How Gooch and Doddington faced the family’s bank’s bank vacation, shooting the fun day

While 300 people including dozens of children left a family fun day in the muscle side, bullets began to fly

It had to be a day of community fun. It was a Bouncy castle, a cheerful game and music.

But even a family friendly assembly such as this, was not outside the limits during the notorious lawn war Gooch and Doddington gangs.

As the day of fun left around 300 people, including dozens of children, left the India Sport and Sports Club in Moss Side, during the spring bank’s spring vacation on Monday, 2006, when a convoy of cars thrown through the safety barriers.

Then the bullets began to fly. Hundreds of revealers fled for their lives, as the shootings cracked through the air.

The children sank for coverage, a man had an epileptic match and a woman, who was just a few days after birth, collapsed during the shooting and was in the hospital for treatment to make sure he did not Lose the child.

Miraculous, no one was shot. As Pandemonium broke out, the guns fled from the scene.

But unknown to them, the detectives secretly gave the Leon chair in Leon Johnson. Then, at the late 20’s, Johnson was an old man of the gooch Head Honchos Colin ‘Piggy’ Joyce and Lee Amos and a senior figure in the young gooch crew.

Two years earlier was involved in a infamous Gang Brawl at Manchester Royal InfirmaryWhen young hoods from gooch gang and the Long lasting The crew watched the corridors on the mountain bikes, and fired weapons on each other and used the hospital strollers as a beating rams, while the interloping war that terrorized the city spilled into the “sanctuary” of the largest hospital. .

Following the “war on the sections”, Johnson had been relocated from The part of the muscle At a Preston housing estate and placed under supervision by the serious and organized team of Lancashire’s organized crime.

A few hours before shooting the fun day, he had returned from a family vacation to Turkey.

But almost immediately he began to plot his next move. The police listened as he met other band members before driving with a BMW to Moss Side.

Johnson was heard by giving orders and telling others to hide his faces with Balaclavas. He was registered praising about the “day day” – Argou for a day shooting – and said two schoolchildren about 14 years old that, when they were older, he would show them how the boys do hot ”.

But as the photos were changed by the two targets escaped. While Goach Gach showed to try to hunt their rivals, the detectives listened as Johnson praised: “The man can’t war with me. I hung them. I will not fall.”

Following the shooting, which came to two and a half months after Bloodbeth at Salford’s Brass Handles PubThe Lancs police gathered the resources with their colleagues from GMP. Johnson was arrested next year and convicted after witnesses were allowed to give anonymous evidence using vocal distortion equipment.

In 2008 he stayed in the dock of the Manchester Crown Square, waiting to be convicted. “The explosion of violence sent to people who ran into terror and a pregnant woman collapsed by fear and had to be taken to the hospital,” prosecutor Philip Curran said.

Johnson, then from Annis Street, Preston, and an unnamed accomplice were condemned to hold a weapon with the intention of endangering life. He was given an indefinite prison sentence and told him that he would be released only when he is sure to do so.

“The crime was committed on a background of the band War in Moss Side, near the center of this big city,” said Judge Anthony Gee, while sent him down. “The rivalry of the gangland or the feud between the gangs involving the use of firearms cannot be and will not be tolerated by any civilized society, and the courts must do everything possible to discourage such activity. “The good, decent inhabitants who respect the Moss Side law and any other area inside the city, deserves to be protected by you and others like you, who put loyalty to the gang and the weapon above any look for law and safety and well -being of participants. innocent.

Speaking after the robbers were sent to Det Insp Chris Packer, from the GMP armed crime unit, he told the press: “Bringing a weapon during a crowded Community event shows a blatant disorder for other people and their lives. Johnson and his accomplices could not care less about their community and the muscle side is a safer place with these robbers stuck where belong to.