20 Facts About Desmond Noonan

Desmond Patrick "Dessy" Noonan was an English organised crime figure from Manchester, who acted as a political fixer for the Noonan crime family.

Desmond Noonan then started to put his own men on the doors.

Around this time, Dominic Desmond Noonan was jailed for 15 years for his part in an armed robbery at a bank in Cheetham Hill, Manchester.

The Noonan family tended to have nothing to do with the Moss Side gangs, although Desmond Noonan was part of a group who provided gangs with guns and other weapons.

Desmond Noonan went to forge links with gangs in London, Newcastle and Liverpool.

Desmond Noonan was held by West Midlands Police, but the case was dropped due to lack of evidence.

Desmond Noonan began to venture into the nightlife of many other cities to gain more wealth, and power.

Desmond Noonan tried to do deals in other cities with their gangland figures, and was becoming involved with a number of crime bosses such as the Liverpool drugs baron Curtis Warren and head of Newcastle's biggest crime family Paddy Conroy.

The strength and power of the family, in particular Desmond Noonan, allowed him to be a prime peacemaker in the Manchester gang truces which for a short period of time brought the war in Moss Side to an end.

Desmond Noonan was released from prison in 2002 and became head of the Desmond Noonan crime family after Damian's death in 2003.

Damian Desmond Noonan had died in a motorbike accident while on holiday in the Dominican Republic.

Desmond Noonan was active with the anti-National Front "Squads" of the early 1980s and then with Anti-Fascist Action, which was formed in 1985.

In 1993, Desmond Noonan was present at a meeting in the Seymour pub, Whalley Range, between AFA and an individual who had recently set up a South Manchester British National Party branch.

Early on Saturday morning, Sandra Desmond Noonan received a phone call from her husband telling her that he had been stabbed.

Desmond Noonan asked her to pick him up in the suburb of Chorlton.

Desmond Noonan called for an ambulance, but Noonan died of his wounds before arriving at Manchester Royal Infirmary.

Desmond Noonan's funeral was held in south Manchester on 22 April 2005.

Desmond Noonan was placed in solitary confinement to protect him from retribution by the Noonan family.

Desmond Noonan, who was suspected of having developed a drug addiction towards the end of his life, was thought by the authorities to have been coercing local drug dealers into supplying him with narcotics, and had left the pub intoxicated in search of a drug dealer.

Desmond Noonan died four days before the broadcast of journalist Donal MacIntyre's fly on the Wall documentary MacIntyre's Underworld.