Aged 12, Julian Bell fractured his spine in a motorbike accident. It left him paralysed from the waist down and confined to a wheelchair.
Six years later he was awarded £500,000 in compensation. Still reeling from the death of his older brother Orville, who was gunned down at the wheel of his car, aged just 17, by members of the Gooch Gang, the teenage Bell could have used the money to escape the drugs and violence that threatened the tear apart his childhood home of Longsight.
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But, intent on avenging his brother, a criminally ambitious Bell had a different plan in mind. He bought a smart bungalow in Preston and a specially adapted BMW. Then he used the rest of his pay-out to fund his move into crime.
He returned to his old stomping ground and set up the Longsight Crew in Orville's memory. Using his wealth he ruled through a mixture of fear and reward, buying the loyalty and respect of those around him with gems, Rolex watches and bulletproof jackets.
He built up an arsenal of weapons including a Mac 10 and Uzi sub-machine guns. Rivals and anyone else who stepped out of line were ruthlessly punished, earning Bell the nickname the 'Godfather of Death'.
Bell became one of the most feared gangsters in the city. Speaking in the early 2000s one gangland figure told the Observer the Longsight Crew were 'trying to take over everything'.
They added: "They are the youngest and most violent and are trying to make a name for themselves. They will take out anyone who gets in their way."
Soon the Longsight Crew were at war with Pitt Bull Crew, Doddington Gang and Gooch Close Gang as they fought a bloody battle for control of the city's multi-million-pound drug trade. Between 1999 and 2004 at least 26 killings were linked to the four gangs.
Langport Avenue, the street where Bell grew up, was the scene of a number of shootings. In September 2000, Devon Orlando Bell, 22, was shot by masked gunmen.
Three years earlier, 19-year-old Zeus King, son of the late Sweet Sensation frontman Marcel King, had been shot dead there. But in February 2000, Bell was jailed for two-and-a-half years after threatening to kill a witness who was due to testify in a gangland assault trial.
On his release he employed a 'chief minder' who was later jailed for shooting dead a man outside a Greater Manchester nightclub in 2002. The investigation that followed was key to bringing down Bell's estimated £1m drugs empire.
The killer's movements led police to Bell's Preston bungalow, where they seized guns, ammunition, a drug-cutting agent and a list of drug customers. A raid on another property in Salford found a drugs press capable of producing kilo-sized blocks of heroin or cocaine for wholesale distribution.
In March 2004 Bell was jailed for 20 years at Manchester Crown Court for conspiracy to supply heroin and conspiracy to possess firearms. But the story doesn't end there.
Bell served his time and on his release moved to Dover Road in Southport. Homes on the upmarket street, close to the famous Royal Birkdale Golf Club, can fetch up to £500,000.
From there, Bell began plotting his return to the drugs trade. But this time, instead of Manchester, he set his sights on the south-west towns of Cheltenham and Gloucester.
Using a contact with local crime boss Kieran Robinson, who he knew through a long-term association with his mother, Bell set up a cross-country supply line, becoming a wholesale supplier of heroin and crack which was ferried from Liverpool and Bradford to dealers in Gloucestershire.
Robinson, then 20, was behind bars at HMP Bristol for possession of a sawn-off shotgun, but was still able to direct operations using ten contraband mobile phones which had been smuggled into the prison and topped up with pay-as-you-go vouchers bought by friends and family.
Under the guise of running a jewellery business it's thought Bell moved at least £500,000 of drugs into the two towns, ferried in taxis and trains from Manchester via Birmingham in more than 20 trips over the course of 12 months. Handovers took place in McDonalds and on Cromwell Street in Gloucester - once home to serial killers Fred and Rose West.
All time Bell, Robinson and his family were under surveillance as part of of a wide-ranging investigation being led by Gloucestershire Constabulary, alongside Merseyside Police, West Yorkshire Police, British Transport Police and the Prison Service. And when police decided to pounce justice was sure and swift.
In 2018 a total of 14 people were jailed for various drug trafficking and money laundering offences.
When police searched Bell's Southport home they seized items of jewellery worth more £40,000. Robinson was jailed for ten-and-a-half- years for his role in the conspiracy.
Bell, then aged 40, was was given the same sentence after pleading guilty to supplying crack cocaine and heroin. It means that by the time he's eligible for parole, he'll have spent most of his adult life behind bars.
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