 Till oh what's pop We are on twitch we are live about the time you see this we won't be so just leave a like comment subscribe Turn on your post notification bells. Let's continue to grow the family from Chicago to the UK Right behind you man. You see it. It's the warning screen just in case read that to yourself read it out loud I stopped talking There you go, um Don't forget man twitch.com the user names at the bottom of the screen if you do want to catch alive We do got merch and we got patreon as well. Everything is down in the description below This is UK documentary six I'm not okay. I'm not okay the Cullen's robbery forensic forensics Catching the killer British murder documentary That's the title Never even heard of this channel Copyright disclaimer under section 107 of the copyright act 1976 Allowance is made for fair use for purposes such as criticism comment news reporting teaching scholarship and research Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing Non-profit educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use no copyright infringement intended all rights belong to their respective owners UK documentary six I'm a sub up That's the name of the channel 1994 I was a detective inspector based at Islington division police station In those days, there was no permanent major crime investigation team like the one that I subsequently went on to lead So these murder and serious investigations were overseen by detective superintendent who was normally the senior investigating officer and he or she would turn up with a Sergeant they had like an assistant who was detective sergeant He's known affectionately as the the bag man or bag woman because it goes back to the days when these superintendents were on Call to go all over the country when Scotland yard got called into small forces and because that didn't happen anymore But the term bag man bag lady still still stood. Yeah, I was a detective constable at Tottenham CID at the time For me, it was a fantastic opportunity. It's fairly young in service relatively speaking The teams were made up of seconded officers from various Divisions and I'd come from Tottenham to join this investigation. You'd get a Calling to your DCI's office. It said you're on your way down to Islington. There's been a murder You didn't really know What the case was going to be until you arrived down there and obviously upon arrival it turned out it was probably the most most fascinating case of my career The Cullings robbery is probably one of the most remarkable stories. I've ever come across quite frankly Colleen Sutton. It was very early on in his career. He hadn't Done any of the headline grabbing cases that we were now familiar with Colleen having done. So he was very much Making his mark still when he took on this bizarre story which in essence unfolded with Him receiving a phone call late at night. I was at home. I was asleep in bed It was in the early hours of the Tuesday morning after the Easter Monday and the night duty DC It seems it was a man called Tony Brown who had quite distinctive voice He came from the Midlands I think and the phone rang and he uttered the immortal words. We've got a bit of a strange one governor he outlined a Rather difficult to understand set of circumstances and the upshot seemed to be That there were two men in custody it isn't in police station who had been arrested for committing an armed robbery and two attempted murders That we had two men who had been shot at close range in the back of the neck inside the stolen car and That they thought it was a falling out between an armed robbery game But nobody was really sure the circumstances and then there was something about the alarm going off at marks and Spencer's nearby as well And it just all seemed really confusing and I'd got used to waking up and kind of Instantly snapping into consciousness and work mode when when this happened But this was one of those what I just didn't understand what was being said to me I couldn't work out what that actually happened in the first stages of any major crime investigation There's a foggy in which you're unclear of exactly what the details are and certainly in this case Initially in those first few hours and days it was unclear as to what we were actually dealing with Colin Sutton received his phone call late at night, and he said well just just a second Let me just go and make a call shout out Jordan for the honey bits, too Off me and I'll give you a call back which is advice. He'd been given on early on in his career So I said to Tony look do not I'm gonna do this just I'll give you a call back in five minutes I'm gonna make myself a cup of coffee makes you unproperly awake, and I'll ring you back with a pen and paper and I'll see if I can understand what's going on. So I did that and Five minutes later when I phoned him back. He gave me exactly the same story Although I was absolutely awake and full of caffeine I still couldn't make head no tail of what had gone on and nor could he and that was what was strange about the circumstances it didn't sit right that a gang of robbers there just after they've done an armed robbery at a Convenience shop Cullens were a sort of a an upmarket Convenience store at the time chain throughout London, and then I found out that the marks and Spencer aspect was that About 40 yards or maybe even less from the shop that had been robbed There was a marks and Spencer store where the burglar alarm had gone off and that had gone off because There was actually somebody else burgling that shop at the same time, and it was the van Officers responding to that burglar alarm that had caught the robbers Looking into the bag that they've stolen They'd run off in different directions, and the officers have managed