‘Ageing behind bars’ read the giant billboard at the side of the Princess Parkway. Below the 3ft high letters, staring out at commuters in the morning rush hour, were photos of Gooch Gang head honcho Colin ‘Piggy’ Joyce and his righthand man Lee ‘Cabbo’ Amos.
Their faces had been digitally altered to depict them as frail, grey-haired pensioners, showing how they might look when finally eligible for parole. For years the ruthless pair had dominated one of the city’s deadliest gangs.
They were two of the men who turned Manchester into ‘Gunchester’. But now, finally, they were behind bars – and police wanted everyone in their former south Manchester heartland to know it.
Known as ‘Piggy’, Joyce grew up on turf run by the Doddington-affiliated Longsight Crew. He even attended the funeral of Orville Bell – the 17-year-old whose memory the LSC was formed in.
But after a senior gangster ordered him to pick a side, he joined their rivals in the Young Gooch Close gang alongside his childhood pal Lee ‘Cabbo’ Amos. Charismatic, manipulative and utterly ruthless, the pair quickly rose from teenage tearaways to feared gangland enforcers.
Taxing – stealing drugs and money – from other villains became their speciality. For the detectives investigating gun crime in south Manchester, their names kept cropping up time and time again in murder inquiries.
Described by one senior cop as ‘psychopaths who shoot for fun’, they were suspected of gunning down Doddington gang leader Kevin Lewis, interviewed over the fatal shooting of 18-year-old Julian Wagaba, thought to have been involved in the killing of Zeus King and seen in the vicinity after 35-year Roger Ormsby was found in a burning BMW with a bullet in the back of head in Whalley Range. No-one has ever been convicted over the four murders.
Until 2001 there was nothing on Joyce’s criminal record that matched his underworld notoriety. But that all changed when armed police, acting on an anonymous tip that a hostage was being held, raided a house on Ruskin Close, Moss Side.
They didn’t find any hostages, but they did stumble across six members of the Gooch gang, including Joyce and Amos, and a stash of weapons including a Skorpion machine gun. Joyce was jailed for nine years, Amos – once described as ‘Manchester’s public enemy number one’ joined him inside.
While they were locked up Cabbo’s brother, former Manchester City starlet Stephen Babatunde Amos was murdered in Ashton under Lyne by Longsight Crew members. Dead set on revenge but unable to do anything, Joyce and Amos bided their time.
When they were finally released on parole there was a dramatic escalation in gun crime. The violence culminated in two deadly drive by shootings.
Young dad Ucal Chin, 23, was shot dead by Joyce in a daylight ambush at Anson Road, Longsight, in June 2007. Joyce pulled up in an Audi and peppered Ucal’s car with 9mm bullets from a converted Russian Baikal self-loading pistol. Ucal was killed because Amos and Joyce believed he was a member of the Longsight Crew.
Weeks later, Joyce and Amos along with three other senior gang members – Aeeron Campbell, then 25, of Withington, Ricardo Williams, then 26, of Moston, and Narada Williams, then 28, of Fallowfield – targeted his wake in a drive-by shooting which claimed the life of Tyrone Gilbert, 24, and injured another man. Terrified mourners dived for cover as the gangsters sprayed the scene on the Anson estate in Longsight, with bullets.
Tyrone died after a bullet from a revolver hit him in the chest. The deaths prompted GMP’s biggest ever organised crime investigation.
Detectives began unpicking the Gooch Gang from Joyce and Amos at the top right down to the street dealers. Armed with evidence from former gang insiders and by piecing together a jigsaw of 80,000 mobile phone calls and texts they were able to link the gangsters to their crimes.
In April 2009, following a six month trial at Liverpool Crown Court, in which six former Gooch gang member testified against them, Joyce and Amos were convicted of murder, attempted murder and possessing firearms. Joyce, then 29, was jailed for life and told he would serve a minimum of 39 years, while Amos was banged up for 35 years.
Speaking after the pair were sent down Det Con Rod Carter said: “Nobody has had a bigger impact on the Manchester gang scene in the last few years than Colin Joyce. Joyce does not have to pull the trigger – his presence is enough to incite others to do so.
“He has no need to still be doing what he’s doing. He does it because he enjoys it, that’s what makes him so dangerous.”
Then later that month came the billboards. “Thank you Greater Manchester. Aiming for gun-free streets and bringing criminals to justice,” they read under the doctored mug shots.
Backed by civil rights group Liberty, who said police should be ‘keeping the peace, not stirring up trouble’, relatives of the jailed pair launched legal action against GMP. They said members of both families who were unconnected to the police investigation had suffered hostility from the public following the campaign.
But then GMP chief constable Peter Fahy was having none of it. “We appreciate that in all we do we have to consider the human rights of all and that a balancing exercise has to be carried out,” he said. “In this case we were concerned with the ultimate human right – the right to life and this far outweighed any privacy rights.
“These were amongst the most dangerous men in Manchester and our communities are safer with them locked up. We used the poster campaign to drive that message home, and to let young people who may be tempted into gang violence understand the real-life consequences of such actions.”
The following year the families dropped the case. Liberty still claimed victory, however, suggesting its threat of legal proceedings prompted the posters to be taken down – a claim GMP denied.
“We are delighted that the posters in question seem to have been permanently removed shortly after our letter threatening proceedings and that this has made any further action unnecessary,” said a Liberty spokesperson. “Our concern was only ever to protect innocent and vulnerable family members of the convicted, not people already safely behind bars.”
William Turner is a seasoned U.K. correspondent with a deep understanding of domestic affairs. With a passion for British politics and culture, he provides insightful analysis and comprehensive coverage of events within the United Kingdom.
