The Times article
The TimesApril 8, 2009
Leader of Manchester's Gooch Gang to serve at least 39 years in jail
Lee Amos and Colin Joyce, both leading members of the notorious Gooch gang in Manchester
Russell Jenkins The leader of a drug gang whose violence recalled what a judge called the days of “Al Capone and Chicago” was told he will stay in jail until he reaches retirement age.
Colin Joyce, 29, the self-styled general of the infamous Gooch Gang, based in Manchester’s Moss Side, was jailed by Mr Justice Brian Langstaff at Liverpool Crown Court yesterday for a minimum of 39 years.
In a show of bravado, he smirked throughout the judge’s remarks and was applauded by other gang members in the dock as he told the court that the five-month trial had been a circus, and that no sentence could take away the “freedom and innocence from inside me”.
Sentencing Joyce to two life sentences, Mr Justice Langstaff told all 11 defendants in the dock: “You were all involved in gang-related activity which is all too reminiscent of Al Capone and Chicago in the era of prohibition. Manchester is not the Wild West but many of you treated its streets as if it were”.
Joyce, his second-in-command, Lee Amos, 33, and three other gang members were all convicted of involvement in the drive-by killing of a mourner at the funeral of a man Joyce had “executed” months earlier.
Six other gang members were also convicted of possessing guns and drug dealing for the gang, including a “wild west” shoot-out with rival gangsters in Moss Side. All 11 gang members, all from Manchester, were convicted of 27 of the 28 charges.
Together they embarked on an ambitious plan to expand their heroin and cocaine dealing across the city’s suburbs, torturing street dealers and targeting potential rivals.
Since their arrest, Greater Manchester Police has recorded a 92 per cent reduction in gun-related crime leading at least one detective to speak optimistically about the “end of gang culture”.
For 20 years Moss Side, an inner city suburb, has been riven by the rivalry between the Gooch and Doddington gangs and, more recently, by their affiliated off-shoots, the Longsight Street Soldiers, Old Trafford Cripz and Longsight Crew. The gangs have fought for 'turf', where they can deal drugs.
When a member of the Old Trafford Cripz was shot in February, 2007, the Gooch gang took their bloody revenge in an open air shoot-out in Pepper Hill Road, at the heart of Doddington territory.
The gang war reached a climax in 2007 shortly after Joyce and Amos were released from jail on licence from a nine-year sentence for firearms offences.
On June 15 that year Ucal Chin, 24, a member of the Longsight Crew, was shot dead at the wheel of his red Renault Megane by a gunman in a silver Audi which pulled up alongside him as he drove down a suburban street.
The killers struck again on Friday July 27 at Chin’s wake at the family home in Chorlton-on-Medlock. Shortly before midnight gunmen in three cars sprayed mourners with bullets killing Tyrone Gilbert, 23, a close friend of Chin's and associated with the Longsight Crew.
As the gunmen fled, one left a balaclava snagged on a fence post. Forensic testing of the mouth hole offered enough DNA evidence to link its ownership to Aeeron Campbell, 25, a known gang member. Meanwhile, mobile phone data suggested that Joyce and Amos were in one of the cars used in the shooting.
The gang was arrested one-by-one but the breakthrough that allowed police to round up so many of the gang’s hierarchy came when they persuaded a number of low-level workers to give evidence against their former employers in exchange for protection.
Six witnesses, all former associates of the gang, were given immunity from prosecution to give evidence in the trial. They are all now in witness protection programmes.
Judge Langstaff told the defendants: “Your reactions to the verdicts suggest to me you could not care less. It was almost as if you regarded the badge of a guilty verdict as being a mark of honour in the cause for which you had shot.”
He said Joyce and the Gooch gang took part in both planned executions of rivals and in “mindless gang warfare.”
They would shoot at people over minor disagreements while drunk in nightclubs and torture street dealers who crossed them, the court heard. They had an arsenal of weapons including machineguns and magnum-style handguns which they used, “at the drop of a hat,” and to exact revenge and enforce drug debts.
Joyce, who rented a luxury flat on a private development in Worsley, Greater Manchester, made up to £700,000 a year from his gang’s drug dealing, its “core activity".
Judge Langstaff said that Joyce possessed “considerable personal charm”, organisational ability and business skills, but also had “murderous intent” and was a “deeply controlling man... I accept undoubtedly you are a leader of men".
Amos was given a life sentence for his involvement in the murder of Gilbert and ordered to serve a minimum of 35 years before parole.
Aeeron Campbell, 25, a mindless thug with an intelligence putting him in the bottom 1 per cent of the population, was given life with a minimum of 32 years.
Narada Williams, 27, known as “Yardie”, a gang “enforcer” in charge of their drugs operation, was given life with a minimum of 35 years before parole.
Ricardo Williams, 26, convicted of murder, was jailed for life and will have to serve at least 34 years.
Hassan Shah, 25, convicted of firearms and drugs offences, was given an indefinite sentence but must serve at least 9 years.
The other five gang members – Aaron Alexander, 22, Ricci Moss, 21, Kayael Wint, 20, Tyler Mullings, 18, and Gonoo Hussain, 25 – were jailed for 13, six, five-and-a-half, six and five-and-a-half years respectively.
After the hearing Peter Fahy, the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police, spoke of the need to ensure that guns are kept off the streets.
He said:“Our next step is to identify the next generation of gang members and stop them from falling into this sort of lifestyle. What we have to understand is what drives these young people to embark on this lifestyle in the first place.
“The communities have the best understanding of how to tackle this issue, and by continuing to work and build relationships with them, we want to educate young people about the consequences of getting involved in the first place.
“The police cannot do this alone. Now is the time to step up and take responsibility and stop the sort of tragedies that resulted in the deaths of young men like Ucal Chin and Tyrone Gilbert from happening.”
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