Shocking footage of gang warfare in Hartlepool and Horden which saw seven people jailed for almost 100 years.
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00:00 (dramatic music)
00:01 The 7th of January this year,
00:03 (gunshots)
00:04 Mitsubishi Shogun traveled down from the Peatley area
00:08 into Hartlepool,
00:08 (car engine roaring)
00:10 and rammed a house.
00:11 (gunshots)
00:14 What we know now is that this was a precursor
00:16 to the events that took place later on that weekend.
00:19 - Everyone can get your people out of here.
00:20 (gunshots)
00:23 - This was a feud between what we call
00:26 organized crime groups.
00:28 (gunshots)
00:30 People who operate criminally for their own gain,
00:33 mainly financially.
00:34 (car engine roaring)
00:37 We can see the Mitsubishi Shogun
00:51 entering the street in Hartlepool,
00:52 and the suspect attacking the vehicle on the driveway there.
00:56 (gunshots)
00:59 So we see the accelerant being poured onto a rag
01:01 and into the back of the vehicle.
01:02 It's now set on fire as the Mitsubishi Shogun
01:05 rams the front of the house.
01:07 (car engine roaring)
01:10 You actually see one of the suspects drop a bottle.
01:17 That bottle's later recovered,
01:19 and the DNA profile of Wayne Griffin is found on the rim.
01:24 Inside that premises were four young children,
01:26 and it was only by sheer luck really
01:29 that nobody was injured during that instance.
01:32 The Mitsubishi Shogun then traveled
01:33 back into the Peatley area,
01:35 and was destroyed again by being set on fire.
01:38 And it's in convoy with two other vehicles.
01:40 Those two vehicles were actually recovered after the offense.
01:43 Inside we find baseball bats
01:46 and some other bottles containing accelerant.
01:48 Again, we were able through DNA to link those items
01:51 to the suspects in our case.
01:53 The following day on the 8th of January,
01:56 in kind of response to this,
01:58 an aggravated burglary occurred in the Horden area.
02:00 - Hello, police emergency.
02:01 - There's loads of people trying to get in my house,
02:03 smashing my house and everything up.
02:05 - Okay, can you give me your address, please?
02:07 - Because this house associated
02:09 with James Davidson was targeted,
02:11 his organized crime group mobilized themselves
02:14 in a different Mitsubishi Shogun
02:15 and lay in wait at an address in 7th Street in Horden
02:19 in anticipation of an attack on the premises in 5th Street
02:23 that was controlled by James Stevenson
02:27 as what he would see was a legitimate business.
02:29 And eventually a stolen Ford Transit entered 5th Street
02:43 and began to ram the business premises.
02:46 (tires screeching)
02:49 Fortunately, there was nobody within it at the time,
02:54 but it caused extensive damage.
02:56 James Stevenson and the other defendants,
02:59 they're now aware that there's an attack
03:00 taking place on 5th Street,
03:01 so they'll get into the Mitsubishi Shogun
03:03 and travel down Aiden Street
03:05 to the junction with 5th Street.
03:07 And as they look down,
03:08 the Ford Transit is still ramming
03:10 the business premises on 5th Street.
03:12 The occupants of the Mitsubishi Shogun
03:14 then discharge what we now know to be a 9mm handgun
03:18 towards the vehicle.
03:20 The Mitsubishi Shogun then makes off towards Easington
03:30 and is followed in what we would see as a pursuit
03:33 by the Ford Transit van.
03:35 And the last sighting that we have of that on the CCTV
03:38 is in the Haswell area.
03:40 And interestingly, the Mitsubishi Shogun's later found,
03:42 a week later, actually burnt out in the Coxsow area.
03:45 So following the reports by members of the public,
03:50 as you can imagine, there's lots of information
03:51 that comes into the police pretty quickly.
03:54 And we've got to establish exactly what the circumstances
03:56 are that have gone on.
03:57 - Hands out, lie down.
03:59 - Over the coming two to three weeks,
04:01 14 people were arrested.
04:03 - At the minute, you're under arrest
04:06 on suspicion of attempted murder.
04:08 - Conspiracy to discharge a firearm with the intent to injure.
04:12 - Multiple searches were undertaken.
04:14 Various bits of evidence were seized,
04:16 including money, heroin, cocaine,
04:19 quite a significant amount, ammunition,
04:21 and other items that would later become evidence
04:24 in the case for us.
04:26 And even though we didn't recover a huge number of phones
04:29 from our suspects, we still managed to obtain
04:32 some text messages between suspects,
04:34 which showed that communication,
04:35 which showed they were together
04:36 or had been together previously.
04:38 When we would see that the preparation was being made
04:40 to commit this offence,
04:42 we also executed a warrant on a place
04:46 called Mount Pleasant Farm,
04:48 owned and controlled by Paul Frien.
04:50 On the farm, on the back of a flatback vehicle,
04:55 we recovered the shell of a nine millimetre bullet.
04:58 And what we were able to establish
04:59 through the forensic evidence was that
05:02 that nine millimetre bullet had been discharged
05:04 from the same weapon used in the offence on Fifth Street.
05:08 And we can actually go a step further than that as well.
05:10 We can say, because of the angle of the bullet,
05:13 which we later recovered from the front of the building
05:15 in Fifth Street, we were able to say that
05:18 that bullet had travelled from the Mitsubishi Shogun.
05:20 So we were able to prove that the people within that vehicle
05:23 definitively discharged a gun and that bullet
05:26 had travelled from the direction of that vehicle.
05:29 - Did you intend to kill the people
05:32 who were smashing the shop?
05:34 - Not currently.
05:35 - When suspects are arrested,
05:37 they're all interviewed under caution by police officers.
05:41 - I had no part in this crime.
05:43 I'm not guilty for it.
05:45 I've got no acknowledgement of it.
05:47 That's all I'd like to say.
05:48 - All of the defendants in this case
05:51 either chose to make no comment to those questions
05:53 or denied any involvement in the offence.
05:56 - That's the back of your truck.
05:58 - Yeah.
05:59 - That is a bullet.
06:01 (papers rustling)
06:03 That's a nine millimetre casing from a bullet.
06:10 Can you tell me what that's doing
06:13 on the back of the truck that you move in and out of there?
06:15 - I haven't got a clue.
06:16 - Okay. - I haven't got a clue.
06:21 - We've obviously undertaken these extensive levels
06:24 of inquiries from witnesses to CCTV, to forensics,
06:29 to searches, arrests, et cetera.
06:32 And we were able to build really strong case
06:34 against these people.
06:36 In the face of this,
06:37 what we would see is overwhelming evidence.
06:40 All the defendants chose to plead guilty.
06:42 - Can I stop this interview and talk to you?
06:47 - Certainly, of course you can.
06:48 Time by you?
06:49 - Yeah, time by me is 15.45.
06:52 - This really has weeded out an entire organised crime group
06:58 from our communities.
06:59 I'm proud of the officers who have worked tirelessly
07:02 to bring these people to justice.
07:04 Our partners have contributed really effectively.
07:06 Our communities who really have stood up
07:08 and been counted to say that they won't tolerate
07:10 such behaviour within the community.
07:12 And I think this acts as a real deterrent
07:15 for organised criminals who think they can escalate
07:17 their criminality to such a serious and violent level
07:20 to say that it just won't be tolerated.
07:22 (dramatic music)
07:25 (upbeat music)