It has now been 13 years since Manchester’s own ‘Al Capone’ was jailed for life for his involvement in the Gooch Gang’s ‘Wild West’ crime spree.
That means Colin Joyce, portrayed as the south Manchester gang’s ‘general’ during the trial in April 2009, is one-third of the way through his life-term prison sentence of 39 years. A jury at Liverpool Crown Court found Joyce, then 29, and 10 other henchmen guilty of 26 out of 27 offences.
They included the murder of Ucal Chin, 24, and then Tyrone Gilbert, 23, who was shot at Ucal’s wake in Longsight. Those murders were either motivated by ‘mindless gang warfare with a territorial cause’ or were to ‘eliminate their opposition in the drugs trade’, Mr Justice Langstaff concluded in his sentencing hearing .
