All language subtitles for Britains.Most.Evil.Killers.S04E04.WEBRip.en

- 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.

- ♪

♪

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