Smiling, having a few beers in the garden during the first lockdown. The man in the red Armani T-shirt is Leon Atkinson, a target criminal for GMP and close friend of cop killer Dale Cregan.
Police believe Atkinson has been the head of a Tameside organised crime group for a decade. In 2013, on trial alongside Cregan, he was cleared of murdering Mark Short and attempting to murder three others in Droylsden's Cotton Tree pub. Cregan would later admit to killing Mark Short, 23, his father, David, 46, and police constables Fiona Bone, 32, and Nicola Hughes, 23, who he lured to a house in Hattersley.
The Crown had alleged Atkinson had recruited Cregan to commit the murder of Mark Short after his mother had been slapped 12 days earlier by a member of the Short family. But a jury cleared him off all charges.
