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david draycott was in trouble he owed money and those he owed it to were starting to run out of patience he could feel it in the darkness as he pulled his black mercedes into the driveway of his home in woodlands way in sutton ashfield it was 9 17 p.m on the 7th of october 2002 he had just been to his estranged wife’s home a short distance away and had received two phone calls while he was there telling him to pay up or he would be in big trouble he had asked his wife andrea if she could help him with a banker’s draft to help him settle the debt she had never seen him so worried before mr draycott had borrowed ten thousand pounds for some unpleasant characters for a cocaine deal but had not been able to keep up with the repayments and now the debt had escalated to more than 30 thousand pounds though he had told his wife that he needed the money to pay off the vat bill on the sheet metal business that he was running drakey a big bear of a man always had a smile on his face it could be a bit difficult to pin down sometimes when asked what he was up to he would tell people he did a bit of this and a bit of that and then he usually just laughed he had worked the doors of the pups and clubs in the ashfield area and had come into contact with a myriad of unsavory people wanting to be his own boss he had sunk money into a sheet metal business but found it was not easy to make an honest crust his friends knew he had become involved with people who were selling class a drugs in and around nottinghamshire and they were heavy hitters but drakey kept everything to himself he never told his friends he was worried about the spot of bother he was in he thought he could handle any trouble that came himself two major drug gangs were interested in the debt that drake owed the doors family who controlled the supply of drugs across the east midlands from their base in sutton and ashfield north nottinghamshire and the bestwood cartel as he steered his mercedes into the drive drakey was still thinking about trying to reconcile his marriage though he and his wife had been in strange for six months things were getting better he knew his daughter aged eight and son aged 11 wanted him to go back home and he and andrea have become closer in the recent weeks thanks to a holiday in devon and cornwall and a break in skegness he had even told his mom that he reckoned he and andrea would get back together by christmas if only you could get these people off his back he could start making plans again drakey was tired and didn’t see two men get other silver peugeot 206 across the road they had been waiting there for more than two hours he didn’t hear them walk down his drive he only saw them as he opened his door and before he knew it they were pumping bullets into him even with his body riddled with 10 shots mr draycott managed to crawl to a neighbor’s house and raise the alarm he was wheeled into an ambulance semi-conscious and fought hard to stay alive but 10 bullets was too much even for drakey four days later he was dead at the age of 40. andrea who had arrived on the scene of the shooting just after her husband was being carried away issued an appeal at christmas no child’s last memory of their father should be of him wheeled into an ambulance riddled with bullets they have had their childhood taken away if anybody knows anything but they are scared to come forward i would ask them to think about themselves in the same situation how would they feel their children had lost their father i would ask them to be strong because without their help david’s killers won’t be brought to justice a month after the murder in the early hours of november the 7th on a thursday a man called john shipman was finding it hard to sleep in his new flat in chilton way in bestwood like david draco he was no stranger to violence mr shiphan was not long out of prison having severely beaten a man up in his home in the sherwood area in 1998 now he lay listening to music in his room but he was worried the best wood cartel were chasing him over a friend’s cannabis death his mate had done a runner and left mr shiphan to bear the grunt although it was only a couple of hundred quid they meant serious business he was still nursing the bruises from a beating he had taken outside the anchor pub in gunfort village on guy fawkes night they had told him then that he would have to find a way to pay the money very quickly he had asked friends to help but they were slow to come through as mr shiphan listened to his music two men entered his flat and walked in on him he knew them two brothers who had worked with colin and david gunn collecting money and selling drugs for them one had something in his hand mr shiphan pleaded with them but they refused to hear his explanations a single shot rang out and john chipan lay dead he was 25 years old as the two men walked out the block of flat an associate of mr shiphan saw them get into a car and made a mental note of the situation later the same man would tell the police what he had seen i would be forced to go on the run with his family because the gangsters knew he knew and had threatened to murder him though two of colin gun’s associates were arrested for john shippen’s murder the case remains unsolved to this day friends of those arrested claim a rogue police officer tipped off the suspects that a book had been placed in their sofa throwing the investigation into complete chaos like andrea draco