Dominic, Desmond and Damien Noonan built their criminal empire through brutal violence, including stabbings, shootings and sexual assault
WITH hollow eyes staring straight into the camera, Dominic Noonan gleefully recalls how he chopped off the head of a dog and placed it on a pub pool table as a warning sign to a rival gang.
"I told them it would be a human head next time," he smirks.
The chilling footage, used in a new Channel 5 documentary, The Real Narcos UK: Manchester Narco Kings - Blood and Fear, shows why he and his two brothers were once Manchester's most-feared criminal family.
Dominic, Desmond and Damien Noonan have been dubbed "the real Narcos" due to their criminal career in drug dealing and brutal crime - including shootings, stabbings and sexual assault - that spanned two decades.
The Real Narcos looks back at the Noonans' dangerous and deadly dynasty, and uncovers a level of violence akin to that of London's notorious Kray twins.
Described by former Great Manchester Police officer Martin Harding as being "synonymous with violence" and as having "no fear" of the police, prison, or even death, at one point the authorities believed the deadly trio were linked to almost every murder in south Manchester.
Here we take a look at how three brothers, born in Manchester's deprived Moss Side, grew up to become one of Britain's most-feared organised crime networks, before each meeting their own grisly end.
The brothers - born into a poor, working-class Manchester family - started out working security at the Hacienda nightclub, where they would became known and respected as the 'tough guys' of the city and began selling drugs to partygoers.
They spent their spare time targeting security vans, they would disguise themselves with tights over their heads and violently push the drivers to the floor before ransacking the van for cash
Bob Dunbar, who worked for Greater Manchester Police at the time, says: "The Noonan brothers were involved with gang culture, drugs and beatings. It became almost legendary that if you went to a club, the brothers would be on the door."
The Hacienda quickly became a cult spot in the city, hosting big names like Madonnat - and was soon a hot bed for drug dealing.
The brothers, who had 11 other siblings, pocketed £50,000 a night and the trio began marketing themselves as one of Manchester's most established criminal families - a title and privilege they would, and did, kill to protect.
One of their most grisly crimes was the beheading of a rival family's dog, in a pub.
The gruesome scene, in which Dominic callously dumps the canine head wrapped in newspaper on a pool table, has become synonymous with the brutal and desensitised nature in which the brothers committed crime.
Jason Coghlan, an associate of Damien, who was pegged as the 'enforcer' of the family, describes how, on one occasion, they turned the nightclub into a bloodbath to protect their profitable territory.
"It was a Bank Holiday. We'd had a record breaking weekend and The Hacienda were doing something special on a Monday night. This firm had made their intentions clear. They were going to come down and do what they wanted," he recalls.
"So we were ready. We were all game and capable of defending our territory."
Jason describes how: "Everyone was getting battered, stabbed, gunshots...everyone was trying to get out at once"
The brothers were also responsible for the fatal shooting of rival criminal Tony Johnson, named 'white Tony' - who they barraged into a car park and shot.
His death was the result of an armed robbery gone wrong, and although the police had finally been handed the brothers on a plate, loyal followers vouched for their whereabouts - leaving the jury unable to convict them without any reasonable doubt.
Tony's death meant that from the 1990s, the brothers were the most feared family in Manchester, and with an insidious network of criminal families, were able to smuggle in even more drugs and arms.
In old footage shown in the documentary, Desmond jokes: "We have more arms than the police. Silly b**stards".
The brothers had always made sure they played an an active role within their community.
Setting up their own makeshift "police station" in a disused building in Moss Side, the brothers offered to 'help' their local community.
In most cases, they didn't require payment, but acted as vigilantes, who required nothing more than a cooked breakfast to sort out any 'bother.'
In the documentary, Dominic is shown sitting with families and their children, who serve him a feast of bacon and eggs as thanks.
Little did they know Dominic had actually been grooming boys as young as 10 and taking them from care homes and pizza restaurants to sexually assault them.
His predatory nature would see the undoing of his reputation and in 2018, his already 11-year sentence for arson, blackmail and perverting the course of justice, would be extended by another 11 years after he was convicted of 13 historical offences of sexual assault against four young boys.
Aged 53, he is now in solitary confinement at HMP Manchester an has to be separated from inmates for his own protection, after most cases that came forward were thought to be from inside the criminal families themselves.
In a strange twist of fate, Desmond became addicted to crack cocaine - the drug he'd been selling for years - and in 2005, he was stabbed by a drug dealer at his house.
It came just eight months after the head of the family, Damien, died in a motorbike accident while on holiday with his family.
Although the brothers all came to their own demise, and their rule of terror diminished, Dominic, Damien and Dessie will forever hold a piece of history in the town they made their own.
The Real Narcos: Manchester's Narco Kings: Blood and Fear is on Channel 5 at 10pm tonight
