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