A member of the racist 'Mudmen' gang who stabbed a man to death is back in prison after being identified as a key man in a multi-million pound drug trafficking conspiracy.
Convicted killer Daniel Masher, 33, fell foul of the EncroChat-encrypted phone hack which exposed an organised crime group trafficking multi-kilos of cocaine, crack and heroin between Liverpool and Cardiff. As reported by the Echo, Masher is the only dealer at the 'Liverpool end' of the conspiracy to be caught so far.
The thug was found to have counted and packaged £864,000 in cash and being involved in moving 90kg of drugs. The gang was found to have been paying former Liverpool FC prospect Layton Maxwell, 43, to use his Cardiff home as a stash-house at the Welsh end of the conspiracy.
Police from the South Wales Regional Organised Crime Unit, known as Tarian, found drugs worth £6m and £2.5m in dirty cash inside the property. A judge at Cardiff Crown Court said the "leading lights" of the conspiracy responsible for importing it into the UK had not yet been brought to justice, although he blasted the 14 defendants jailed last week as playing a "significant role".
Masher, originally from Garston, was locked up for 18 years, a significantly higher sentence than he received for plunging a knife into the abdomen of Marlon Moran on May 13, 2007.
Masher and his associates, a loose collective of thugs known as 'The Mudmen ', had been involved in a bitter and long-running feud with Mr Moran which involved regular racist abuse. Mr Moran, 21, had confronted the then 18-year-old Masher and his cronies Callum Kennedy, Jordan Crawford and a 16-year-old boy outside Masher's home in Byron Close, Garston.
Liverpool Crown Court heard during a trial that Mr Moran had been outside his nearby home in Shelley Grove with his girlfriend, sister, her boyfriend and his cousin. It was alleged that the defendants arrived on the scene armed with weapons, including knives, shouting racist abuse and threatening him, claimed Andrew Menary, QC, prosecuting.
Marlon, who had been given a hockey stick to defend himself, began to walk towards them and they backed off and went into Masher's home. Kennedy - nicknamed 'The Pit' - was allegedly holding a meat cleaver while Crawford, of Convent Close, Grassendale, allegedly had a knife.
Masher threw a metal bar towards Mr Moran and shouted: "Come on, you're getting it, you black b*****d, you are getting killed today." He then plunged a knife more than 10 inches into Mr Moran's abdomen, severing major blood vessels.
However Masher claimed in court that he had been defending himself and was forced to lash out with a kitchen knife otherwise "I would have had my head smashed in". Masher was cleared of murder by a jury but convicted of manslaughter. The other three defendants were cleared of murder and allowed to walk free.
According to reports from the time, Masher smirked in the dock as he was handed an indefinite sentence for public protection with a minimum of three-and-a-half years in prison while a judge branded him "both racist and dangerous".
Afterwards, the heartbroken Moran family endured months of horrific taunts and sickening gestures from the Mudmen gang. Banana skins were left on their window sills, racist graffiti daubed on their walls and abuse shouted at them in the street.
Mr Moran's mum said: "Marlon died because he stood up when his family were coming under attack. He loved us all and would do anything for us. We all miss him every day."
In October 2008, 10 racist yobs, aged 16 to 20, were each hit with two-year anti-social behaviour orders (ABOS) for terrorising the mourning family. The group included Masher's younger brother, then 17-year-old Carl Masher, as well as Kennedy and Crawford.
Another face in that gallery of shame was then 18-year-old Luke Kendrick who eight years later was jailed for life over the murder of Vinny Waddington. Kendrick, then 26, was in his Audi car with two other men when it rammed a motorbike on which Mr Waddington, 18, was riding pillion.
Moments after the bike hit the ground in Banks Lane, Garston, one of the men in the Audi aimed a shotgun out of the passenger side window and fired once hitting Mr Waddington in the chest and causing fatal injuries.
During Kendrick's trial it was suggested the shooting was linked to lingering animosity over the death of Mr Moran, with Daniel Masher being described as a "close friend" of Kendrick. Although he denied any link in court, a clip from a police body-camera was shown to the jury, captured as Kendrick was arrested at the home of his auntie.
In the chilling footage, Kendrick can be heard gloating over Mr Waddington's death and admitting he had rammed the bike. He then was heard to say: "My mate Masher killed Marlon Moran. We had major trouble with the family. It was all over Masher."
Another man, then 24-year-old Ryan Bate, was also convicted of Mr Waddington's murder while the third man was believed to have fled the country. Callum Kennedy also found himself dragged before the courts in 2018 for a horrific knife attack on his partner.
Liverpool Crown Court heard he had armed himself with a steak-knife to slash his then girlfriend's face after warning her "not to talk to other men". He was jailed for five years and five months in June 2018 for that attack.
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