‘These estates are a line of evil... as one gunned down, takes his place’ PART 2: MANCHESTER

BRITISH cities are as lawless as the most dangerous parts of Brazil, Mexico and the U.S., the United Nations drugs chief said last week.

Professor Hamid Ghodse claims Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester are like the worst places on earth.

The president of the International Narcotics Control Board, he reckons cops have lost control to drugs gangs.

Iranian-born Prof Ghodse said the three cities were experiencing “a vicious cycle of social exclusion, drugs problems and fractured communities”.

He added: “In many societies around the world, whether developed or developing, there are communities which become no-go areas.

“Drug traffickers, organised crime, drug users, they take over. They will get the sort of governance of those areas.” But is the Professor right? In the second part of an EXCLUSIVE three-part probe into Gangland Britain, we look at MANCHESTER to find the truth...

and drug crime are nothing new in Manchester – the city has been in the grip of brutal criminals for 30 years, costing 70 victims their lives.

And despite repeated attempts at a clean up, locals say every jailed gangster is replaced by another vicious hoodlum willing to do anything to maintain power.

Their actions have made districts like Moss Side world famous for a decades-long gang war which has made mafia-style executions and contract killings a fact of life.

Just last week the local newspaper, the Manchester Evening News, was reporting on the “bitter turf wars involving at least SIX armed gangs” said to be behind a spate of shootings across the city.

And while things appear to be slowly improving, the history of gangland Manchester reads like a bloodthirsty mob epic on a par with mafia movies Goodfellas and The Godfather.

Enemy

Most notorious of all are the Gooch Close Gang in the Moss Side area of the city and the Doddington Gang in neighbouring Longsight.

The gangs were formed in the aftermath of the riots in 1981 and ever since have been battling each other for supremacy and control of the lucrative cocaine and heroin trade in the city – worth millions.

Skirmishes between the two led to the area being dubbed the British Bronx. Much of the territory has been no-go for years, with borders patrolled by members on mountain bikes to keep watch for enemy encroachment.

Both gangs have a strict hierarchy, from leaders down to the lowliest teenagers dealing small amounts of crack on their BMX bikes.

But their never-ending feud has left ordinary members of the public