NF (2010) Hoods

by Carl Fellstrom

  The robbers had distinguished themselves by committing a catalogue of errors. Hogan, a convicted thief and burglar, allowed a scarf covering his face to slip during the raid. He pointed a gun at the receptionist before ushering her and other members of staff into a corner of the casino while Martin, armed with a claw hammer, emptied cash into a sports bag. The men tried to make their escape through a fire door but found it locked. It meant they had to turn back and leave through the main entrance, the court had heard. Another of the gang, Vincent Hawkins made a poor job of setting light to the getaway vehicle. He burnt himself so severely he had to call an ambulance and spent five days in a hospital’s burns unit. Hawkins, twenty-two, received an eighteen-month prison sentence after admitting arson. Detectives used mobile phone records to trace all three’s movements.

  BACK IN BESTWOOD, the Gunn family was getting worried about the impact that Michael O’Brien’s trial was having on Jamie. He was going on drug-fuelled benders on a nightly basis with some members of the Cartel, including Michael ‘Tricky’ McNee. Jamie’s mum, Julie, tried to keep him in but he would say he was nipping out for a bit and then disappear for days on end. Jamie couldn’t get the vision of Marvyn dying from his head, he couldn’t even look at pictures of his best friend – every time the newspaper ran stories about O’Brien’s trial, it brought everything back. Jamie was in self-destruct mode; he didn’t care what happened to him.

  On 2 August 2004, twenty-one-year-old Jamie Gunn was found lying on his bed at home in South Glade Road. His family couldn’t wake him. His body had given up – the official cause of death was pneumonia – and his five-and-a-half month old son Rhiece would grow up without even knowing him. The outpouring of grief from the members of the Bestwood Cartel was overwhelming. Colin was down near Hampton Lodge, near Warwick, when David Gunn finally reached him just after 9.30am that day. Colin phoned Jamie’s friend Michael ‘Tricky’ McNee immediately; maybe he knew something. Then Colin phoned another of Jamie’s friends, ‘John John’ Russell, to tell him about Jamie’s death. Tricky McNee hadn’t seen Jamie since Sunday. Colin was crying uncontrollably; Jamie was like a son to him. There was also some guilt: perhaps he shouldn’t have given Jamie such a hard time about the drug-taking, Colin thought, but no, he wasn’t to blame for Jamie’s death. It was someone else and that someone else would have to pay. An eye for an eye. Two must die. One for Marv and one for Jamie.

  The day after Jamie’s body was found Tricky McNee told his brother, John, what had happened. John McNee was locked up at Ranby Prison, near Retford, and the phone calls were being routinely bugged. Tricky revealed to his older brother that he had been drowning his sorrows with senior members of the Bestwood Cartel in the Royal Hunt pub. ‘I can’t believe it’s happened,’ he said. ‘I only saw Jamie on Sunday. I had the big man [Colin Gunn] with me, he was in tears. I’ve had Baz on the phone as well in tears. It’s hit Colin and Baz [David Barrett] really, really badly. I’m fucking off to Scotland for a week. It’s going to take two weeks for anything to happen anyway.’

  Colin had already made it clear that there would be revenge after holding an army council-style summit at the pub the day after Jamie’s death. No point going for Michael O’Brien; this was personal now and his cold heart was dreaming up the cruellest revenge he could think of, something that would leave O’Brien and his sisters, Rosie and Tonette, in more pain than could ever be achieved by taking his own life away. Colin didn’t need his lines of cocaine to make him feel confident. He felt supreme already. He had been implicated in no less than four murders and more than fifty shootings and he hadn’t been charged with a single crime since 1998. He was invincible.

  Nevertheless precautions would need to be taken, including buying some new pay-as-you-go phones for the job. They already had access to a couple of clean guns, Beretta 9000s – a gangster’s best friend, reliable and deadly. Tricky would not be going to Scotland after all. A flurry of phone calls were already being made to try to trace Gunn’s targets and the contacts the gang had in British Telecom were working their magic. Joan and John Stirland were effectively walking dead.

  Just a few days after Jamie’s death, Joan received a call from Nottinghamshire Police.

  ‘Emotions are running high, Joan,’ the officer said. ‘Just watch your back.’

