Two drug lords whose bloody reign inspired brutal scenes in hit TV drama Sherwood still have a ‘huge influence’ on the streets, a gang expert has warned.
Notorious Nottingham gang leader Colin Gunn and ‘international drugs kingpin’ Robert Dawes are both serving lengthy jail sentences in Category A prisons – the former in Britain and the latter in France.
Colin and his brother David Gunn built up a multi-million-pound empire based on drugs, extortion and violent crime during the early 2000s when Nottingham had a reputation for being Britain’s gun crime capital.
The city dubbed ‘Shottingham’ at the height of its brutal crime wave, much of the violence was was being fuelled by Dawes, who was running his cartel from Spain until he was arrested in 2015 for trafficking 1.3 tonnes of cocaine into Europe.
The petty criminal who went from growing up on an estate in Sutton-in-Ashfield, Nottinghamshire to becoming a narcotics boss with links to South America was jailed for 22 years in 2018.
Colin Gunn, whose savage reign included orchestrating the execution of grandparents John and Joan Stirland in a savage revenge hit, was jailed for life in 2006. He is currently an inmate at high-security HMP Long Lartin in Evesham, Worcestershire.
MailOnline can reveal today how despite both gang lords being behind bars, Gunn and Dawes are still in contact.
Nottingham crime boss Colin Gunn (pictured) was jailed in 2006 for conspiring to murder John and Joan Stirland
Robert Dawes (pictured) was pulling the strings in Nottingham from Spain until he was arrested in 2015 for trafficking 1.3 tonnes of cocaine into Europe
Author Carl Fellstrom, whose book ‘Hoods’ gives an in-depth history of Nottingham’s crime gangs, told MailOnline: ‘Colin Gunn and Robert Dawes still communicate with each other right now. They’re both in Category A prisons. One’s in France and one’s in the UK.
‘I think from that, you can ascertain that they are still doing business. So although their power at its base in Nottinghamshire has been fairly well dismantled, they are still operating.
‘I think that Colin Gunn still pulls the strings on the estate, and continues to have an influence. But it’s not the same influence as he had during that 2000 period where to his people, his word was the law.’
In 2010, Gunn was caught using Facebook to threaten his enemies from behind pars. In one post, he wrote: ‘I will be home one day and I can’t wait to look into certain people’s eyes and see the fear of me being there.’
In another, he said: ‘It’s good to have an outlet to let you know how I am, some of you will be in for a good slagging, some have let me down badly, and will be named and shamed, f****** rats.’
Although Gunn and Dawes were initially operating around their own patches, Nottingham became a hub for activity with gangs in Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham and London thanks to its geography in the Midlands.
Dawes was the more significant figure because he was international and the Gunns were his clients. But even though it was a business relationship, they were also close, Mr Fellstrom explains.
‘Although Dawes was supplying everything and had much more power globally, Colin Gunn had the power on that estate,’ he said.
‘But his [power] didn’t translate to power beyond these shores, he wasn’t an international criminal. Dawes very much was, dealing with people at source in South America regarding cocaine and at source in Afghanistan regarding heroin.
‘He also had set set up in Netherlands to produce amphetamine and ecstasy. He’s worth a lot of money. One of the ironic things is they’ve never really been able to track all of that money down. He was pretty clever at that.’
This is the moment Dawes was arrested following a raid on his mansion in Benalmadena, Spain
Dawes was thought to be of being one of the biggest drug dealers in Europe, running an empire that stretched across eight countries and dealt in cocaine, heroin, money laundering and murder. Pictured: Drugs that were seized
Officers are pictured arresting drugs kingpin Robert Dawes after they raided the home of the UK criminal in Spain
Colin Gunn (pictured) was jailed in 2006. He is being held at HMP Long Lartin
Dawes was convicted of arranging an estimated £216million worth of cocaine to be trafficked into France on an Air France flight from Venezuela to Paris.
His criminal empire stretched from Portugal, France and Belgium to Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, Venezuela and Mexico.
He grew up on the Leamington estate in Nottinghamshire, and is thought to have begun his criminal career in the 1990s working as an enforcer.
Dawes left Nottinghamshire for the Costa del Sol in 2009, moving to a villa in the resort of Benalmadena.
His brother John also received a 24-year sentence for drug dealing and money laundering in 2005, but is now free.
When asked how dangerous it is that Gunn and Dawes are still communicating, he said: ‘These guys aren’t getting any younger and I don’t see them being interested in creating the kind of violence that was kicking off in the 2000s.
‘The other thing that people have to remember is that these guys still have huge amounts of influence in terms of they have good contacts out in the environment, that can get things sorted out for them, even though they’re in prison and they also have still have support on the estates where they once lived.
‘So although their general level of power is diminished, they can still be dangerous in in respect to other individuals.
‘But not to the community anymore. I don’t see that that they still have large swathes of the community behind them.
‘I think that all changed because the police eventually got their act together and and took down the most important parts of that and also re-engaged with the community which was really important.
‘Because the only reason why these guys gained power was because some of the community believed that they looked after them better than the police did.
‘I think very much the the atmosphere has changed in in Nottingham.
‘Now if the community sees something wrong, they will actually ring the police, whereas before they tended to ring up Colin Gunn on the estate.
‘It’s not what it was but you have to kind of also taking the fact that the ripple effects of all of the things that did go on will go on for years for the families that were all impacted by it all. It doesn’t go away.’
