The story of how a crime family's empire crashed down months after a top gangster died in a bike crash has been revealed.
In 2003, Damien Noonan 's motorbike death marked the beginning of the end for his family's empire.
Hundreds of people lined the streets of Salford, as an 18-piece bagpipe band led the horse-drawn funeral procession down the street, report Manchester Evening News.
Despite rising to become a mafia don, Damien - alongside his brothers Dessie and Dominic - came from a relatively poor,Irish, working class upbringing.
However, the trio built up quite a reputation, and became one of Manchester 's most infamous crime bosses - the ' gangster of gangsters', as his friend former bare-knuckle boxer and TV personality, Paddy Doherty later described him.
The Noonan - who grew up in a family of 14 siblings whose first names all began with the letter D - spent years building their empire.
After first making their mark in 1980s gangland Manchester by specialising in armed robbery, they soon realised drugs were a much more profitable way to make their fortune.
Damien ended up building links with other gangs in Manchester, Salford and further afield, and was said to have been an associate of Salford's 'Mr Big' Paul Massey.
Thanks to his connections, the brothers ended up controlling much of the city's drug supply, ecstasy - making 'Madchester' one of the clubbing capitals of the world.
At the height of their enterprise, the Noonans were said to be raking in a whopping £50,000 a night from the Hacienda club alone.
But other gangs wanted an in and were prepared to do whatever it took to get what they wanted - so defending their turf came at a cost.
However, the empire the brothers had spent years ruthlessly and violently building eventually come crashing down in the space of just 18 months.
First Damien was killed in a motorbike accident, followed by the murder of Dessie, stabbed to death by a crack dealer in Chorlton.
The Noonans became 'synonymous with violence', former GMP officer, Martin Harding once said, adding: "They displayed very little fear.
"They had no fear of the authorities, no fear of prison. They were not scared to use violence."
At one point the brothers were said to be suspected of being involved in 25 murders - a figure mocked by Dessie in the McIntyre documentary.
And in 1991 Damien and Dessie were put on trial along side three other men for the murder of 'White Tony' Johnson, a leader of rival gang the Cheetham Hillbillies, who was shot dead in the car park of a Cheetham Hill pub.
But a jury failed to reach verdicts and a retrial was ordered which saw Dessie tried again alongside two other people. This time one defendant was cleared and the jury failed to reach a verdict on Desmond Noonan and another defendant.
Judge Rhys Davies entered not guilty verdicts on their behalf as it was the second time the jury had failed to reach a decision and 'justice would not be served' by a third trial.
In 1999 Damien himself would become a victim of gun crime, shot while working the door of city centre venue the Phoenix Club.
Then on July 26, 2003, Damien, a 37-year-old father of three, fell from a motorbike while on holiday in the Dominican Republic.
He was airlifted to the Jackson Memorial hospital in Miami, but he died four days later from what doctors described as 'blunt trauma'. His funeral took place almost a fortnight later at All Souls RC Church in Liverpool Street, Weaste.
The Requiem Mass was broadcast on a PA system outside to scores of mourners who were unable to get into the church. He was buried at St Joseph's Cemetery in Moston.
On his imposing black and gold headstone the family inscribed: "Our family chain is broken/Nothing seems the same."
With Damien gone it was the beginning of the end for the Noonan dynasty.
In March 2005, Dessie was stabbed to death by drug dealer ' Yardie Derek' McDuffus at a house on Chorlton's Merseybank estate, a couple of miles from the Whalley Range street where the brothers grew up.
His death, aged just 45, came just days before a Channel 5 documentary about the brothers was shown.
That left Dominic at the helm of the family.
But he would later be jailed for 11 years after being found guilty of 13 historical sex offences against four young boys aged as young as 10, left. The kingdom the Noonan's had savagely reigned over was gone.
Speaking about the brother's long-lasting dynasty, Paddy Doherty said: "The minute (Damien) died they weren't half as powerful as they thought they were.
"He was the gangster of gangsters in Greater Manchester."
