'Murder plot switched to police'

Feb 8 2013

A one-eyed man switched his sights from an "old rival" to the police when he executed a "detailed plan" to lure officers to their deaths in a gun and grenade attack, a court has heard.

Dale Cregan, 29, is accused of murdering Pcs Fiona Bone and Nicola Hughes after also killing his rivals, father and son David and Mark Short.

Preston Crown Court has heard that Cregan went on the run after organising the killings following a "simmering feud" between two rival Manchester families.

Nicholas Clarke QC, opening the case for the prosecution, said: "By the 17th of September Dale Cregan was again carefully laying a detailed plan to murder. His target this time however was not an old rival, or anybody that he had a particular grievance with, but the police.

"On the 18th of September the lengthy manhunt which had been ongoing since the unsuccessful attempt to arrest Dale Cregan on the 7th of August reached its bloody conclusion and resulted in the deaths of those two young police officers."

Pc Hughes's mother, Susan, and father, Bryn, sat in front of the parents of her murdered colleague, Paul and June Bone, and Pc Bone's partner, Clare Curran, in the public gallery, across the packed courtroom from where Cregan sat in the dock.

The court was told that Cregan had gone to the home of his barber, Alan Whitwell, in Abbey Gardens in Mottram, Hyde. Mr Whitwell was indoors with his partner, Lisa McIntosh, and her seven-year-old daughter when Cregan called late at night.

Mr Clarke said: "He was well aware that Cregan was wanted by the police and he did not want him in the house. He was terrified for his family's safety.

"However Cregan did not give him the option. Cregan had decided that he would impose himself on the family for the evening and he simply invited himself in. He ordered Whitwell to do as he said."

The trial continues.