Description
A reign of terror aided by criminal brothers saw Dominic Noonan intimidate the public and police alike as his family made £50,000 a night from the the late 80s and early 90s clubbing drug scene.
An infamous paedo gangster who preyed on young boys got away with his sexual offences for years because police turned a blind eye, according to a former detective.
Rick Mortimer has told an employment tribunal that once, when he suggested his Greater Manchester Police colleagues intervened after spotting a suspected paedophile was leading a boy into a house, he was told: "What we can't see, we don't know about."
It is believed that man was Dominic Noonan who was, eventually, at the age of 53, found guilty of 13 historical sex offences against four boys as young as 10 and handed an 11-year sentence, Manchester Evening News reports.
But who was Noonan and why did the police fail to bring him to justice sooner?
Born to Irish parents and raised in the Manchester's Whalley Range suburb, Noonan was one of 14 siblings whose names all began with the letter D.
He and his brothers Damien and Dessie quickly developed reputations for armed robbery.
In the late 80s and early 90s, they also ran the city's doors including at the famous Hacienda night club, controlling who could sell drugs inside, while taking their own cut of around £50,000 a night.
Dessie was the enforcer and hitman, Dominic the cunning and charismatic entrepreneur and Damien cemented loyalties with donations to community causes.
Their empire was rocked in 1991 when Dessie was accused of shooting rival gang leader "White Tony" Johnson dead in a pub car park.
But the trial collapsed amid rumours of jury tampering and Dessie was acquitted at a retrial.
Dominic, meanwhile, did his bit to deter pretenders to the Noonan's gangster crown in Manchester – using a machete to decapitate a rival gang's dog outside a pub before placing its head on a pool table inside.
His fear factor would diminish, though, when Damien and Dessie died in consecutive years – the former following a motorcycle crash in the Dominican Republic in 2004 and the latter, by then an alcoholic crack addict, when he was stabbed to death by a crack dealer.
Their brother's predatory sexual ways did not cease, though, nor did his criminal tendencies.
In 2005, he was jailed after a revolver and ammunition were found in his Jaguar.
He was freed on licence in 2010, claiming to have found God and even had a crack at stand-up comedy, but was soon back in prison after going berserk at a woman motorist who beeped at him as he crossed a road.
He reportedly tapped her car window with a copy of the a newspaper, which featured a story about him, and shouted: "Do you know who I am?"
Having been let out again, he was back inside for being a suspected ringleader during the 2011 Manchester riots.
Then, while out of prison on licence in 2014, Noonan climbed 100ft up the city's Big Wheel in protest at the latest efforts to recall him.
Up there for six hours, he drew a 1,000-strong crowd, with some shouting "nonce", suggesting that fewer people were now as intimidated by him.
But Noonan escaped prison on that occasion and in 2016 he was found not guilty of engaging in a sex act in front of a minor, although he was convicted of perverting the course of justice by offering £5,000 to the boy’s family to get the charge dropped.
Two years later, though, police had compiled enough evidence to convict him for his sex crimes and Noonan could be locked up for most of his remaining life, having been handed a separate 11-year sentence for other crimes such as arson and blackmail.