john chapan’s mother josie has still to receive justice for the murder of her loved one in the summer of 2003 chief constable steve green found himself in a building that he had never been in before he had been summoned to a meeting in london to discuss how certain law enforcement agencies could help him in the battle against organized crime mr greene had problems locating the building and had rang his secretary twice to double check the address he finally found it and he was ushered into a room senior managers from the national crime squad national criminal intelligence service customs and exercise investigation service and other shadowy figures who worked with government were there to greet him we gather you have a problem in nottingham he was told wow we are here to help you have our full support to make use of and all the resources that we have to offer this is a problem that must be sorted out before it goes any further that problem had become so acute that in march 2003 david blakey one of the senior inspectors from her majesty’s inspector of police hmic refused to give nottinghamshire police a clean bill of health they were he concluded neither effective nor efficient if you lived worked or visited nottinghamshire in april of 2002 you were more likely to have a crime committed against you than anywhere else in the country mr blakey’s report stated he was particularly critical of the abilities of the police force to deal with drugs and crime some senior crd officers had also made clear to hmic that the disbandment of the drug squad and the use of divisions instead had seriously hampered the ability to fight organized crime there was a widely held view that the forced drugs investigation function was not robust wrote mr blakey the main response to drug investigation at all levels remains with divisions who respond within available resources hmic was advised during divisional visits that most drug investigation activity took place at local area command level and that they were unable to respond efficiently to drugs intelligence overall the redeployment of forced drug squad resources had not increased the drug investigations capacity at a divisional level there was also reference to the pressures that the cid was under mr green’s reorganization strategy had been forced upon the cid at the most inappropriate moment coinciding with the explosion of gun crime in 2002 the report stated that some of the failures to meet hmic targets were due to the wider force reorganization and unprecedented resource demands for murder investigations regardless of any leaping crime which may have put nottinghamshire under pressure it was dealing with 21 new murder investigations that year against an average of 12. this was either a veiled criticism of the abilities of frontline officers to do their jobs or an indictment of mr green’s reorganization skills the labour mp for nottingham north graham allen had been critical of mr greene as early as 2001 particularly over the issues of beat bobbies being taken away and replaced with officers in cars and in 2002 he had raised the issue in the house of commons we in the city of nottingham division are losing bobbies on the beat said mr allen in addition our police stations are losing large numbers as officers to response units in effect those stations are being hollowed out was it right he asked the home secretary that at the time when the government was being congratulated for employing more police than ever before people on summer states were seeing fewer of these officers the chief constable however had stuck to his guns i would challenge anybody to undertake change of this depth and not have a few plates fall off he said it is inevitable the consequence of trying to tackle so much change at the same time he admitted the beat officer issue was a stumbling block that we had tripped up on officers were unsure about their role now the table of heavyweight officials who confronted mr green were talking about organized crime and the problems caused by gun-welding gangsters including the bestwood cartel mr green was stunned by the detail that the officials had as he would later admit the tackling of gun crime in the ng triangle had distracted attention from the city’s white gangsters by 2003 it was clear to us that something else was happening he later told the bbc in an interview a few months earlier when approached by his own senior officers about the problem he had approved an investigation but had told them they would have limited resources and that their work would be completed within six months now he was being told by representatives of national agencies that it would have to be a much bigger operation involving them technology only just being field tested by mi5 would be available national crime squad officers would be used for covert surveillance and part of stage one of the operation a police officer from london would be sent undercover to try and infiltrate the best wood cartel it would be a multi-layered investigation overseen by the clandestine carcass of operatives each individual’s sub-operation against an arm of the gun brothers empire would be given the code name of states in the usa such as utah and texas less than a handful of officers would know what the overall operation was actually about everything would be on a need to know basis only by august 2003 nottinghamshire’s head of cid phil davis had been given the go-ahead that he had been pleading for over the last previous 12 