Brutal regime ruled the roost as cocaine took a hold on the city
FOR his debut book, Carl Fellstrom certainly chose a dangerous topic. The crime gangs which ruled Notts for the past decade are as well known for their savagery as for their criminal careers.
Three of the biggest players – Colin Gunn, Gary Hardy and John Dawes – are now beginning lengthy jail sentences, so they are hardly criminal geniuses.
But what they have retained, Gunn in particular, is a loyalty among die-hard followers which shows no sign of diminishing.
The dangers of publishing a book which centres on Gunn and his 'Bestwood Cartel' are not lost on Fellstrom.
"I have become slightly more concerned as time has gone on about what impact the book will have but at the same time I do think it is an important subject to raise," said the 44-year-old.
"If you can't do these things for fear of what might happen to you then that's a pretty shocking state of affairs. So I do feel quite strongly that people should stand up and talk about this issue without fear of any retribution."
The book makes for uncomfortable reading for anyone who cares about Nottingham – and more so for those who turned a blind eye to the way Gunn and his criminal associates terrorised the city as they built up their empires.
Fellstrom was a freelance journalist when crime in Nottingham went off the scale between 2002 and 2004. Gang shootings were commonplace, and murder rates soared. Notts Police were having to cope with unprecedented levels of major crime and, nationally, the city's reputation was being destroyed.
"At the time the Bestwood Cartel was really emerging, I got a briefing off a senior police officer," said Fellstrom. "What I heard really shocked me, so I decided to look into it in more detail.
"Colin Gunn is almost single-handedly responsible for the image this city got. There were 55 non-fatal shootings in one year, all of which were attributed to the Bestwood Cartel. That is how Nottingham got its reputation for gun crime. He practically brought this city to its knees.
"At the height of the Bestwood Cartel threat, senior officers at command level within Nottinghamshire Police were given exit strategies designed to get them safely out of their homes should the mobsters pursue them.
"What has also struck me about this episode is the response of the police and the city authorities, some of whom ultimately failed in their work. Organised crime was staring them in the face and had the city in a clench-fisted grip before they really began to take action.
"What shocked me more than anything else while researching Hoods was the discovery that some of the major criminal figures who were enforcing the rule of not grassing up your own, had been informants for the police themselves. But these people have no interest in making things right, they have been cleverly using the system to their own ends, feeding information into the police to take out their opponents while creating for themselves a protective zone courtesy of the authorities."
Fellstrom has witnessed first hand the growing use of cocaine in the city – a drug that gave gangs like the Bestwood Cartel the chance to become big players.
"In 1995 you could go into most city centre bars and the most aggressive behaviour you encountered was the result of revellers drinking too much alcohol," he said. "Cocaine was simply not available on the scale it is now and, if it was, the price, at £60 per gram, was prohibitive.
"Now you can go into those same venues and more besides and, uniformly, there is the depressing sound of young and middle-aged people, men and women, snorting lines of cocaine from any flat surface they can find inside the cubicles.
"The same person who was worse for wear for drink in 1995 is now, in 2008, with a few lines of 'Charlie' down them at £30 a gram, able to drink twice the volume of alcohol as their 1995 counterparts and is standing up and spoiling for a brawl, or worse."
Fellstrom has resisted the urge to try to speak to Colin Gunn in prison, where he is serving a minimum 35 years for arranging the execution of John and Joan Stirland in 2004.
VIDEO: The Stirlands' terrifying final moments
"I've had no direct messages back from them," he said. "I'm assuming both David and Colin Gunn know the book is being written.
"I wouldn't want young people looking up to people like Colin Gunn and thinking he is someone to be admired.
"I have not tried to speak to him. I don't think the man has that many redeeming qualities. He has committed one of the most heinous crimes you can commit against two grandparents. There are people out there who will never recover from what he has done and I think that needs to be said.
"A former police officer who knew the Bestwood Cartel well told me of one instance where a man suspected of grassing them up was taken to a remote area, where his hand was nailed to a wooden bench. He was then saturated in petrol while Colin Gunn tormented him with the promise of a naked flame. When the police found the victim he was barely able to speak his own name, let alone name his attackers.
"But somehow, under Colin Gunn's leadership, the Bestwood Cartel was allowed to perpetuate a Robin Hood image on the Bestwood estate.
"To many The Gunn brothers were almost latter-day Kray Twins, 'looking after their own', keeping petty crime down in their area while controlling it with extreme violence. These are law-abiding people saying this, not criminals.
"A lot of people thought Colin was doing the job the police should have been doing and that is quite an alarming state of affairs. The police had a massive role in allowing it to happen. The trust levels have gone and large sections of the public don't report crimes.
"They feel nothing will happen when they ring up and report a crime. I think what happened in Bestwood could happen anywhere in the country right now.
"What happened in Bestwood was police stopped patrolling the area in terms of being on foot and visibility went down to zero. They lost the streets of Bestwood."
Fellstrom accepts that the work of Operation Kingdom on the Bestwood Estate is having an impact, and the police have much more control of the estate than they did when Colin Gunn was running amok. So does he not feel that now is the wrong time to re-tell those old stories?
"I'm sure I'll be accused of re-opening old wounds and damaging the city's reputation again. But if people want to shoot the messenger then I think that is pretty sad really.
"I have some pretty strong things to say about the authorities, but at the same time I think that, unless people take a positive attitude to this, then things end up getting swept under the carpet again.
"There are many things that I haven't even been able to verify which I think makes the story even more shocking.
"Unless you learn the lessons about it, and that means having a proper debate about it, then these things can happen again. So I do think it is important that we talk about this problem.
"To say it is going to bring negative headlines is a pretty negative way of looking at it. Because if you can't handle the headlines, how are you going to solve the problem?"
newsdesk@nottinghameveningpost.co.uk
Police investigate gun crime
Comment on this story