COLIN GUNN

COLIN GUNN AND HIS HENCHMAN

RUTHLESS CRIMINAL COLIN GUNN AND HENCHMEN

A ruthless crime lord who brought terror to a city and became so powerful his gang was able to infiltrate the police service is behind bars after being convicted of bribing two policemen. Colin Gunn, 40, and his henchmen are linked to six murders and at least 50 shootings, police believe. Their activities were largely responsible for Nottingham becoming known as 'Gun City' and 'Shottingham'. It took a five-year police operation to bring the gang to justice. They were behind high profile cases including the gunning down of jeweller Marian Bates and the executions of John and Joan Stirland at a seaside hideaway. Gunn is already serving a life sentence with a minimum 35-year tariff after being convicted last year of conspiracy to murder the Stirlands, who were shot dead to avenge a murder carried out by Mrs Stirland's son. But the full extent of Gunn's crimes - and the 81 separate police operations it took to bring his empire to its knees - could not be reported until the lifting of reporting restrictions at the conclusion of his three-week trial for corrupting the police officers. His 30-strong crime syndicate was involved in everything from burglary and robbery to a multi-million pound international drugs operation, extortion, punishment beatings, and murder. The 6ft 4ins bodybuilder boasted of making more than £10million from his underworld empire. However, some saw the thug as a modern-day Robin Hood, dispensing justice and retribution on the Nottingham Bestwood estate where he once ruled supreme. A year after Gunn and his brother David were jailed, tales still float around Bestwood about the notorious family. According to one resident queues of people would step aside in shops if a member of the Gunn clan walked in, to allow them to be served first. If someone had been burgled, or encountered any trouble, it would, the resident said, be Colin Gunn, rather than the police, to whom they would turn. "To some people Colin Gunn was like a modern day Robin Hood," the resident, who did not wish to be named, said. "He would drive around in his Land Rover and if he saw you in the street looking a bit down he would stop for a chat. "But then he would offer to lend you a bit of money to help you out, to cheer you up, and that's how he got you. If you fell into that trap you never paid it off, he owned you." Born and bred on the Bestwood Estate, Gunn, with the help of his brother, built up a powerful empire of drugs, extortion and violent crime that eventually spilled over the neighbourhood boundaries and resulted in some of the most high-profile crimes in the city's history. "Gun crime had come to Nottingham in early 2000," Nottinghamshire's Chief Constable Steve Green said. "It was predominantly, in fact pretty much exclusively, a phenomenon of the African-Caribbean community, in keeping with many other cities. "But by the end of 2002, into 2003, it was becoming clear to us that as we were fighting on that front, there was another dynamic in the city that was causing more insidious problems - and that was gun crime in the white community. "We increasingly formed the view that in the centre of all of that was Colin Gunn. I think that led us to conclude that we would never resolve the gun crime problem until we confronted the Colin Gunn problem." Gunn first came to the attention of the police following a spate of shootings within the Bestwood estate. Many of the victims, or the perpetrators, had links with the gang boss. But it was when intelligence linked the 2003 shooting of Nottingham jeweller Marian Bates to the Bestwood gang that detectives knew they were dealing with more than inter-gang rivalry. Gunn was jailed for life last year for plotting the brutal execution of Joan and John Stirland, an innocent married couple shot dead in their seaside bungalow in Lincolnshire in 2004. Joan and John Stirland, a harmless couple in their mid-50s, were the innocent victims of a gangland execution orchestrated by Colin Gunn. Gunn wanted revenge on Mrs Stirland's son, Michael O'Brien, who was jailed for life just weeks earlier for the murder of another innocent man. With O'Brien behind bars, his parents became the target for an underworld boss hell-bent on revenge. They were repeatedly shot at point-blank range by a hitman after Gunn and his accomplices tracked them to their seaside hideaway in Lincolnshire. When Gunn was jailed there was rioting on his estate of Bestwood. Led by Gunn's common-law wife Victoria Garfoot, 35, around 30 people took to the streets on July 1 last year, calling for the release of Gunn and the other two convicted local men, John Russell and Michael McNee. Cars were set alight and more than £10,000 worth of council property was damaged during a three-hour stand-off with riot police. ************* An underworld boss has been convicted of soliciting information from two corrupt police officers in a bid to stay one step ahead of the law. Colin Gunn, 40, head of a notorious criminal gang in Nottingham, had a "hotline to intelligence" held by Nottinghamshire Police for several years, Birmingham Crown Court heard. Graham Wood QC, prosecuting, said Gunn used trainee detective Charles Fletcher to access top-secret files on the Police National Computer (PNC) to find out how close the net was to catching him. He used Dc Fletcher and Pc Philip Parr to search the Police National Computer because he feared he would be implicated in at least two high-profile murder investigations. He was jailed for nine years by Judge Frank Chapman after a jury convicted him of two charges of conspiracy to commit misconduct in a public office. One investigation Gunn sought information on was the double murder of Joan and John Stirland, an innocent couple who were killed in their bungalow in the seaside village of Trusthorpe, Lincolnshire, in August 2004. He was eventually jailed for life for plotting their execution last year and was ordered to serve at least 35 years behind bars. His nine-year sentence will run concurrent to this. The court heard Gunn, of Bestwood, Nottingham, an established figure in the Nottingham underworld, thought he could get away with having the Stirlands killed by getting Fletcher, a rookie with the Nottinghamshire force, to search the PNC to see what evidence police had on him and his associates. Gunn also pumped Fletcher, 27, for information about the murder of Nottingham jeweller Marian Bates, a crime in which he was once implicated. He denied the charges but did not offer a defence and was not represented in court by defence counsel. The jury were earlier told Gunn refused to play any part in the trial and was not in court to hear his sentence. Gunn used Fletcher by way of an intermediary - Jason Grocock, the manager of a Nottingham clothing store. Grocock would approach the officer with requests for information about his "big mate", taking care never to use Gunn's name. Gunn also enlisted the services of Parr, 41, the officer, known as "Phil the Bill" amongst members of Gunn's circle, who supplied confidential information on one occasion. Both officers admitted the conspiracy, which ran between 2002 and 2005, last year. Fletcher, who joined the force in 2001, was jailed for seven years at an earlier hearing. Parr, who played a much lesser role, received a 12-month sentence. Grocock was jailed for four years for the same offence, along with several other associates. Passing sentence on Gunn Judge Chapman said it was clear the gang boss had an influence across the city of Nottingham and ruled by fear. But the judge said he was unable to extend Gunn's minimum 35-year sentence because to do so would be "illogical and unlawful". http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=472738&in_page_id=177002 Aug 2007