months operation starburst was born they began with operation texas an undercover police officer was brought up from london to infiltrate one side of the gang officers decided that they would target one of the guns lieutenants jamie neal the plan was that the officer would pose as a drug smuggler from london who was forced out the capital and was now lying low in nottingham his story was carefully constructed as it needed to be once introductions have been made in nottingham mr neal turned up to mr gunn to make inquiries about a bogus villain’s background associates went down to london to check out his story and found out that he was true within a few months the undercover officer was making significant inroads into the gang and picking up vital intelligence on drugs that were coming in then one evening he was invited to a boxing match things were going well until he moved on to a nightclub where mr neal and his associates had booked a vip area closed off from the public and proceeded to get very drunk at some point in the evening one of the gang took offence to something that had been said and launched a ferocious attack on an associate the undercover officer intervened he too began taking a beating from jamie neal and suffered a fractured school the secrecy of operation texas meant medics could not be sent to the scene in any other manner than a normal response to prevent suspicion from being aroused within the cartel eventually an ambulance was sent and the officer was taken to hospital but operation texas was now in tatters operation utah was then launched bosses decided that it was too dangerous to send in more undercover officers so results would have to be achieved through total surveillance of the gang using covert methods including bugs and cameras events in the underworld however began to move at a breathtaking pace in the early hours of the 29th of august 2003 after a lock-in at the sporting chance on hocknell road in the ball area a group of young men were draining the last dregs of their drinks the group included jamie gunn colin and david’s nephew and marvin bradshaw plus two other friends it was 4 am and they were finally about to go home they had enjoyed a good evening even though it had been threatened to turn sour three hours earlier when two men tried to muscle their way into the pub and had to be forcibly ejected jaime knew both the men they had doubt drugs on the bestwood estate in the past and one had been going out with a best wood girl which had caused trouble for one of his uncle colin’s right-hand men a scuffle had erupted and jaime gunn had smacked one of the men with an ashtray causing a deep cut to his head the other man was michael o’brien a renowned hothead the other gary salman told him to call it and drag mr o’brien away mr salmon had an ongoing beef with the best wood cartel and was keen not to antagonize any of them four weeks earlier a white van parked up in his home in brooklyn road as mr salmon stood in the doorway a gunman had jumped out the back and fired three shots at him he was a marked man jamie gunn’s group began to disperse from the bar and make their way to the car park jaime was keen for his pal marvin to drive the car he was drunk and didn’t want to get pulled over by the police marvin who was sober agreed and got into the driver’s seat of the silver run-up mcgann while jaime was sat in the back two other men occupied the rear and front passenger seats as marvin turned the ignition key the windows were still steamed up but he began to drive off anyway jamie turned and rubbed the glass to clear this window he saw a shadowy figure wearing a balaclava walking towards the car there was a loud bang and glass from the driver’s side window shattered over the passengers everybody in the car ducked down except for marvin who groaned but continued to drive the car until the car finally slowed and came to a halt on the grass verge with the engine still running jamie gunn got out he did not know what was going on a car carrying two men in balaclavas screeched off through the shattered window of the driver’s door he could see his friends slumped over on the wheel groaning i feel sick said marvin i want to feel my head i want to get out the car jamie could see that there was a red hole in marvin’s head and had realized his friend had been shot he took off his red t-shirt wrapped it around his best friend’s head and lifted him out the car comforting him just stay here with us mate it’s gonna be all right but marvin bradshaw was dying there on the desolate car park part of jamie gunn was dying right there too he just didn’t know it yet despite the brutality of marvin bradshaw’s murder it was barely reported by the media other than local papers outside nottingham it was simply another gun death and warranted little more than an odd newspaper paragraph the police were keen to stress that marvin was a likeable young man who had never been in trouble with the law he worked hard as a shop fitter sometimes six days a week and he was very well liked although police initially believed jamie gum was the intended target another man in the car that night had in fact been in mr o’brien’s sights they were also aware that feelings could be running high they would have a race against time to catch the people responsible before revenge was sought by the best of cartel detective chief inspector phil walker leading the investigation told the media we have not had many witnesses at all really so far there was