  Joan phoned her daughter Rosie late that night: ‘Rosie, I’m really scared. I think the Gunns are going all out to try and get us and you and Tonette. I want you to get out the house now.’

  ‘Mum, I’m not getting the kids up, it’s past midnight. Ring the police and ask them what you should do.’

  A few minutes later, an officer from Nottinghamshire Police, rang through to Rosie.

  ‘Your mum has asked me to call you because she’s upset,’ he said. ‘She’s heard some more stuff about the people from Bestwood.’

  Rosie was angry. ‘Well I’m not being funny but you’re the police officer. We’ve been hearing we are in danger for months now but you would have moved us if we were. You’re the ones who know what’s going on – what do you think?’

  ‘Well, Rosie, I think your mum is overreacting,’ the officer told her, according to Rosie’s account. ‘To be honest I think it’s all a load of pie in the sky.’

  THE DAY AFTER Jamie Gunn’s death, Colin Gunn began planning the most audacious and brutal crime of his career. He would use weapons smuggled into the country from Latvia by a Polish lorry driver. They were clean Beretta 9000S pistols. No history, no comeback. Colin contacted a man from the Carlton area of Nottingham called Kevin Holm, whose father, Raymond, was best friends with John Stirland and had visited the couple in April that year. Colin knew this because Kevin Holm’s sister, Holly, lived with thirty-eight-year-old Shane Bird, a long-time associate of the Gunns. Bird had served a jail term for his involvement in large-scale cigarette smuggling with Robert Briggs-Price.

  During 3 August, there was frantic activity on Colin Gunn’s phone. He was calling Holm and Bird, trying to get information about where Joan and John Stirland lived. By that afternoon he had their phone number and postcode but no full address. He asked Bird to find out more through his contacts. One of them was a former British Telecom worker called Stephen Poundall. Bird told Poundall he needed to know the address of a J. Stirland in Lincolnshire. Poundall phoned his mate Anthony Kelly, who worked for British Telecom in Nottingham. Kelly couldn’t access records for Lincolnshire so he phoned another friend, Andrew Pickering. By 8am on 5 August, after a series of exhaustive checks carried out by his former work colleagues, Poundall had the address of Joan and John Stirland. And by 8.43am that day, he had phoned Bird to let him know.

  Bird spent the next hour trying to get through to Colin Gunn, until Gunn eventually answered his phone at 9.47am.

  ‘It’s not Sutton on Sea. It’s Trusthorpe.’

  The call lasted just a few seconds but it was all he needed. Gunn phoned Michael ‘Tricky’ McNee at 10.14am.

  ‘Tricky? Put Scotland on the backburner. The job’s on so get yourself sorted.’

  McNee had been chosen as one of the shooters. He was itching to exact revenge for Jamie’s death. The identity of the other shooter had not yet been decided – it might be John Russell, who Colin phoned a few minutes after speaking to McNee, but Colin was also pumping himself up to do it himself, such was his guilt and rage over Jamie’s death.

  At 10.37am, after speaking to Gunn, Bird rang Stephen Poundall. ‘Thanks for all your help, mate,’ said Bird. ‘There will be a drink in it for you so don’t worry.’

  Poundall, Pickering and Kelly had all unwittingly been used in a grand conspiracy. As with many others, they will have to live with their actions for the rest of their lives. Bird, from Carlton Hill, Nottingham, would later claim in court that the phone calls between him and Poundall were in order to do a favour for another man, who had asked him for the phone number of his aunt, Joan Stirland. The day the gang got confirmation of Joan and John Stirland’s address, they began to work out the logistics of the
operation and travelled over to Lincolnshire to case the house at Radio St Peter’s. Colin Gunn drove over with nineteen-year-old Tricky McNee in the car.

  The classified section of the Nottingham Evening Post would be filled with obituaries for Jamie Gunn for the next two weeks, in an unprecedented outpouring of grief for a nineteen-year-old who had achieved little of note in his short life. Nevertheless, there were many people who had had dealings with the Gunn brothers who knew it was in their own interests to show some respect; there was even a notice from Godfrey Hibbert, who had looked after drugs for the Cartel to his own cost. The funeral was set for Friday, 13 August, at St Mary’s Church near Bulwell town centre. Notice went out to the people of Bestwood and Bulwell that they would be expected to show their respects by attending. Jamie would be buried near his best friend Marvyn Bradshaw at Wilford Cemetery.

