Police killer told he will die behind bars

Cold-blooded killer Dale Cregan was told he will die in prison for the murders of two unarmed policewomen and a father and son.

Cregan, 30, described by Greater Manchester Chief Constable Peter Fahy as a “scourge on our society”, was given a whole life sentence yesterday by Mr Justice Holroyde at Preston Crown Court.

One-eyed Cregan was already on the run for the murders of David Short, 46, and son Mark, 23, when he killed policewomen Nicola Hughes, 23, and Fiona Bone, 32, in a horrifying gun and grenade attack.

Sentencing Cregan, Mr Justice Holroyde said he had “acted with pre-meditated savagery” in the “quite appalling” murders.

“You, Cregan, drew those two officers into a calculated trap for the sole purpose of murdering them in cold blood,” he said.

Cregan was cleared of a charge of attempted murder involving a grenade attack on Sharon Hark, which he denied.

But during his trial he had admitted the four murders and the attempted murders of three others, along with causing an explosion with a hand grenade.

Nine other defendants faced trial alongside him on various charges linked to the deaths of the Shorts. Four of them were cleared.

Cregan went on the run days before he killed David Short last August after he gunned down his son, Mark, in a pub in Droylsden, Greater Manchester, three months earlier.

The manhunt reached a ghastly conclusion on Sept 18 when he lured the constables with a bogus 999 call to a house in Abbey Gardens in Hattersley.

His last comment to the call handler as he was told officers were on the way was: “I’ll be waiting.”

He opened the front door as they walked up the front garden path and shot them in the chest with a Glock handgun.

PC Hughes was hit eight times, including three strikes to the head as she lay on the ground. PC Bone was hit up to eight times after she managed to draw and fire her taser at Cregan, who fired 32 bullets in total in barely half a minute.

He then left his “calling card” of a military grenade, which he threw on the path where the officers lay.

The killer then dropped his gun and drove to Hyde police station where he calmly walked up to the counter clerk and said: “I’m wanted by the police and I’ve just done two coppers.”

He put his arms out to be handcuffed and said he was there to hand himself in.

The spiral of violence began on May 25 last year when a balaclava-clad Cregan stepped into the Cotton Tree pub in Droylsden and shot Mark Short, who died in the arms of his father.

On Aug 10, Cregan targeted Mr Short senior outside his home in Clayton as he unloaded furniture from his car. He chased him through his house and shot him numerous times before throwing a grenade at him with “devastating consequences”, the first recorded time one had been used in the UK in this way.

At 1.10pm, on the 77th day of the trial and on the sixth day of deliberations, the jury came back into court with unanimous verdicts on all counts.

The first lot of verdicts were delivered in silence in the packed courtroom as ‘not guilty’ was recorded on some counts.

As Cregan was cleared of the remaining count he faced, there was a shout of “Yeah!” from the back of the dock and Cregan turned around with a smile.

He smiled and shook hands with the other defendants after the verdicts. His co-accused Anthony Wilkinson looked directly at the public gallery where the victims’ families were seated, with a broad smile on his face.

The Crown had alleged last summer’s violence was sparked by a “long- standing feud” between two rival Manchester families — the Shorts and the Atkinsons.

The Cotton Tree shooting was said to have been ordered by Atkinson and carried out by Cregan with the help of others.