Hoods

In 2004, the horrific murder of a middle-aged couple in their village bungalow lifted the lid on the great untold story of British organised crime. The slaughter of Joan and John Stirland revealed an evil empire of powerful ganglords, contract killings, police corruption and punishment beatings. And at its dark heart was the East Midlands city of Nottingham.

HOODS traces the roots of the gangs, revealing how economic dislocation and the clash of cultures between working-class white residents and black immigrants from the 1950s onwards created an alienated underclass who turned to crime. In the 1990s, a far more malignant breed of organised criminal took over. Prominent crime families who had been involved in armed robbery, protection rackets and extortion now looked to control the recreational drugs trade and forged links with others in the UK and Europe to import wholesale quantities of cocaine, ecstasy and amphetamines, accompanied by an orgy of gunplay. By 2002, shootings were running at one a week. As local police struggled to cope with the mayhem, MI5 and the National Crime Squad launched a massive undercover investigation into the bloody reign of the Nottingham ‘untouchables’. It led ultimately to the dismantling of some of the UK’s most powerful criminal networks.

HOODS is a sobering account of what happens when the rule of the gun supplants the rule of law and fear stalks the streets.

About the author

Carl Fellstrom has written extensively for the Sunday Times, Sunday Telegraph and Daily Mail and has contributed to The Observer, the Guardian, the News of the World, The Sun, the Daily Telegraph, the Daily Mirror and The Mail on Sunday. He has also worked on documentaries for Channel 4, BBC and ITV.