Miscellaneous

Colin Gunn, a ruthless gangster from Nottingham, has been found guilty of using a corrupt detective to get sensitive police intelligence. That verdict's lifted the lid on astonishing revelations about his criminal empire. 

Organised crime network

He was running an organised crime network that's been notorious in Nottingham for years. There was a multi-million pound drugs business. Armed robberies. Protection rackets. He was effectively controlling the Bestwood Estate using his own private army of criminals.

What was so extraordinary was the level of violence. Executions. Kidnappings. Homes burnt down. I've been told how one man was nailed to a fence. One senior police officer's talked about people being tortured and kidnapped for a small, unpaid debt. 

We haven't heard about this before because there's been a legal ban on revealing details during a series of complex court cases. And those involved some of Nottingham's most notorious murders.

The shooting of Marian Bates in Arnold was linked to Colin Gunn. You'll remember that involved a robbery which went wrong. And Gunn was questioned on suspicion of organising that raid. He was never charged but the man convicted of Marian's murder claimed that Colin Gunn supplied the getaway car, and the murder weapon.

And Gunn's already been jailed for life for organising the execution of John and Joan Stirland in their seaside bungalow.

Revenge attack

Now we can reveal for the first time that this execution was revenge for an attack on Gunn's nephew, a teenager called Jamie Gunn. He was in a car which was shot at by Joan Stirland's son. Jamie Gunn's friend Marvyn Bradshaw was killed. Jamie Gunn became very ill but by then, the gunman was in jail. So Colin Gunn went after his mother and stepfather instead.

Correspondent Jeremy Ball

And another murder trial heard that a hitman called John McSalley was also part of Gunn's criminal network. And that he shot two men in Basford after they defied Colin Gunn.

Compared to the Krays

This is about as serious as it gets. I've been told that one former police chief from another force said he'd seen nothing like this since the Krays. And Gunn was a huge priority for the local chief constable, Steve Green.

Virtually untouchable

He wasn't stopped earlier because he'd got to a position where he was virtually untouchable. And he did that in two ways. First by making sure that people were simply too scared to give evidence against him. And second by using corrupt police officers - to give him inside information - which kept him a step ahead of the police. That's what this final trial was all about.

The conviction

Convicting Colin Gunn has been a long process. The police unravelled his criminal network by starting at the bottom and taking out criminals layer by layer until Gunn didn't have any henchmen left to protect him. In all there were more than a 100 arrests.

But they also had to deal with the fact that Colin Gunn was getting inside information. So they ran a series of top secret investigations using what they've called a "Russian doll" technique where sensitive inquiries were hidden behind other investigations. Even most police officers didn't know about them.

They finally got to him as part of the Stirlands' murder investigation.

Damaged reputations

Nottinghamshire's Chief Constable, Steve Green told me that many of the headlines like "Shottingham" and "assassination city" were directly linked to Colin Gunn's crime empire.