A GANGSTER suspect shot dead by police was the nephew of a crime lord who
hinted on TV that he was responsible for 27 murders.
Mark Duggan’s late uncle was gangland boss Desmond “Dessie” Noonan, whose
feared crime family have run Manchester’s underworld for 20 years.
The Sun can also reveal that another of Duggan’s relatives was arrested in
connection with rioting and looting in the city on Tuesday.
The links emerged yesterday as a police union rep said that the officer who
opened fire on Duggan had “an honest-held belief that he was in imminent
danger of him and his colleagues being shot”.
A gun belonging to Duggan was found at the scene in Tottenham, North London,
but is not thought to have been fired during the incident.
A protest over the killing erupted into the first of the London riots last
Saturday night.
Dessie ran the Noonan gang with his brothers Domenyk, Damian and Derek. He and
Domenyk featured on Donal MacIntyre’s TV documentary Gangster in 2005.
In it, Dessie suggested his family were “untouchables”. He bragged: “I’ve got
a bigger army than the police. We have more guns than the police.”
Dessie’s second wife Julie, 50, is the sister of Duggan’s mum Pamela.
Duggan, 29, regularly visited his uncle and Julie — who he married in 1985 —
to babysit their children.
The pair divorced following Dessie’s 1993 acquittal for the murder of gangster
Anthony “White Tony” Johnson two years earlier. But Duggan continued to
visit Desmond and Domenyk for barbecues and family parties.
A source said: “They took Mark under their wing, they liked him, not just as a
nephew, but as a mate.
“When he came to Manchester he’d see them, and if they went to London they’d
have a night with him.”
In 1995, 6ft 20-stone Dessie was described as a “psycho” in court for a
violent attack on twin brothers and was jailed for 33 months.
In the Gangster documentary he joked that key witnesses in his trials failed
to turn up because “some are deranged… because they are in the back of a
boot tied up and they don’t know what day it is”.
In 1988 he was convicted of perverting justice and wounding.
One charge involved “making threats of violence and death toward prosecution
witnesses and relatives in an attempt to stop evidence being given at
court”. The witnesses were police officers.
Ex-bouncer Dessie boasted how he once marched into a pub where rival gang
members drank — armed with a shotgun and a machete — and chopped the head
off a dog.
He married third wife Sandra in 1995, but was stabbed to death aged 45 by drug
dealer Derek “Yardie” McDuffus in 2005.
Domenyk, 47 — who has changed his name to Domenyk Lattlay Fottfoy — was
arrested on suspicion of violent disorder during trouble in Manchester city
centre on Tuesday.
Earlier he was caught on camera chatting to a hoodie-wearing youth with a
looted flat-screen TV.
Greater Manchester Police later confirmed that Domenyk had been charged with
handling stolen goods and possession of cannabis. Hundreds of “Noonan Boys”
— youngsters allied to the crime boss — were allegedly among city centre
rioters.
The source added: “Domenyk made sure there was a big crowd of them rioting
last night.”
Domenyk has more than 40 convictions for offences including armed robbery,
police assault, attacks on prison officers, deception, firearms, jail escape
and fraud, and has spent 22 years behind bars.
He is suspected of being involved in several murders but has never been
charged. He is on licence from jail following a conviction for possessing a
gun. The Independent Police Complaints Commission is probing Mark Duggan’s
death.
Mark Williams, the Met Police Federation rep for firearms unit C019, said its
officers are “mortified” that Duggan’s family might think there is “some
sort of conspiracy” because of the way information has been drip-fed from
the IPCC.
He said firearms officers involved always assumed a bullet found lodged in an
officer’s radio was one of theirs because of their positions.
A police source said at no point did cops say Duggan opened fire. The IPCC
investigation could take six months.