to catch two of them And they were the two that have been invested So it was a real sort of mess because you know there's the other saying detectives don't like coincidences So the the idea that all this was a coincidence and it just happened to be sort of even two Teams one doing a burglary and one bigger team doing a non robbery within 40 yards of each other at the same time There's something we didn't like and it must be a connection between it I said look I'll come in and it's now sort of 2 a.m. Or whatever We won't call many of the other officers in yet. We'll keep them fresh for the morning But let's try and work out plan between us and see if we can get just some sort of idea as to what might have gone on What we knew was the two of the kind of complex type joint You gotta pay attention men following shots in a metro I can't look at both a metro car that had been stolen earlier in the day from Clayton and East London one of the men who was shot came from that area And the other one was a local Islings and that and their names were Colin Meek and Gary Mullins As it transpired it turned out they probably committed quite a few armed robberies Having escalated through a sort of criminal career as they'd got older from petty crime through to the armed robbery that You know ultimately was to lead to Collins They'd both been arrested on a number of occasions got previous convictions ranging from minor criminality when they were juveniles into their adult life They were kind of low-grade local criminals, you know that something To be involved in something like an armed robbery with firearms was a little bit out of their league It was a sort of step up for them from what they were used to doing and you know somebody joked that That's pretty obvious the fact they used a metro as their getaway car You know, it wasn't really that the sort of powerful car of choice for coming away from armed robberies Two idiots as we had it after a couple of hours. It seemed to be That the two men in hospital had been accompanied by another two or three men That they had gone into the end of the same car they had in in between us the Cullen store armed with a firearm and a CS gas spray and committed to robbery clean clean the till out Mika Mullins went in Just the staff were threatened at gunpoint There was CS gas some of the members of the staff were tied up using plastic cuffs And the manager was forced to open the safe and the proceeds were stolen put into a carrier bag and Mika Mullins then made their escape with about eight and a half thousand pounds To a stolen mini metro that they'd left around the corner in Liverpool Road They didn't run back into the side street where the metro was parked Got into the metro at which point Somebody and we assumed from the rest of the gang Had smashed the windows at the rear sides of the metro and shot them both while they sat in the front seats Was it one gang that had a fallout and a betrayal or were there in fact the two gangs? It's only when you start to unpick those details doesn't make sense catching him for eight bands No I was looking to the background of the individuals concerned you'd get a true grasp of exactly what you're dealing with And it became pretty evident after a first week or so that this was freakish in the way it played out It's gonna be a major investigation We're gonna have to get the SAO to come in and form a proper murder squad in the way that it was done in those days We didn't know whether or not they were likely to live they were both still alive But they had both been shot at close range in the back of the neck so the potential for life threatening injury was pretty sort of huge really so we were Treating it from the very start as if they were likely to die and to be honest even if they didn't Clearly shooting somebody in the back of the neck is an attempt on their life It's got to be an attempted murder even if they don't die Colin Meek and Gary Mullins were brought here to St. Bartholomew's the famous hospital Which at that time had an A&E department and of course we had to send officers down here because they were Notionally under arrest because we knew that they'd committed a robbery And the first thing that was rather strange that happened was that They they underwent emergency surgery to remove these two point four four slugs from their neck where they'd been shot Gary Mullins had suffered damage to him as a revolver. Okay With his spinal cord the replay was accurate Recreation and was quadriplegic from there afterwards Colin Meek on the other hand had Also been shot in the neck, but it suffered no apparent ill effects other than the actual wound the hospital staff Took a view that I'd never encountered before that it was it was absurd in some respects, but it was Kind of understandable the problem was the police they would they were very keen to track where the bullets had come from But the hospital one of the nurses was saying look we can't give the bullets They belong to the patients So one of the officers phoned Colin and said I don't know what's going on here good You know the the hospital is saying they can't give us the bullets No Colin Sutton being Colin Sutton said all we can't have that Got to the hospital and never heard of what's going on here Spoke to a doctor and said look this is ridiculous We need this to trace where the bullets have come from while we were negotiating with the the administrative staff at the hospital The A&E consultant sort of almost sidled up to me with two plastic bags and said there you go So this is quite ridiculous to have them take them. That's how we got the bullets to put into evidence Steps taken to try and interview Colin Meek in particular. He was less injured than Gary Mullins Meek was initially