Life in jail for crazed cop-killer who was a ‘scourge on society’

Cold-blooded killer Dale Cregan was told yesterday he will die in prison for the murders of two unarmed policewomen and a father and son.
Dale Cregan, not long after the murders of Pc Fiona Bone and Pc Nicola Hughes, handing himself in at Hyde police station, Manchester.Dale Cregan, not long after the murders of Pc Fiona Bone and Pc Nicola Hughes, handing himself in at Hyde police station, Manchester.
Dale Cregan, not long after the murders of Pc Fiona Bone and Pc Nicola Hughes, handing himself in at Hyde police station, Manchester.

Cregan, 30, described by Greater Manchester Chief Constable Sir Peter Fahy as a “scourge on our society”, was given a whole life sentence at Preston Crown Court by Mr Justice Holroyde QC at the end of a 19-week trial which laid bare the sheer brutality of Manchester’s underworld.

Five other men were also handed lengthy jail sentences for their roles in the brutal crimes last year.

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During his rampage, Cregan had spent 12 days holed up in a Leeds city centre apartment with two of his fellow accused, where he watched the TV news about his crimes, revelling in his notoriety and mocking the victims.

Dale Cregan, not long after the murders of Pc Fiona Bone and Pc Nicola Hughes, handing himself in at Hyde police station, Manchester.Dale Cregan, not long after the murders of Pc Fiona Bone and Pc Nicola Hughes, handing himself in at Hyde police station, Manchester.
Dale Cregan, not long after the murders of Pc Fiona Bone and Pc Nicola Hughes, handing himself in at Hyde police station, Manchester.

Sentencing Cregan, Mr Justice Holroyde said he had “acted with pre-meditated savagery” in the “quite appalling” murders. “You, Cregan, drew those two officers into a calculated trap for the sole purpose of murdering them in cold blood,” he said.

Before sentence was passed, 18 prison officers had swamped the dock, surrounding Cregan and his five co-defendants. As the judge recounted how Cregan stood over the prone and paralysed body of one of his victims, PC Nicola Hughes, and shot her in the head, Natalie Hughes, the victim’s stepmother, began weeping, and the officer’s father hugged her.

After being told he would never be released from jail, Cregan was led away, head down, but made no reaction.

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Cregan’s co-accused Anthony Wilkinson was sentenced to life in jail and will serve a minimum of 35 years for the murder of Mark Short, while Luke Livesey, Damien Gorman and Jarmaine Anton Ward each received life sentences with minimum terms of 33 years for their roles in the killings of Mark and his father David Short.

Mohammed Imran Ali, from the Chadderton area, was sentenced to seven years for assisting an offender in connection with the death of David Short.

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