Drugs lord’s letters from cop-killer Cregan
A DRUGS boss had prison letters from one-eyed cop killer Dale Cregan in a bedside drawer when police raided his home.
Leon Atkinson, 44, stood trial accused of murder nearly ten years ago alongside his pal Cregan but was acquitted.
Now, though, he has been jailed for 15 years for his role in an international cocaine gang which also laundered more than £9m in dirty money.
During a search of his home in Atherton, officers found ‘prison letters addressed to Aki from Dale Cregan,’ Manchester Crown Court heard.
The letters were found in a bedside table in a chest of drawers in the property’s master bedroom.
Cregan will die behind bars after being handed a whole life term for four murders, including police officers Pc Nicola Hughes, 23, and Pc Fiona Bone, 32.
Cregan also murdered 23-year-old amateur boxer Mark Short at The Cotton Tree pub in Droylsden in May 2012, before murdering his victim’s father, 46-year-old David Short, in a gun-and grenade attack at his home in Clayton three months later. Prosecutors at Cregan’s trial alleged that he was acting on orders from Atkinson to exact revenge against the Short family, after one of them had ‘disrespected’ his mother. Atkinson denied any involvement and told jurors that Cregan, a gym partner with whom he had been ‘good friends,’ may have ‘done it off his own back.’ Atkinson was cleared of murdering Mark Short and three associated counts of attempted murder. Pcs Hughes and Bone were murdered by Cregan in September 2012 while he remained on the run. They were lured to a house in Mottram, Tameside, to bogus reports of a burglary. Cregan ambushed the unarmed officers and opened fire, before using his ‘calling card’ of throwing a hand grenade at his victims. He later handed himself in to police.
The trial in 2013 heard that a feud between the Shorts and the Atkinsons preceded Cregan’s killing spree. Prosecutors alleged that Atkinson wanted to take revenge after Raymond Young, an extended
member of the Short family, slapped Leon Atkinson’s mother.
Atkinson, of Brindley Close, Atherton, denied any involvement and was acquitted.
Now behind bars, Atkinson is now beginning a 15-year sentence, though, after being unmasked as a ‘regional supplier’ for a huge cocaine gang peddling drugs imported to the UK.
Prosecutor Richard Wright QC said Atkinson was ‘part of a network of organised criminals and crime groups involved in the supply of substantial quantities of class A controlled drugs, in particular cocaine.’
Atkinson has now been sentenced to 15 years in jail after pleading guilty to two counts of conspiracy to supply class A drugs and conspiracy to transfer criminal property.
The letters were found in a bedside table in the master bedroom