World's Most Evil Killers - Season 4, Episode 2 - Dale Cregan - Full Episode | Forensic Files

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

In 2012, one-eyed gangster Dale Cregan went on a ruthless killing spree and murdered four people in Greater Manchester. He killed a father and son as well as Police Constables Fiona Bone and Nicola Hughes.

An in-depth look at the lives and crimes of some of the world's most evil killers, including Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, Richard Ramirez, Cary Stayner, Leonard Lake, Dorothea Puente and more.

Brief Summary

Dale Cregan murdered police officers Fiona Bone and Nicola Hughes in a shocking ambush, leading to a nationwide manhunt and community grief.

Key points

Dale Cregan's Killing Spree. Cregan's violent history escalated with the murders of a father and son.
The Murder of Fiona Bone and Nicola Hughes. Two police officers were tragically killed in Manchester, shocking the nation.
The Aftermath of the Killings. The murders led to a massive manhunt and a shift in policing in Manchester.
The Brutal Attack. Dale Cregan ambushes police officers Fiona Bone and Nicola Hughes, leading to their tragic deaths.
Cregan's Infamy. Dale Cregan's actions secure his legacy as one of the world's most evil killers.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

You never expect to plan your child's funeral.

A family member reflecting on the tragedy.

0:37WatchAug 12, 2021

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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