Incredibly reluctant to speak to the police and was seeking assurances that he wouldn't be prosecuted Meek gives them a teaser and says look I will talk to you, but I'm not talking without a deal He wants he's get out of jail for you and under no circumstances will he give an interview Colin Sutton who is still relatively new has to seek higher authority to get you know to be given a Granted this request By this time Superintendent Harvey derived and I had a bit of a conversation with him and we agreed that in the circumstances You know our interests were best served by trying to find out what had gone on who the missing men were and so forth and this this man who Might or might not make a full recovery was was you know probably not the top of our priorities And what we need to do is to get him to talk to us So I consulted with the Crown Prosecution Service one of the lawyers there and he said yeah That's absolutely fine and we agreed a wording for a letter I typed the letter up and signed it on headache note papers effectively was a get out of jail free card for For Colin Meek to be called to this robbery and gave it to him and he ran it past his solicitor and it was all okay And they said okay. Yeah, that sounds pretty watertight. You can go ahead and talk to them now And at last we thought and Colin Meek said I've absolutely no idea what happened Gary and I went in to do the robbery we got back in the getaway car and the lights went out Could hang on a minute. Well, what about Your the other people in your team the people who shot you who are they where do you know, how can we find them? How do you come about and said we've no idea. There was just the two of us on the robbery We were doing it together, but we don't know about anybody else anywhere. So then we've got we've got the now bro free Y'all did all that and set bro free Ridiculous situation it seems where you've got One pair of armed robbers going in Get rocked for what they've just stolen by another team of armed robbers who shoot them Yeah, there actually were burglars in Master Spencer. It wasn't a faulty alarm that there was a burglary there that night. So What we had was the ridiculous quite bizarre for all the facts were telling us was we had One team of two men makes a mullins who were doing an armed robbery at Cullens We had another team probably of two men who were doing a burglary at Marks and Spencer and another team of probably four men Who for some reason were there and were armed and? Had robbed the robbers of what they'd just stolen so police became aware having spoken to meeks that There was a bit of a problem now because there were two armed robbery gangs and a burglary Gang operating in that small area of Yslington. So the police have to then find out who the second armed robbery gang is this was 1994 and CCTV was much less advanced than it is these days But it wasn't real police work and across Liverpool road from the Cullens branch was a pub And they had a CCTV system which worked in black and white and it worked on VHS cassette and it was one of these where there were four cameras and the Outputs went between the four different cameras for two seconds at a time Only one of those was of interest to us that was the external one Which they used to monitor cues when when people were queuing to get in but that showed the street It was the usual story It was a VHS cassette that had been recorded over and over and over so many times that the quality had deteriorated Quite badly and everything was in about a two-second jump because you had sort of a frame We wanted then you got three others and it came back to one we wanted So although there was potential there to try and work out what happened It was that was going to be a long slog and that was going to be a difficult piece of work We should go do it put it to do The CCTV camera was very like this. I was disappointed to actually to do actual police work Important for us as the investigation went on and so from that we were able eventually to piece together from this very poor quality footage a story of exactly what happened Here at the entrance to Chapel Market from Liverpool Road You can see just how compact this whole scene was because the e-shop over there was colored That's where the armed robbery took place just there We have marks and Spencer and just across the road there is the alley in which the Metro getaway car The whole things like 20 or 30 yards So it's just before closing a couple of minutes before closing time at Cullens It was coming to the end of a long Easter Bank holiday weekend. No doubt takings would have been high So they were standing up and down the pavement there ducking into the fire exit What they didn't know was that the left-hand edge of the building there was a CCTV camera and it gave a view back up Liverpool Road where you could see the Cullens store on your right Chapel market marks and Spencer on your left and the alley where the Metro was parked Meek and Mullins ran into Cullens and then proceeded to rob it at gunpoint with the team waiting directly opposite Intending no doubt to do exactly the same thing It's a startling coincidence to be perfectly honest and one that was pretty extraordinary in my career to have two Separate teams waiting to rob the same premises on the same night Mullins and Meek then run off get back into their Metro to drive Mons and Meek run off get back into the Metro to drive off, but the team waiting across the street Now let's just go hit a lick Hitting the lick is robbing robbers drug dealers known criminals because there's no repercussions. That's why we call it hitting a lick but in this case Is it's is it still considered that? No, I don't think so By the way and the other gang make the instant decision We're gonna