an after-hours drinking session at a pub and the people who had been in there were a bit reluctant to give us a statement this was nothing to do with the fear of being caught drinking after hours those in the sporting chants that evening had already been told by the bespoke that this would be sorted out in their own way not by the police or anyone from operation ozone the name for the investigation into marvin’s murder police had the names of mr o’brien and mr salmon but the best with cartel’s tentacles reached deeper and much further than theirs within 24 hours colin gunn had put the word out within the criminal fraternity we need to find these two before the police put the word out to everybody if you get a boy you will be rewarded he told his troops by the third of september intelligence was coming in to the police that mr gern was pulling out all the stops to track down the duo and that if mr o’brien or mr solomon could not be found then their relatives would have to be targeted the cartel soldiers got to work on the 7th of september a brick and then a fire bomb were thrown through the window of a house mr salmon had once shared with an ex-girlfriend alison oldham in labor and drive in bestwood on the same day a homemade grenade was thrown through a window at mr salmon’s house on brooklyn road colleen gunn also learned that two associates of mr salmon had helped him get away on the 8th of september as one of the two drove a car with a friend a motorbike with a back passenger pulled up alongside and fired two shots into the car hitting him in the buttocks police attributed the shooting directly to the best wood cartel by this time officers had been visiting michael o’brien’s mother joan stirland almost daily as they stepped their efforts up to track down her son she helped them as much as she could and said her son had implicated that he had been involved in the murder in a telephone conversation but she did not feel that she could make a statement this was also information that the best would cartel had become aware of almost certainly through a police contact and it incensed them that she was unwilling to make a statement the cartel also knew mrs sterling’s home address and were aware that mr o’brien had a sister in boston in lincolnshire the police could not work out how colin gunn was getting so much intelligence yet they now knew that anybody connected with the two suspects was in danger there was a collective sigh of release from the ozone team when michael o’brien was arrested in leicester on the 9th of september at his girlfriend’s house mrs sterling had been told about the shooting of kevin white but not that she or any of her family was in danger even though there was clear evidence that she was mr gunn himself believed that a few scare tactics were needed to concentrate mrs sterling’s mind about giving the police a statement implicating her stunt late on the evening of the 14th of september two crashed helmet gunmen left their motorcycle and approached her house on south view road they fired five times twice from a 38 revolver and three times from a shotgun one bullet went through the first floor bedroom window another through the bathroom window a third through the front door and two through the downstairs window john and joan stirland dived onto the living room floor and lay there paralysed with fear until joan was able to crawl upstairs to make a 999 phone call to the police from her mobile phone they were very lucky to be alive that same day the best with cartel again targeted alison oldham’s home in leborn drive with an arson attack while another former girlfriend of mr salmons reported seeing a gunman on a motorcycle pointing a shotgun towards her near her home the next morning the sterlins decided to leave nottingham for good they were terrified and had no faith in the police being able to protect them from the gangsters indeed they thought that the presence of the officers in their vicinity was aggravating the situation and making them less secure they are good reason to feel that way [Music] in late september 2003 a young scot sat in a pub being lectured by a tall burly shaving head man in a lacoste tracksuit top the young man quietly took in the message as the shaving head man explained his plan to rob the jewelry shop he had recently lost seventy thousand pounds of a cocaine shipment and needed some quick cash to pay off the suppliers the young man had already carried out several armed robberies for the man in the past few weeks three of them over a single 24-hour period during one raid he had discharged a gun he was carrying to frighten the victims that he was robbing the same day he had also been part of a gang of men who brutally attacked a dreadlocks social worker derek senior while he was enjoying a point with his friend in the lord nelson pub in bolwell the shaven-headed man knew the scottish lad was a hot head and sometimes a liability but he could groom him he thought he would try and buy off the rastafarian social worker with a bribe but for now he needed this robbery carrying out as soon as possible two of a men who were working for the gang had already been in the shop and decided which jewelry cabinet to target the shaven-headed man stressed that he did not want anybody killed according to an account later given to the police by one of those involved and outlined to the judge in a legal submission before the trial the burly man was colin gunn and the young man was james brodie one of his