  John John Russell and Tricky McNee sent their own death notice to the Nottingham Evening Post. It read:

  GUNN Jamie. Bro, we still don’t believe it, you are still with us. If not by our side, then in our hearts and souls. Don’t for one minute think we will ever forget you. You are in our thoughts every minute of the day. Just can’t believe you’re gone Bro. Love you to bits always. Deepest sympathy to Julie, Sheff and family. From Tricky and John John

  ON 4 AUGUST, Colin and David Gunn, Michael McNee, John Russell and others who have never been identified met at the Kingfisher caravan site, where David had a caravan. David stayed there for a few days while Colin drove back and forth from Nottingham. David was back in Nottingham by 8 August, while McNee and Russell took his place at the caravan. At 6.45pm that day, Colin went into a Woolworths store in Skegness and bought a T-mobile Sagem pay-as-you-go phone to contact other members of the gang. All the gang would be using pay-as-you-go mobiles with no history. For years the Cartel had used this method of communication, often buying their phones from a shop called Dr Unlock in Bulwell. A clean mobile was an absolute necessity in their line of business.

  David Gunn texted his brother.

  ‘What time are you here Fats? The bits are ready. Three of them. I’ve got them built and bought some menthol.’

  David knew about firearms, how to acquire them and put them together. His police record said as much. The Italian-made 9mm 9000S came in three parts and menthol was often used to clean the semi-automatic handguns so they had a smooth action. However, David would later give an entirely different explanation for his text message to Colin. ‘I’m texting him to tell him I have got some spliffs rolled,’ he claimed. ‘Colin couldn’t roll a spliff to save his life so I would do it for him. The menthol referred to menthol-flavoured cigarettes that I put into the joints, giving them a minty cool flavour that he liked. At the end of it, apart from you putting me in a few places using my phone, you haven’t really got me doing anything. I am shocked that you have got me here.’

  JOHN RUSSELL WAS busy smoking himself stupid while Tricky McNee drank and fidgeted. A takeway meal had been delivered to the caravan. It was 7 August. Colin, John John and Tricky had been reconnoitring at Radio St Peters and Colin had driven over to Trusthorpe three times that day. It was obsessive last-minute planning to make sure that nothing could go wrong. A black Volkswagen Passat, stolen a few weeks earlier from a house in Nottingham, would be used to drive two gunmen to and from the target house, then afterwards would be ditched and burned. They had already found an isolated spot about two miles away in Crawcroft Lane to dispose of the car – it was perfect, no houses nearby. The shooters would then be transported by another car back to the caravan at Ingoldmells or Nottingham, if necessary.

  Russell and McNee made another trip to the Stirlands’ house late on the Saturday evening to satisfy themselves about the layout of the property and to ease any niggling, last-minute doubts – though Russell was nearly caught when one of the neighbours spotted him leaping over the Stirlands’ garden fence. When the morning of 8 August broke, it held all the promise of optimism that sunny mornings have – and so it was for Joan and John Stirland when they woke to the sun streaming into their chalet.

  They had barely had breakfast when their neighbour called round. ‘I just thought you ought to know that I saw a prowler jump over your fence last night,’ she told Joan. ‘I think we might have disturbed them because they just ran off.’

  The sunshine went from Joan Stirland’s face. She didn’t hide her worries well.

  ‘Oh, right. I had better tell John about it.’

  Joan went back inside to phone Nottinghamshire Police. She felt apprehensive.

  Five miles away, at the caravan park, Russell and McNee were awaiting their orders from Colin Gunn. They wouldn’t have to wait long. By 1pm they were acting the fools on the promenade of Trusthorpe. Colin had told them to blend in like holidaymakers and so Russell bought a kite, which they attempted to fly. They chatted up a couple of girls on the promenade, regaling the young women with stories about Nottingham and how they should meet up for a drink later. Then, at about 2pm, Colin rang and gave the order to strike. Perhaps he was close to Radio St Peter’s – if he was then he would have seen the Stirlands’ neighbour leave her house with relatives to go for a walk. She would not be returning until after 4pm. It was a good time to commit a murder, with few witnesses in the vicinity to hear the gunshots.

