People appear before the courts every week for bizarre and shocking crimes, but one case this week surprisingly featured a grenade.
Bodycam images emerged on Tuesday, February 22, as 10 men and women were sentenced at the conclusion of a police operation to bust a drug and gun gang.
One of the 10, J oseph Raymond Grey, 57, of Hopgarth Walk, Manchester, was travelling back from Merseyside with an unknown passenger when officers boxed in his car and smashed the front windows.
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He told police he had a grenade and a gun when they asked him if he had anything "on him he shouldn't have".
Following his arrest, Grey's house in Newton Heath was searched and officers found an encrypted phone, 9kg of cannabis in vacuum sealed bags with a street value of £90,000, and 3.6kg of amphetamine which, if mixed further, would have had a street value of £100,000.
Joseph Grey, 57, pleaded guilty to firearm offences and he later pleaded guilty to drug offences and money laundering and was sentenced at Manchester Crown Court to eight and a half years in September 2021.
The mention of a grenade in the bodycam footage was startling, but this isn't the only case linked to Merseyside to feature the weapon.
Michael Hoy, formerly known as Michael Brown, of Cranford Road in Garston
A murderer released early from a life sentence was given a new life sentence by Liverpool Crown Court on January 21, 2022 for his role as an EncroChat drug dealer who tried to place himself at the heart of the gun and grenade trade.
Michael Brown was one of two doormen who stabbed to death innocent Colin McGinty after mistaking the 21-year-old for a gangland rival.
In 2001 he was sentenced to life with a recommended minimum term of 18 years for his part in the horrific attack, in which his victim was stabbed 15 times on a Bootle street.
Following his release in 2017 after serving just 16 years behind bars, Michael Brown changed his name to Michael Hoy and went into landscaping work in an apparent attempt to stay out of trouble.
However, Liverpool Crown Court heard the now 42-year-old quickly returned to a prominent position within the region’s underworld through his use of a device featuring the encrypted messaging service EncroChat using the codename TimelyBeta.
Hoy, of Cranford Road in Garston, was convicted of two counts of conspiracy to supply cocaine and heroin, a separate count of conspiracy to supply cocaine and conspiracy to supply the Class B drugs cannabis, ketamine and amphetamines.
He was linked to dealing around 8kgs of cocaine, 1kg of heroin and at least 40kgs of Class B drugs.
Damian Nolan, defending Hoy, said his client still maintained his innocence and that he had been wrongly linked to the EncroChat handle TimelyBeta.
This was despite evidence showing that his contacts nicknamed him “life” - an apparent reference to the life term he served - and that, when asked by his associate TaxingCanine what his real name was, the account’s response referred to Hoy’s former name in a message that simply read: “I’m Mike Brown.”
Mr Nolan said that, although his client quickly returned to serious criminality following his release from jail for murder, there did appear to be an initial attempt to stay out of trouble.
He said Hoy started up a landscaping and gardening business that attracted lucrative contracts before hitting trouble when the construction company Carillion collapsed then suffering personal issues.
Mr Nolan said all he could ask for was that the judge imposed as small a sentence as possible, adding: “He is a man who, but for a number of years that can be counted on one hand, has been in prison his entire adult life.”
John Farrell of Minstead Avenue in Kirkby
One Kirkby man was found with five grenades in his loft when police swooped his house during a major investigation, codenamed Operation Bandit.
John Farrell, 40 and of Minstead Avenue in Kirkby, admitted two counts of conspiracy to possess firearms with intent to endanger life and conspiracies to possess a firearm, ammunition, an explosive substance and to supply Class A drugs.
He was jailed for 16 years at Manchester Crown Court on April 14, 2021.
During the investigation into a Kirkby drug gang, police swooped on the Minstead Avenue venue of a meeting, after a separate police team found his associate on the way there with 492g of cocaine with a purity of 87% and a potential street value of between £19,714 and £49,287.
Police arrested Farrell and discovered a locked safe bolted to the wall. The safe was removed, opened and, inside, 7kg of cocaine with a potential street value of between £277,305 and £691,487 was revealed.
A search team then returned to the property, discovering an arsenal of weapons hidden in the loft.
The cache included two revolvers – one of which was loaded – a sawn-off shotgun, ammunition and five grenades. While they were hunting for evidence the Nash brothers fled to Spain.
Kirk Bradley and Tony Downes
Two men who orchestrated a wave of shootings and grenade attacks across Merseyside were busted out of a prison van before fleeing for Amsterdam in 2011.