The violence came to a head when Jamie Gunn (pictured, in a tribute) threw Michael O’Brien out of the Sporting Chance pub
O’Brien (left) and an associate tried to kill Gunn but instead fatally wounded Marvyn Bradshaw (right). Jamie Gunn later died from pneumonia after his life fell apart after the death of his best friend, Mr Bradshaw
In a revenge plot, Colin Gunn conspired to kill Michael O’Brien’s mother Joan Stirland (left) and step-father John (right), who were found dead in Lincolnshire
The violence in Nottingham came to a head in August 2003, when the Gunn brothers’ 19-year-old nephew Jamie was a bouncer at the Sporting Chance pub in the Bullwell area of the city, where the crew would meet.
When convicted criminal Michael O’Brien was refused entry to the pub, he returned with an associate, Gary Salmon, and a single-barrelled shotgun.
Jamie’s friend Marvyn Bradshaw arrived to drive him home but as they left, O’Brien and Salmon approached the car, with one firing a shot. It missed Jamie and struck and killed Marvin.
After O’Brien’s arrest, bullets were fired into windows of the house of his mother, Joan Stirland, and her husband, John. They fled to Lincolnshire but refused witness protection.
Jamie’s life was destroyed by his friend’s death and he died from pneumonia after turning to alcohol and drugs to cope with his grief.
Devastated at the death of his young nephew, Colin Gunn promised to exact revenge on O’Brien, who would later be jailed for 18 years for Mr Bradshaw’s murder.
Six days after Jamie died, a hit squad of Gunn and his associates tracked down the Stirlands to their Lincolnshire home on August 8 2004.
The gunmen, who have not been identified, killed Mr Stirland on the sofa while his wife was shot in their bedroom.
Nobody has ever been charged over the double execution, but Colin Gunn was sentenced to life with a minimum of 35 years for conspiring to murder the couple.
When the murder trial came to an end at Birmingham Crown Court in March 2006, Gunn turned to the jury and said: ‘Thank you, you scum bags. I hope you die of cancer.’ He then turned on the judge and called him a paedophile.
Colin’s brother David, who now claims to be crime-free, was also charged in relation with the murders but was cleared. John Russell, of Bulwell, and Michael McNee, no fixed abode, were handed sentences of 30 years and 25 years for conspiring.
Danielle Beccan (pictured), 14, was shot as she walked home from a Goose Fair through the St Ann’s area just two months after the Stirlands’ death
Junior Andrew (left) and Mark Kelly (right) were found guilty of murdering Danielle Beccan in 2005
Critically-acclaimed series BBC Sherwood, which is set in Nottingham, was inspired by real-life murders in 2004, returned for a second series earlier this month (Pictured is David Morrissey as Ian St Clair)
Another innocent victim caught up in Nottingham’s horrifying tit-for-tat gang violence was 14-year-old Danielle Beccan.
The schoolgirl was gunned down in a drive by shooting as she walked home from a fair through the St Ann’s area of the city just two months after the Stirlands’ death in October 2004.
Danielle was shot by two gunmen from The Meadows area of Nottingham who had ‘historical beef’ with St Anne’s.
Mark Kelly, then 23, and Junior Andrew, then 26, fired from a car at the teenager and her friends as they walked home, Birmingham Crown Court heard.
Danielle fell to the ground fatally wounded as her friends tried to run to safety.
Her mother Paula Platt was at the scene within minutes and cradled the teen in her arms as they awaited for an ambulance in an alleyway.
In 2005, Kelly and Andrews were found guilty of killing the teenager and jailed for at least 32 years.
Trial judge Mr Justice Butterfield said: ‘You robbed a bright young girl of her life and blighted forever the lives of her family and friends.
‘This was a terrible killing. You armed yourselves with a handgun and set out cruising around St Ann’s looking for likely victims. ‘It was what you told (a witness in the case) you wanted to do.
‘Your pathological and illogical hatred of everyone from St Ann’s was so intense you did indeed want to kill.’
Kelly later had his sentence reduced to a minimum of 29 years on appeal.
‘The ripple effects from that particular killing were really big because of her age, and the fact that, it was the case of somebody being in the wrong place at the wrong time,’ Mr Fellstrom explained.
‘That history [of gang rivalry] went back quite a few years, back into the eighties and it was totally tragic.
Danielle’s shocking murder was the front page of the Daily Mail on October 11 2004
‘It was sort of the beginning of what was to become a a fairly difficult period for Nottinghamshire Police which wasn’t helped, maybe, by some of the headlines that that came off the back of that which was ‘Shottingham’ and ‘Gun Crime Capital’ and so on,’ he said.
Mr Fellstrom said that although the number of murders has certainly gone down from that period, he fears it still has a poor reputation when it comes to crime – as people still refer to the city as ‘Shottingham’ whenever there’s an incident.
At the height of its crime, parents had stopped allowing their children to apply to Nottingham because they did not want to say their kids were going there.
Mr Fellstrom was speaking as James Graham’s Sherwood returned to our screens for a second season.
The drama, although fictionalised, is inspired by the real life murders that rocked Nottingham in 2004 during a time of huge crime. It comes in a period when community was already fractured by the 1984-85 miners’ strike.
Mr Fellstrom said: ‘As a drama, I think it’s brilliant, and it perfectly evokes some of the issues that lead to these kinds of explosions of crime which are the fact that so many of the communities were hit by the the demise of the mining industry.
So I think that general theme that he’s weaved throughout the whole of the two series is very pertinent, because, a lot of this conflict is really all about money, and it’s about surviving.
‘And the gap that exists between the haves and the have nots, which has been festering for quite a while as we’ve seen as a result of the recent riots.’
