IN COLD BLOOD
Shocking moment dad is gunned down in broad daylight as little girls play in princess dresses
HORRIFYING CCTV footage captured the moment two little girls in princess dresses ran down a street after a dad was gunned down in broad daylight.
The youngsters had been playing on Birch Street, in Ashton-under-Lyne, Manchester, when Luke Graham was shot at point blank range.
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Both girls had been playing happily together in June 2018 before witnessing the horrific gangland shooting.
Dad-of-two Graham, 31, was ambushed and killed by three men in balaclavas as part of an ongoing drugs turf war.
He was shot in the shoulder by the gunman, and died instantly while sat in the passenger seat of a van.
Graham, known as ‘Tank’, and Anton Verigotta had been lured to the address believing that they were carrying out a drug deal at around 4.50pm.
But after approaching the address the gunman chased the pair back to their vehicle, fatally wounding graham and shooting Verigotta in the leg.
Five men have been jailed over his murder, but Callum Halpin, 27, is still wanted in connection with Grahams murder and the attempted murder of Verigotta after fleeing the UK.
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The NCA yesterday named Halpin as one of the UK’s 12 most wanted, for his part in the gangland slaying.
Halpin has links to both Spain and Turkey according to police, but his last known UK address was in Openshaw, Manchester.
The turf war was sparked after Graham began undercutting the prices of more established gangs after being released from prison.
Detective Chief Inspector Liz Hopkinson that Graham and his associate had “stepped on the toes” of an organised crime group.
"They were not an organised crime group - really they were an unknown quantity,” she said.
“The first we knew about it was when the murder occurred."
Hours after the killing Greater Manchester Police issues a wanted appeal for Wade Cox, and he was jailed for 36 years for his part in the murder.
Jack West, Connor Cornforth, and Ben Dodd were convicted of assisting an offender in relation to the murder.
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West was jailed for 42 months, Cornforth received 37 months, and Dodd was sentenced to 30 months.
Jordan Atkinson was found guilty of encouraging or assisting an indictable offence and was jailed for eight years.
The CCTV footage of the incident was shown in the BBC documentary The Detectives: Fighting Organised Crime.
It shows Verigotta leaving the van while Graham waits for his return, and approaching a property on the street.
A gunman wearing all black, with his face covered by a balaclava, comes out of the address and shoots inside the vehicle.
The gunman then crosses the street as he fires at Verigotta, before returning to the van and firing a shot into the driver’s side.
He then goes back round the passenger side, by which time Luke Graham can be seen hanging out of the vehicle - fatally wounded.
Three men dressed all in black can then be seen getting into an Audi A4 before speeding off.
DCI Hopkinson says the gunman fired at least five shots, grazing Anton Verigotta's leg and killing Luke Graham almost instantly.
They suspect that up to 10 members of an organised crime group worked together to mask the movements of the shooters, and believe that Halpin was one of those involved.
DCI Hopkinson previously described the murder as one of the few times gang violence “creeps over” into the civilian life.
She said: "Very, very rarely does this kind of thing happen like this. So much organised crime occurs in the shadows away from most civilian life.
"They don't want to crossover into our lives, and certainly don't want to crossover into mine, because that gets attention.
"2018 was a very hot summer. There were little girls running around playing in their princess dresses.
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"It's just absolutely awful that there were children playing in the street while this happened.
"It was just one of those incidents which did creep over into that civilian side.”
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