Kirk Bradley and Tony Downes escaped when a masked gang busted them out of a G4S van on their way to a high profile trial at Liverpool Crown Court.
The pair fled to Amsterdam where they lived the high life before authorities finally caught up with them and brought them back to the UK to face justice.
Bradley and Downes ran a criminal network between 2009 and 2010, and their wave of attacks saw handgrenades thrown at family homes, and rivals kidnapped and shot.
The gang was responsible for 20 separate incidents across Merseyside, which included seven grenade incidents. On one occasion a grenade was accidentally left outside the Birkdale home of Kenny Dalglish.
The 'blood brothers' presided over a guns-for-hire gang which executed contract violence for cash. Rivals were kneecapped, kidnapped and family homes blown up with hand grenades.
In one shocking incident, the gang threw grenades into a room where a gran was babysitting a seven-year-old boy. Other victims suffered life changing injuries after being shot.
Downes, described as the gang’s chief executive, was accused of directing much of the violence from his cell at Liverpool’s Walton jail.
After their escape, Downes and Bradley were both caught and brought back to Britain to serve out life sentences.
The gang who freed them from the van have so far evaded justice.
Mark Johnston, of MacQueen Street, Old Swan
Mark Johnson was jailed for his role in planning a grenade attack along with along with Huyton criminal Tony Downes
The pair were sent to prison in 2006 after planning to rob a security van collecting money from Batley's cash and carry in Whiston.
Johnston was jailed for nine years and Downes sentenced to seven years in prison.
The two pals were later 'padded up' together at HMP Liverpool, where they shared the same cell. And in 2009 they both became embroiled in a plot to blow up a businessman's home in Birkdale.
On a Sunday night in late July a security guard spotted suspicious activity outside an exclusive Selworthy Road home.
He raised the alarm and police were called to the scene. Two men were arrested nearby, and then police found a grenade had been left outside the home of Kenny Dalglish.
It later transpired that Johnston and Downes had conspired to send to crooks to the area to blow up the home of a businessman - but the grenade was found stashed in shrubbery on the wall of the home of the LFC legend after the men got 'spooked'.
Johnston, who admitted conspiring to cause damage and being reckless as to whether life would be endangered, was jailed for eight years with an extended licence period.
Johnston was released on licence on January 25, 2016. He was later recalled to prison in September 2017 after he breached the terms of his licence.
Patrick Murray, Gloucester Road in Huyton
EncroChat dealer Patrick Murray was handed a life sentence on January 22, 2022; along with associate Michael Hoy after their discussions over AK47s, pistols and ‘pineapples’ - slang for grenades - were obtained by detectives.
Both men used phones loaded with EncroChat, an encrypted messaging network that police say was beloved by gangsters.
When the system was hacked in an international criminal investigation it led to the messages of thousands of users becoming available to police.
That included those of Murray, whose EncroChat codename was WeirdGun, and Hoy, who used the handle TimelyBeta.
Pictures sent by Murray, many to Hoy, included grenades, AK47s, an Uzi and a number of handguns with silencers. This helped secure their downfall.
Judge Robert Trevor-Jones accepted there was no evidence Hoy or Murray acquired any grenades but concluded they were involved in trading the “highly dangerous explosive devices which are normally only associated with military use”.
Of the gun charges, the judge said: “Once more it is clear that you, Patrick Murray, and you, Michael Hoy, were arranging to trade in such items at a significant level.”
Murray admitted conspiracy to possess explosives and conspiracies to possess, purchase or acquire prohibited firearms and ammunition.
The 25-year-old, of Gloucester Road in Huyton also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply around 5kgs of cocaine and 3.75kgs of heroin.
Liam Cornett, of Roby Road, Huyton
One of Liverpool's most notorious criminals was brought down by an investigation sparked by a mum accidentally setting off a home-made grenade stored on top of a wardrobe at her Dingle home.
Police officers who attended discovered the device had been part of a criminal stash that included 158kg of amphetamines and just under a kilogram of cocaine, an illicit haul valued at £1.6m.
Liam Cornett, known as The Lam, as already well known to Merseyside Police, but this investigation brought an end to his Playboy lifestyle.
The 31-year-old, who typically operated from Spain but had a home on Roby Road, is already serving a 26 year term for conspiracy to supply Class A and Class B drugs.
He was jailed in December 2019, aged 29, after a major investigation unravelled his international network.
The North West Regional Organised Crime Unit found Cornett controlled a sprawling enterprise that ran from his Costa del Sol base to estates in Anfield, Hull, Cardiff and Devon.