underlings they were planning the robbery of the time center in arnold nottingham run by victor and marion bates the robbery would involve a four-man team led by mr brodie in a getaway vehicle would be dean betten and the getaway driver craig morin peter williams the youngest member of the gang at just 17 would carry a crowbar and assist mr brodie a high-powered scanner would help the gang monitor the police radio messages the robbery was set for the 30th of september peter williams would later tell the police that mr gunn continued to outline the plan ordering mr brodie to park his scooter up an alleyway and to make sure that there were no customers in the shop when they entered mr brody nodded listening very carefully mr guern said mr williams was adamant that he did not want anyone being shot but mr brodie was a loose cannon who knew what he might do on the morning of the 30th of september victor and marion bates made their way into arnold taking the road from the village of ravenshead victor was 65 and marion 64. their jewelry shop had a bit of an early trade but by 11 am only a handful of customers had come into the shop a woman looking for a watch for a husband a couple who browsed through engagement rings before leaving empty-handed and another man looking for some special earrings for a girlfriend the shop was empty when at about 1 30 p.m two young men wearing motorcycle crash helmets with the visors up and rucksacks on their backs burst in zamvabates vicky and marion’s 23 year old daughter was helping out in the shop and happened to be on the telephone to her husband she was startled by the noisy entrance of the two men storming in one of them opened his jacket took out a crowbar and walked towards the glass cabinets which he tried to jammy open the other man slightly older looked xanthe in the eye this is an armed robbery put the [ __ ] phone down now it seemed unreal it was like a scene from a movie xanthe was rooted to the spot with the phone still in her hand marion and victor heard the shouting from the back of the shop and rushed to the front counter marion saw two young men and walked towards her daughter to take charge of the situation one of the men levelled the gun at xanthe who had still had the phone in her hand and it took a couple of steps forward marion rushed in front of xanthe trying to protect her daughter she stretched out her arms and instinctively screamed no there was a roar of gunfire from three feet away and marion collapsed to the ground the shooter shouted at marion now slumped on the floor cute stupid cow as all hal broke loose victor managed to press a solid alarm button underneath the counter and now had an old fencing foil which he grabbed from the back of the shop he rushed towards the gunman later identified as james brody mr brody aimed the gun at him and pulled the trigger but this time the weapon misfired then xanthe jumped on mr brody’s back screaming and grabbing his arm so that he couldn’t raise the weapon again at her father peter williams who had been grabbing jewelry from the cabinet and throwing it into his rucksack saw his accomplice in trouble and swung his metal bar of victor slamming it into the side of his face reeling in pain with a fractured cheekbone victor remained undaunted and attacked brodie with the foil once again mr williams raised the iron bar and aimed several more blows at victor’s arms as the shot keeper tried to stab mr brody finally mr brodie threw xanthe off his back cutting her lip badly with the handle of his gun in the process he made for the exit quickly followed by mr williams they headed for a nearby alleyway where they had left the scooter with the engine running but the gunshot and the commotion attracted the attention of several shoppers who were trying to see what was going on mr brody brandished his gun angrily and screamed get out the [ __ ] way the startled shoppers parted and the raiders made their escape at the petrol station about a mile away their getaway car is waiting with craig moran driving and dean betten in the passenger seat mr betten’s job was to get rid of the scooter while mr moran drove mr brodie and mr williams back to a safe house to check their spoils they found two rings three pairs of earrings and a pendant worth just one thousand one hundred pounds in the rut sack it was the price of marion bates life the death of marion bates again trained the eyes of the nation on to nottingham the fears of the white middle englander were concentrated into that one brutal murder the bates were grandparents middle class owned a small business and lived in a village chief constable steve green wondered what he had done to deserve such pressures it was a far cry from the blueprint for success that he had devised and envisioned for nottinghamshire some three years earlier when he had taken over the force of 2500 officers and a budget of some 170 million pounds per year now it was attracting a reputation for being the worst police county in the england and wales despite the setting up of a reputation unit costing council taxpayers more than four hundred thousand pounds per year to tackle the media of the portrayal of the city by then it was too late the adverse headlines have sunk into public’s consciousness by the 23rd of september 2003 john and joan sterling had moved to a council flat in goal on the humberside coast the place was not a dream home by the seaside that they had hoped for in fact it was barely big enough for the two of