speaker 8: Cregan's mind than to killing two male. That really doesn't
35:43
Speaker 8: fit in with the image that he wants to project
35:46
Speaker 8: to everybody else. If you took his image away from him,
35:50
Speaker 8: what do you have left with Cregan?
35:51
Speaker 6: Nothing.
35:52
Speaker 8: There's nothing there. There's this total nothingness, inadequacy in every respect.
35:59
Speaker 8: He feels so weak and inadequate, and that's why he
36:02
Speaker 8: has to demonstrate what a powerful force he is.
36:06
Speaker 1: The city of Manchester was united in grief for the
36:09
Speaker 1: fallen officers. A week after Nicola's murder, her father, Bryn,
36:14
Speaker 1: attended a vigil arranged by the local community for his
36:18
Speaker 1: daughter and her colleague, Fiona.
36:22
Speaker 4: And you got that sense of shock and outrage and
36:25
Speaker 4: grief from the community. The police, they deal with murders
36:28
Speaker 4: day in, day out, but not their own. So I
36:33
Speaker 4: think for them as well, it was a massive shock,
36:34
Speaker 4: massive outpouring of grief from, you know, not just Greater
36:37
Speaker 4: Manchester Police, but every police force in the country. There
36:41
Speaker 4: was a bond created between Greater Manchester Police and its communities.
36:46
Speaker 2: They came together and I'll never forget that.
36:48
Speaker 1: This Manchester spirit was truly brought out two weeks later
36:53
Speaker 1: on the 3rd of October, the day of Nicola Hughes's funeral.
36:58
Speaker 3: I'll never forget standing at the bottom of Market Street
37:02
Speaker 3: and it was like a Derby Day football game. People
37:07
Speaker 3: were pouring down Market Street wearing black ties. It was
37:13
Speaker 3: absolutely humbling. I heard a story about a group of
37:18
Speaker 3: officers having done a full night shift and drove to
37:20
Speaker 3: Manchester to stand with their colleagues.
37:22
Speaker 2: That was incredible. Shops closed, banks closed, Manchester came out
37:29
Speaker 2: It was incredible.
37:30
Speaker 1: When Nicola's father, Bryn, arrived, he saw thousands of well-wishers
37:35
Speaker 1: lining the streets on the route to Manchester Cathedral.
37:38
Speaker 4: At the back of your mind, you think, I don't
37:41
Speaker 4: want to be here, I don't want to do this.
37:43
Speaker 4: It was like a huge tunnel of faces and you
37:47
Speaker 4: recognise some and, you know, there's people crying and there's
37:51
Speaker 4: people clapping and I think you soak that up, it's
37:54
Speaker 4: like an energy, it helps you get through the day.
37:59
Speaker 1: Fiona's funeral followed the next day on 4th October. Again,
38:04
Speaker 1: Manchester paid its respects. Four months later, on 4th February 2013,
38:11
Speaker 1: serial killer Dale Cregan finally faced justice. 120 armed police
38:17
Speaker 1: officers were used to ferry Britain's most wanted killer from
38:22
Speaker 1: Strangeways Prison to Preston Crown Court each day.
38:26
Speaker 3: This was one of the biggest trials in recent times,
38:29
Speaker 3: certainly in the northwest of England, if not the country,
38:31
Speaker 3: and Cregan had to be housed securely and taken to
38:36
Speaker 3: court every day, and there was a massive security operation.
38:40
Speaker 1: Armed police were placed on the roof surrounding the court
38:43
Speaker 1: building so that nothing was left to chance. Nine other
38:47
Speaker 1: accomplices also faced trial on charges of murder and attempted murder.
38:53
Speaker 1: Despite confessing to his murders, Cregan opted to plead not
38:57
Speaker 1: guilty on all counts.
39:01
Speaker 3: That animal forced the family and colleagues to go through
39:07
Speaker 3: a trial. The judge commented on how he tried to
39:11
Speaker 3: manipulate proceedings for his own amusement.
39:14
Speaker 2: He had no remorse. He was a monster.
39:19
Speaker 6: Cregan, horrifying though it may sound, wanted to bask in
39:23
Speaker 6: his own infamy. He wanted no one ever to forget
39:26
Speaker 6: the one-eyed Manchester gangster.