go across the road and rob the robbers and that's what they do shooting Meek and Mullins both of them in the back of the neck they then run across With their holder which they put the carrier bag of money into into Chapel market They're looking into the bag to see what it is they've stolen when the police van comes along here and turns left Answering the alarm call to Marks and Spencer So police vehicle turning up in response to the alarm was to suddenly come across the extraordinary scene of two armed robbery teams two men shot in the back of the head in a stolen Metro and A team running off with a cash bag themselves carry in firearms The robbers see the police van and they scatter and they run off four of them in different directions and The police don't know they were chasing armed men who just left two men shot and left them for dead And they chase them bravely arrest two and recover the bag of money They did incredibly well and not before one of them had thrown the firearm used to shoot Meek and Mullins over a Wall into a back of a beer garden of a local pub But they were both apprehended I doubt they had any true idea of what they'd fallen into at that time They probably realized that their instincts as a police officer would have told them something wasn't right They could have been chasing the burglars from M&S They'd obviously come across this crazy scene and they gave chase They may or may not have known that honestly don't even sound real. It sounds like some kind of a movie They had firearms, but I take my heart off to them because they were both incredibly brave in giving pursuit In having come across that scene the weapon that was thrown into the back of the big garden was found subsequently actually 24 36 hours later it was found by the publican who called it into the police that that turned out to be probably a First World War one weapon And because of its age and condition, I think probably that lost a lot of the power of publicity of the bullets And it was particularly unusual piece of equipment this gun It was a first World War British naval officer's revolver and it took a Well, what was it this? This gun come apart in three parts one two three Four I'm pretty sure the trigger come out of there too. That's tough You got a pew pew Rather unusual size of ammunition I think it was point four four or something like that and the ammunition that goes with it was almost obsolete But it did have a particular signature in terms of the chemicals that were used in it They're very heavy in I think it was antimony in the mixture of the propellant And so the firearms residues that were left on these two men that had been shot were quite distinctive and the experts were able to match that up with The gun that we'd found and say yes That's that's almost certainly the sort of ammunition that was used to shoot them Perhaps the ammunition itself was had been weakened and that probably explains why Both meek and Mullins initially survived their injuries as Devastatingly bad as they they were We had two people in the cells And we needed really to work on them to find out who they were and who their Connections were and what was likely to to lead us to the two men that had escaped Got these two men in custody Clifford Wilson and Joseph Brown And they are both Obviously and provably from Northern Ireland. Obviously if they were Likely to know what had gone on And it was a usual story with them that we spoke to them and they no commented everything They should some checks with special branch and find out that they're both known as Being on the fringes of Protestant terror groups over there. Very little was probably known actually about their movement certainly to the Submet police at that time I mean it transpired that following the Cullen's investigation that they probably were committing crimes in the London area and Some were all part of those proceeds were Been channeled back to Northern Ireland support loyalist paramilitary Operation where's Brindy is Brindy still in the chat? We didn't even know that this is going this way and when I say on the fringes the steer we were given was that they were the sort of people who would commit crime quite serious crime and Make a donation out of the proceeds or maybe do a Countryhouse burglary and steal a shotgun and give it to the terrorists. Yeah, they weren't hardened Proper terrorists. They were criminals who had Terrorist sympathies with with Boston terrorism in another one which kind of Made us think you know, is it less likely they're gonna be too fussed and too bothered about what we do? You know are they they're so hard and so sort of anti Police and anti interrogation that it's not worth well we're aware that Colin and The SIO Doug Harvey would have been speaking to special branch But for the majority of us we were focused on the day-to-day activity of evidence gathering speaking to witnesses Getting CCTV and doing the day-to-day legwork of an investigation It's a long Slog of an investigation to be honest I mean benefited from the fact that Wilson and Brown had been arrested on the night That's obviously a major early advancement in terms of Investigation team and give you gave us the opportunity to look at their associates and other similar robberies inquiries were made into their background and their associates and Combining that with many hours of trawling through CCTV seized from around the Islington area that night led to the identification of Samuel McLean The man that was a drifter or one of the men that was adrift still was somebody called Samuel McLean and and Samuel McLean Was known to be an associate from and lived in London, but he lived in South London some Way away from you know our normal patch McLean had fled down the escalators into the