  The VW Passat drove up onto the kerb next to the chalet and the hazard lights came on. The two gunmen moved swiftly out of the car, carrying a holdall which hid the Berettas. The blue overalls and caps and silver gloves they wore gave Joan and John Stirland the impression they were there on official business. Perhaps it was something to do with the call they had made to the police? Either way, the assassins walked straight into the house and carried out their deed with swift precision. Bullet casings lay strewn all over the floor. Joan and John Stirland had been murdered in cold blood by 2.20pm.

  As the assassins left the house a taxi driver spotted them getting into the car. They screeched off towards Crawcroft Lane, tailgating a car as they tried to overtake on the narrow lanes. Whoever was at the wheel of the VW Passat drove like a madman and the two gunmen were seen arguing as their car sped down the road. Before setting the vehicle alight, Tricky McNee dumped a load of bullet casings into the car – it would all help to burn the car to a cinder and destroy any forensic evidence. By 3pm the two assassins were back at the Kingfisher Caravan Park in Ingoldmells. By the evening they would be laughing, having a few pints and even texting the girls they had met on the promenade earlier. Colin Gunn had planned the assassination meticulously.

  WITHIN TWENTY-FOUR HOURS of the murders, journalists had made the link between Mr and Mrs Stirland’s brutal slaying and the jailing of her son Michael O’Brien at Nottingham Crown Court a few weeks earlier. The story was all over the national papers by the Tuesday morning.

  WERE SEASIDE COUPLE SHOT IN REVENGE?

  Daily Mail

  COUPLE SHOT DEAD IN GANG REVENGE AT THE SEASIDE: MIDDLE AGED VICTIMS LINKED TO PUB KILLER

  Daily Telegraph

  MYSTERY KILLERS GUN DOWN TWO PERFECT GRANDPARENTS IN THEIR SEASIDE HOME; REVENGE OF THE HITMEN

  The Express

  COUPLE’S NEW LIFE ENDS IN MURDER: POLICE FIND BODIES AFTER TIP OFF

  The Guardian

  EXECUTION: GANGLAND MURDER OF SNEERING KILLER’S FAMILY

  The Mirror

  2 EXECUTED IN ‘MURDER FEUD’

  The Sun

  COUPLE’S MURDER IS LINKED TO PUB SHOOTING CASE

  The Times

  All focus shifted towards Jamie Gunn’s funeral, which was held the following Friday. Jamie’s mother, Julie, gave a tearful interview to the newspapers but journalists who tried to speak to other members of the family, such as Colin Gunn, were chased down the road with baseball bats. Julie described how Jamie had lost the will to live after seeing his best mate murdered. She said she had heard the rumours about the Stirlands but it was ‘nowt to do with us’.

  ‘Jamie couldn’t look at a picture of Marvyn for ages – he
just used to break down,’ said Julie. ‘It took nine months for him to say Marvyn’s name again. No adult should have to see what he had seen. The estate is eerie at the moment. It’s in shock. The support we have had has been amazing. Some people have to deal with it on their own but we have had an army.’ But the army was crumbling. Everyone knew Colin Gunn was behind the Stirlands’ murders and Jamie’s funeral would be the last show of any significant support for the Bestwood Cartel. One former member said, ‘Yeah there were the attacks on this person or that but most of that was business, keeping people in line and off their patch. When the Stirlands got done, that was it. People started seeing what was happening. Colin was out of control. You can’t go off shooting someone’s grandmother just to get at someone else. That was Colin’s downfall. There will still be people who try and say he’s a good ’un and he got stitched up by the cops but he did a truly evil thing that day and people started seeing him in a different light. That was the day he lost the support of the estate.’

  More than 1,000 people turned out for Jamie’s funeral. A black, horse-drawn carriage took the coffin through the streets of Bulwell and up to Wilford Hill Crematorium after the service. The streets were not only lined with hundreds of locals but also Mercedes and BMWs. It was a depressing day, full of menacing darkness and teeming rain and men in black suits, wearing dark shades as if they had just walked off the set of Reservoir Dogs – only this was for real. It was a gangster’s funeral and Jamie Gunn was buried in a brand new Lacoste tracksuit specially bought by the family. After the service the local vicar, Reverend Christopher Gale, said: ‘I did think about calling for there to be no revenge, but it’s a difficult time and you have to be sensitive. You have to remember that people are grieving the loss of their nineteen-year-old son.’