39:30
Speaker 3: He was characteristically arrogant, tried to feign disinterest. To use
39:35
Speaker 3: an old-fashioned phrase, he was trying to play to the
39:36
Speaker 3: gallery as well, to some extent. But I think everybody
39:41
Speaker 3: in that room knew exactly what kind of person he was.
39:45
Speaker 1: In a final act of manipulation from the dock, Cregan
39:49
Speaker 1: decided to change his pleas during the 18-week trial, pleading
39:54
Speaker 1: guilty to all four murders. On the 13th of June 2013,
39:59
Speaker 1: it was game over for Dale Cregan when he was
40:02
Speaker 1: given a whole life sentence. Five of his criminal accomplices
40:06
Speaker 1: were each sentenced to between seven and 35 years in prison.
40:12
Speaker 5: Cregan was one of very few people to receive a
40:15
Speaker 5: whole life order for four murders. So he will never
40:20
Speaker 5: be released from prison. He'll never have the chance for parole.
40:23
Speaker 5: And these sentences are reserved for the most serious violent
40:26
Speaker 5: offenders who've done the most harm and are perhaps the
40:29
Speaker 5: least likely to be rehabilitated.
40:32
Speaker 7: So this is very, very serious indeed.
40:34
Speaker 1: For relatives and colleagues of his victims, they finally saw justice.
40:42
Speaker 4: I mean, obviously we knew you can't commit four murders
40:45
Speaker 4: and not get a whole life tariff. To hear the
40:47
Speaker 4: judge actually say it, that's the big relief. And I
40:50
Speaker 4: think it's the relief that it's finally over. And they'd
40:53
Speaker 4: finally got justice for what had happened to them.
40:56
Speaker 3: It didn't seem to take away the sense of loss, though.
41:01
Speaker 2: Two young colleagues had been cut down in the prime.
41:04
Speaker 2: There was nothing to celebrate.
41:06
Speaker 3: I know that across Greater Manchester Police, People felt the same.
41:12
Speaker 2: There was no celebration.
41:17
Speaker 1: The murders of police officers Fiona Bone and Nicola Hughes
41:22
Speaker 1: had a lasting impact on policing the UK's second-largest city, Manchester.
41:29
Speaker 3: This did change policing in Greater Manchester, and I felt
41:33
Speaker 3: it almost immediately.
41:35
Speaker 2: What this did was show to.
41:37
Speaker 3: Everybody that police officers aren't just uniforms. These are somebody's daughters, sisters, moms.
41:46
Speaker 3: These are people who have the same problems in their lives,
41:50
Speaker 3: same stresses. It brought the communities closer to Greater Manchester Police.
41:57
Speaker 1: As for Dale Cregan, after spending five years in Ashworth's
42:01
Speaker 1: psychiatric unit in Merseyside, he was sent back to Her
42:05
Speaker 1: Majesty's Prison Strangeways in Manchester, where he'll likely spend his
42:10
Speaker 1: remaining days.
42:12
Speaker 3: In his world, his pathetic world that exists in his head,
42:16
Speaker 3: he thought he was a big man. He'll die a pathetic,
42:20
Speaker 3: wizened old man in prison. What I want to do
42:24
Speaker 3: is highlight and contrast that against what Nicola and Fiona
42:32
Speaker 3: stood and still stand for, and that's decency, public service
42:39
Speaker 3: and compassion.
42:41
Speaker 2: Their names will never be forgotten.
42:43
Speaker 1: To help cope with losing Nicola, her father Bryn set
42:46
Speaker 1: up a memorial fund in her name to support children
42:50
Speaker 1: who've also lost a loved one to murder or violent crime.
42:54
Speaker 4: You're never going to forget what they've done. You're never
42:57
Speaker 4: going to forgive what they've done. But for me, I'd
43:00
Speaker 4: rather concentrate on Nicola, the memories of Nicola.
43:07
Speaker 1: Dale Cregan gunned down a father and a son, then
43:11
Speaker 1: recklessly threw grenades onto the streets, putting the public in
43:15
Speaker 1: danger as part of a petty gangland feud. He mercilessly
43:20
Speaker 1: slaughtered two unarmed police officers with their whole lives ahead
43:24
Speaker 1: of them. He brought terror to the streets of Manchester,
43:28
Speaker 1: making Dale Cregan one of the world's most evil killers.