Angel tube station and Some pretty good quality color CCTV captured his image as he went down the escalator And being of a fairly distinctive appearance is fairly gaunt man with a long ponytail The investigation team were able to identify him as being the third party the escaping party from New Zealand He looked like a groundskeeper I've never seen Willie Willie from the Simpsons. He looked like a Willie in robbery No, we really had was the fact that we had them in possession of the bag of money Which provably come from Cullins and they put that inside another hold all and Usefully in that there was a part of a gun, but it wasn't a part of any gun that we had Concerned in this offense. It was it was a piece from what looked like a piece from a shotgun So that also was submitted to the firearms Experts at the laboratory to have a look at to see if they could make anything of that which would be helpful to us We identified that Cullins in Notting Hill had been robbed in a very similar fashion to Using weaponry similar to that which the Northern Irishman in this case it in Islington had been holding and it became pretty apparent actually the same Northern Irish gang had robbed Cullins the partial firearm the piece of gun that we found in the hold all Went to the lab and not only did they find a fingerprint on there from a man called Kenneth Macmillan who was another a associate of these Irishman and indeed was probably from the Northern Ireland himself But it also showed us that that piece of gun Had come from a firearm a shotgun which had been recovered at an armed robbery in February 1994 in West London So one of the key elements of linking the previous robbery at Cullins in Notting Hill to the Cullins robbery on that night Islington was the friend they know how forensics work In the UK like with firearms Get me to a grinds with the same pissed the same same gun and firing it and getting rid of it Pieces of it over and over again like they're not gonna link any of it Ziggling made between the stock of a shotgun that had fallen off during the robbery and not in Hill Upon the forensic examination of the weapons recovered that had been dumped as the suspects fled from Islington The scientists were able to prove that the stock of the gun found at Notting Hill was actually a mechanical fit Forensically and an exact match to that founder Islington So they could effectively say the same gun proposed to be used at Islington by the Norah and Irishman had been used to Rob Cullins in Notting Hill two weeks earlier the discovery of the link between the robbery at Notting Hill and the robbery of the Cullins in Islington led to the Investigation team taking over that Inquiry in Notting Hill and ultimately led to the identification of a fourth robber for the Notting Hill robbery We enlisted the local surveillance team in North London To support us and to go down to South London Perform surveillance on Samuel McLean for a day to see if he could lead us first away exactly where he was living But more importantly to anybody else he was associated with The type of surveillance undertaken on Samuel McLean was what's called directed surveillance So it's covert done by a number of officers using a small surveillance team and to follow his movements as he Moved around South London. Ultimately it was not to lead to his identification a sort of further offense Ultimately a small surveillance team and to follow his movements as he moved around South London Ultimately it was not to lead to his identification a sort of further offenses, but it was Helpful in building up an intelligence picture. So we went down to to broccoli It was the first time I'd been to that part of the world really To an old police station there and we had a more early morning briefing and I briefed the surveillance team and I knew some of them from other jobs I'd done and one thing in fact was just as a child and friend of mine and briefed them sent them out Waited went back to Islington waited for whatever they were to find to come back and The news that I got was that they By all accounts and popular consent it was the worst of mobile surveillance they've ever done in their lives ever And I sort of said well, yeah, what was the problem? The surveillance was problematic in terms of McLean. I mean, it's resource-intensive But McLean's job actually was as a mini cab driver and as a consequence it meant the surveillance team were dragged about from Journeys to journeys McLean drove from bingo halls to supermarkets in the South London area And ultimately it was a frustrating exercise. No doubt for all of those involved We've then put some of his dress for a little while to see who came when and there was nobody noticeable nobody There was obviously another part of the gang and so He was then arrested and and brought in as well Just for nothing Some months later down the line her decision was taken to arrest McLean and in a Coordinated armed operation both Samuel McLean and the fourth man from the Notting Hill robbery were both arrested simultaneously McLean Wilson and Brown were each charged with the attempted murder of meek and Mullings as well as the armed robbery at Collins Kenneth McMillan was charged just with the West London colors robbery previously And they're started, you know that the normal kind of period leading up to a trial where We're trying to get the evidence in order and trying to make sure that we have the strongest possible case By that time obviously Wilson and Brown had already been charged with their part of the conspiracy to rob and The attempted murder of meek and Mullings outside Collins in Islington one of the difficulties we had was trying To make best use of this rather grainy rather sort of imprecise cctv that we had a couple of