Dale Cregan: Man With Dangerous Reputation

Dale Cregan is a controlling killer who used fear and intimidation to ensure he remained one step ahead of police, despite being one of the most wanted men in Britain.

He ended the chase on his own terms but before handing himself in to police he committed one final, brutal act of defiance.

The carefully planned assassination of Pc Nicola Hughes and Pc Fiona Bone sparked revulsion and an outpouring of grief for the loss of two young lives.

However, calculating Cregan knew that killing police officers would make him a cult hero in the criminal underworld.

Even as tributes were pouring in for the two young officers' web pages were already being set up celebrating Cregan.

One Facebook page entitled "Dale Cregan Legend" described the murderer as "the greatest legend since Raoul Moat".

Another page, "Sir Dale Cregan Is A Hero and a Legend", appeared to call for the killer to be knighted. One internet user commented "So a pair of coppers got killed who gives a ****?"

Cregan had fostered his image as a hardman. He used to boast to friends that he lost his left eye after being hit with a knuckle duster during a fight with police in Thailand.

When he killed the police officers he was on the run after murdering a father and son from a rival area. Twenty-three-year-old Mark Short was shot dead.

His father, David Short, was killed in gun and grenade attacks described by Greater Manchester Police as "unprecedented in their level of severity".

Criminal psychologist David Holmes said: "Cregan spent a lot of time establishing himself in a feud and armed himself with an arsenal of weapons which is what enabled him to establish himself among such rough competition."

Mr Holmes believes Cregan murdered the police officers to ensure he would have an elevated position in the prisoner hierarchy when he was eventually caught for the gangland murders.

He told Sky News "a combination of personality and deprivation mean Cregan's entire life will have been one of competition and survival and violence will have been a tool he felt he could use.

"Within that you have an 'I'm bigger than you' situation that goes on and never stops. Knowing he was going to prison he decided to take down police officers so he could walk into prison with a reputation of 'don't mess with me'."

Cregan was born in Tameside, Greater Manchester, to parents Paul and Anita Cregan. Before the killings he had been living with his mother and sister on a quiet residential street in Droylsden.

Neighbours are polite but weary - and wary - of journalists.

Asked if she knew Dale Cregan one young woman simply replied "of course I did. But I'm not saying anything".

That is the wall of silence that faced police as they tried to hunt Cregan down in the weeks before he murdered the police officers.

Not even the promise of a £50,000 reward could tempt those loyal to - and frightened of - a man with a dangerous reputation to hand him over to police.

Cregan, 29, declined to give evidence at his trial. Although he initially denied the murders of the police officers he changed his plea to guilty on the fourth day of his trial.

He continued to deny the murders of David and Mark Short until the closing stages of the trial, despite earlier confessing to fellow inmates at HMP Manchester leading his guilt to be described in court as "the worst kept secret in Strangeways".