276°
Posted 20 hours ago

Deep Cover: How I took down Britain’s most dangerous gangsters

£9.9£99Clearance
ZTS2023's avatar
Shared by
ZTS2023
Joined in 2023
82
63

About this deal

Raised on the streets of a 'tough Manchester council estate' Shay Doyle could easily have turned to a life of crime. Instead, he ended up playing the part of a gangster and helped bring down some of Manchester's most feared underworld figures. I remember watching it all unfold and thinking it was like Northern Ireland in the bad old days," writes Doyle. "There was an air of excruciating tension unlike anything I'd ever witnessed in the police before." This is a fantastic read, I read it from start to finish in 5 hours.....I hadn't intended to but it was that gripping.

Shay grew up on a tough Manchester council estate where drugs and gangs were rife. A life of crime would have been an easy path to take. So it went against everything that was expected of him when he joined the police.

Paul Massey was known as Salford's 'Mr Big' (Image: Manchester Evening News) Read More Related Articles It wouldn't be long before Shay's prodigious talent caught the attention of the top. Then came the call that changed his an offer to join the secret Level 1 undercover unit known as Omega. And it was easy to see why they wanted him; he wouldn't have to stray too far from what he already knew. He had all the attributes of a professional criminal - the athletic physique of a cage fighter, the talk, the walk. Streetwise and fearless, he'd be a match for the most hardened villain. He was given a new identity, his DNA and fingerprints were removed from the national database, and so began the life of Mikey O'Brien. Notching up arrests didn't do anything for me. I had a turbulent upbringing, but I developed integrity and was always taught right from wrong, and to look after the weak and vulnerable.

Based on intelligence he’d gathered, police arrested four gangland figures and found a fully loaded MAC-10-style machine gun and a couple of kilos of skunk in a car. But pretending to be a gangster played havoc with Doyle's home life. In 2009 the convictions of Colin Joyce and Lee Amos marked a turning point in the fight against gun violence in inner south Manchester There seems to be a drive for academics to join the police, it’s taking people out like me who’ve got abilities is a mistake. It’s a class thing, not every young person will have access to higher education. And the plan worked. Over the course of a year Doyle became known around Moss Side and Hulme and became a regular drinker in the area.

His DNA and fingerprints were erased from the national database, and he was assigned a new passport, birth certificate, credit cards, and driving licence.

All the while, Doyle was working out doggedly and training himself to become an expert on criminal commodities, learning the going rate for everything from a kilo of cocaine to a MAC-10 machine gun. Doyle began his career in Greater Manchester Police on the beat in Tameside. But his talents and street smarts were noticed by his superiors from the off.

Doyle is not his real name. He was given a new identity when he was medically discharged from the police in 2020 suffering from PTSD. Now in his forties, he feels he has paid a heavy price for his career. "I sacrificed my mental health for it," he says. I just don't speak like that. All I had to do was put to use all the attributes I'd been unconsciously collecting all my life." I learned how to make cutting ­charges to blow a hole in a wall and how to breach the skin of an armoured cash van with a shape charge.

Asda Great Deal

Free UK shipping. 15 day free returns.
Community Updates
*So you can easily identify outgoing links on our site, we've marked them with an "*" symbol. Links on our site are monetised, but this never affects which deals get posted. Find more info in our FAQs and About Us page.
New Comment