- Desmond Noonan
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Desmond "Dessie" Noonan (8 August 1959 – 19 March 2005) was a British organised crime figure in Manchester of Irish descent who acted as a political fixer for the Noonan crime family. He and his younger brother, Dominic Noonan, were suspected by police to be responsible for at least 25 unsolved murders during their 20-year reign over Manchester's underworld.
Mainly because of the very dangerous contacts Desmond Noonan had made during his reign as "Britain's number one crime boss" his family was at the end of the 1990s known as "one of the most notorious crime families in British history".
Contents
Early life
Born in Whalley Range, Manchester, Noonan emerged from poverty and into the criminal scene with his brothers Damian and Dominic Noonan. His criminal career began as a doorman in the early 1980s; his reputation as a fighter and his overall appearance gave him credibility on the club doors of Manchester.
Desmond then started to put his own men on the doors and by the late 1980s 80 percent of the Manchester nightlife security was said to be controlled by Desmond Noonan and his family. Around this time Dominic Noonan was jailed for 15 years for his part in an armed robbery at a bank in Cheetham Hill, Manchester. During his imprisonment, still in control of the crime family, Damian and Derek Noonan were forging links with other notable Manchester gangs including The Cheetham Hill and Salford Gangs.
The Noonan family tended to have nothing to do with the notorious Moss Side gangs, although Desmond was part of a group who provided the black gangs with guns and other weapons. After involving himself in Manchester's nightlife, Desmond started to get involved with other criminal and political circles outside of Manchester. He went to other cities to forge strong links with gangs in London, Newcastle and Liverpool. It is alleged that Desmond associated with many powerful criminal figures based in Leamington, Coventry and Birmingham. The association was based on the movement of guns and drugs between the West Midlands and the North West. Although the relationship was profitable it soon turned sour, leading to a war that saw a number of executions take place in Manchester and Birmingham, ultimately ending with the slaying of Ashley Foley and Josh King, both found shot in the face (to prevent an open-casket funeral). Desmond Noonan was held by West Midlands police, but the case was dropped due to lack of evidence.
Rise of the Noonans
Control of organised crime in the city fell to Desmond and his brothers following the 1991 gangland murder of rival leader of the Cheetham Hill Gang, Anthony "White Tony" Johnson, whose murder he was charged with and later acquitted of. Over the next several years, he faced a number of convictions in connection to witness intimidation and jury tampering resulting in key witnesses refusing to testify against him and other members of the Noonan family.
By the mid-1990s Desmond Noonan was known as a notorious enforcer, feared and respected by all who knew him. He was known as a very dangerous and violent man and had links with a wide range of Britain's underworld.
In 1995, four years later, Desmond was convicted of violently attacking twin brothers, during which he was reportedly described by the court as psychotic, and sentenced to 33 months imprisonment.
By the end of the 1990s the Noonan family had been linked to 25 gangland murders and dozens of robberies and had a stranglehold on most of the nightclub security in many of the UK's major cities; they had also made over £8 million from bank robberies and security alone.
Desmond Noonan also began to venture into the nightlife of many other cities to gain more wealth, power and respect for the family. He and his brothers Damian and Derek started to acquire business interests in nightclubs in Liverpool, London and Newcastle.
The fact that Desmond had the audacity to try to do business in other cities with other gangland figures gave him a lot of credibility and respect and soon he was becoming involved with a number of notable crime bosses including the likes of the Liverpool drugs baron Curtis Warren, London show-biz mock-gangster and alleged "friend" of the Krays, Dave Courtney and head of Newcastle's biggest crime family boss Paddy Conroy.
The strength and power of the family, in particular Desmond, allowed him to be a prime mover and peacemaker in the Manchester gang truces which for a short space of time brought the war in Moss Side to an end. Other gangland figures participating in this truce were Paul Massey, Damian Noonan, Paul Flannery and apparently Jimmy "the Weed" Donnelly, who was a powerful figure in the QSG, another Manchester gang.
Later years
Desmond Noonan was said to have later developed a crack addiction[1] and Dominic Noonan on his release from prison in 2002 became head of the Noonan crime family, after Damian's death in 2003.
Death
After last being seen on the night of 18 March drinking in The Park public house in Northern Moor, Wythenshawe at around 11:30 am, Sandra Noonan received a phone call from her husband Desmond Noonan. early on Saturday morning, telling her that he had been stabbed and asking her to pick him up in the suburb of Chorlton. By the time she arrived Noonan was lying unconscious in Merseybank Avenue. Sandra Noonan called for an ambulance, but Noonan died of his wounds before arriving at Manchester Royal Infirmary.[1]
Held on 22 April 2005, his funeral in south Manchester was reportedly attended by hundreds of local residents with a kilted pipe band playing as his body arrived in a horse-drawn hearse at St Aidan's R.C. Church Northern Moor. His younger brother Damian Noonan had died two years earlier in a motorbike accident while on holiday in the Dominican Republic.[2]
Derek McDuffus, a drug dealer from South Manchester, was charged on 15 June after appearing at Preston Crown Court, and was eventually convicted of Noonan's murder, for which he received a life sentence. He was subsequently placed in solitary confinement to protect him from retribution by the Noonan family.[3] The authorities suspected that Noonan, who had allegedly become a drug addict during the last months of his life, had been coercing local drug dealers into supplying him with narcotics, and had left the pub intoxicated in search of a drug dealer. McDuffus was charged and found guilty of his murder.[4] It is believed McDuffus stabbed Noonan and threw him out of his residence, following which he bled to death in the street.[5]
Noonan died four days before the broadcast of journalist Donal MacIntyre's documentary MacIntyre's Underworld, Die On The Wall featuring him and his brother.[6]
Family links to Mark Duggan
In August 2011, it was reported that Mark Duggan [7], a 29 year old, alleged drug dealer and North London gang member who was shot and killed by officers from the Metropolitan Police[8] was a nephew of Desmond Noonan's second ex-wife. Duggan's shooting indirectly led to the 2011 England riots. Noonans' brother Dominic Noonan was filmed talking to looters in Manchester[9].
See also
References
- ^ a b Gangster's boast over gun hoard BBC, 17 October 2005
- ^ Hundreds line streets in farewell to bouncer Manchester Evening News, 12 August 2003
- ^ Metro news
- ^ Dealer guilty of gangster murder BBC, 17 October 2005
- ^ Gangland leader 'bled to death' BBC, 19 April, 2005
- ^ Gangster's boast over gun hoard BBC News, 17 October 2005
- ^ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2025259/Mark-Duggans-uncle-crime-lord.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
- ^ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2023556/Mark-Duggan-Violence-drugs-fatal-stabbing-unlikely-martyr.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
- ^ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/8692793/Manchester-riots-Gangster-Dominic-Noonan-caught-on-film-during-Manchester-looting.html
External links
- MacIntyre Documentary - Die On The Wall
- Manchester Evening News - Gang boss stabbed to death by John Scheerhout and Paul Britton
- Mob Magazine: Gangster's Boast Over Gun Hoard
- South Manchester Reporter - Gangster's brother: It was wrong for schools to close
- Manchester MetroNews: Noonan killer to be kept in solitary for protection
Categories:- 1959 births
- 2005 deaths
- People from Whalley Range
- English people of Irish descent
- Murdered British mobsters
- English mobsters
- People murdered by British organized crime
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