them they had received some help from the police in getting a tenancy on a one-bedroom flat but they felt increasingly isolated both were taking sleeping pills and antidepressants and joan was suffering from severe depression her son had been charged with a brutal murder and now they were living in a tiny flat in a place they hated constantly looking over their shoulders as the monks ticked by the depression got worse by november 2003 joan had had enough she wrote in her diary tuesday the 2nd of september 3 police came to our house and said they wanted to speak to my son jj about a murder after that they came every day for over a week then he was caught then the next sunday at 10 p.m two men on a motorbike came to our house and fired six shots they tried to kill me and john my husband the next day police told us to leave nottingham we didn’t know where to go so we just drove we ended up in bridlington we went to the council there and the manager karen jordan said why land on our doorstep why bridlington we were in such a state we didn’t know what to do or who to turn to she just told us to come back on monday which we did she took us to a single person’s flat in a house with a man living upstairs we were told to sign a tenancy we were told we had no choice so desperate we did it we are on antidepressants plus sleeping pills the gp dr [ __ ] wrote as a letter to get us moved on so did the psychiatrist but the cid in nottingham put a stop to it they said it’s too dangerous for us to go back we have done nothing wrong we are decent innocent people we have worked all our lives and now we have nothing we are desperate to get out from where we are so desperate that if we are not out by christmas you will be taking us out in a box we just need you to know we want to be buried in nottingham in wilford cemetery this is just because the police in nottingham can’t control the gun family who run the best with the state and everyone in it it is disgraceful that the police can’t do anything about them they use me three times and now they don’t want to know our lives are non-existent we haven’t been out of this bedsit since the day we moved here on september the 22nd in 2003. we are at the end now all we wanted was to come back home drawing a phone call to her daughter rosie in early november 2003 jones said she and john had talked about taking overdose of sleeping pills and ending it all rosie tried to cheer her mom up and told her to get to the police and do something a few days later rosie ran her mom back and told her she had looked through a newspaper and seen some adverts for retirement bungalows in the lincolnshire coast she gave joan the phone number and a few days later got a call back from her mom who was ecstatic rosie is fantastic she gushed the place is in trustful right next to the beach and it’s quiet but there’s plenty to do it’s a perfect place for us and it’s out the way we’re going to take it everything is going to be all right on the 11th of december 2003 police officers were watching colin gunn operation starburst had made him and his brother david its number one target colin had driven to lincolnshire from bestwood and was at a caravan site on sutton road on the way to trustful he was having a dispute with one of his crew who had displeased him the man had fled best wood for the east coast after bodging up a kidnapping for colin in calverton village instead of taking the man away from the house in carverton he gave him or hiding and the man had been persuaded to let his victim go free for the 200 pound he had in his pocket colin was furious when he found out and demanded that the kidnappers be dealt with using the most severe tactics one of them had also botched the previous shooting almost killing a child he had been warned at the time that any more failures to carry out colin’s orders would have fatal consequences for him colin called john mcsally his favored enforcer over to sutton to brief him on the job he made it clear he wanted the man dead with no mistakes or no messy leftovers mr mcsally was staying nearby in a caravan owned by colin’s mom while he planned the job mr mcsally approached his target but ended up shooting him through the shoulder instead of the head shocked and badly injured the man lived and made his way to safety mr mcsally was later arrested for the shooting but walked straight back out the police station without being charged on the 14th of december joan and john sterling gathered up their small bundle of belongings and made the journey down to the radio st peters their new street a distinctive name derived from its role from the wartime raf station in trustwork they were looking forward to life again a new start and could put some of the past behind them joan thought she would phone the police just to let them know where they were they had done little for her but she felt she ought to give them a call in case the guns were up to anything she needed to know about on the 15th of december she rang her contact at nottinghamshire police to tell him about their move to trustful he warned her about the guns connections with the area but she was adamant that this was where they were going to start a new life the officer would later be asked in a courtroom where the police had subsequently examined the security issues surrounding the sterling’s move to trustful i had satisfied myself that they were not vulnerable in that location yes he replied

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