the That's the thing about using grainy and cc like as far as i'm concerned and lawyer could beat that in case that's not me Look at the quality of this. How could you you know what i'm saying? You might be wasting your little time These days and the team that were were looking at it spent hours literally some eight or nine hours To try to work out what had gone on in a few minutes on the street And it was that difficult to to interpret these Images they had these investigations, you know do take us it was difficult for you I even bring it to court and do a jury to look Significant amount of time the forensic work and the detailed cctv analysis There's a lot of focus in the main areas of um trying to identify witnesses Despite there being a number of witnesses who heard shouting or running or shots very very few Eyewitnesses you could fully rely on given a detailed account of the whole event. So it's piecing What has happened that night? Little bit by bit until you get a fairly substantial picture Obviously it was a very complicated scene the the cctv isn't this kind of footage that we're used to seeing that It was very grainy and it's very unclear And we had an office meeting and under briefings we always have we all sitting down and they're talking about it and One of the dcs had produced a comic strip on a piece of paper of stick people. He was no artist They put these stick people on there in different frames and saying this is the best we can work out exactly what happens They drew some stick figures to try and explain, you know, what was going on. It was very bizarre and They sat with the team with collin and he thought What are we going to do here? And we looked at it and I just made one of these throwaway comments that sometimes come comes fruition. I just know it's You should have drawn it on the corner of a telephone directory So we could flick it through and they'd move like a moving picture like, you know, you're just doing your child Right, right, right at a time. You thought she was funny in that moment Turns out it was just a dad joke. It's not funny And you still tickled about it. That's okay, but anyway And uh, and there's a few chuckles about it. Collin was at home and he was watching Bro just gloated about a joke mid Mid documentary An advert on tv for the channel tunnel which explained how it was going to work out is going to operate And collin thought I wonder if we can get someone to translate these little stick figures Into some kind of animation and I looked at that and I thought well if we could only do something like that with these Stick men so let's translate these stick men into a a slick sort of Animation like that That would enable us to present to the jury what that film is showing us And that was my problem was that the jury Didn't have eight or nine hours and if we put Those grainy images up and somebody tried to explain it They wouldn't see it straight away and you know, they're not used to looking at stuff like that anyway And it would be impossible to get over to them in the time We had the importance of what was shown because what it showed was that There was a group of men Up and down outside the park With a bag sort of animated stick figures held up That are waiting And then The two robbers come in and do the robbery at collins and then these men go across the road And that's when it all happened when the robbery of the robbers happened He went and discussed it with his senior officer and they thought well this could have legs Let's let's take it to the cps I kind of floated that idea past past the Harvey and he said yeah, I can see what you mean I think he made a joke saying well, there'll be lots of the jury that used to watching cartoons He'll probably go down well with them, which was was was quite amusing. So it's not funny I found no humor in either joke so far Contacted a firm who did that sort of thing. They were down in Swindon and I went with with one of the officers Tim Cawthon to See them and took the Film down and also had to speak to the cps because there's no point in doing all this if we couldn't use it at call So explain what they wanted to the cps and the cps said Well, I don't see why not. Let's see if we can find a you know an animation company So they did they tracked down who had made the animation for the channel tunnel And the cps said well as long as it's you know, they can do it and it's a faithful representation They can get it signed off that this is what happened Then absolutely yes, we can do it and show it to the even though that may be what happened They could have literally just fabricated it And got it signed off with uh How did she phrase it yeah said well as long as it's you know, they can do it and it's a faithful represent As a faithful representation. Do you see how the court system work? It's just insane Yes, we can do it and show it to the jury and that's exactly what happened commercial private firms like that If you ever have court and they come in with animations, you're cooked. They want you gone See that there's a potential opportunity to assist police in doing this in the future And they even did it for us for nothing and said we'd you know, we'll do this as a trial to see if See if it works. It didn't even cost us anything And we were allowed to use it and I'm sure that was A very persuasive piece of evidence for that jury was that they were able to To sit and watch with absolute clarity What the cctv had recorded And it's a perfect example of how Collin Sutton thinks outside the box The trial of the northern Irishman at the old bay. There was extraordinary event to be perfectly honest There were some of the biggest hitters in the british judicial system were involved in that trial Representing the crown was michael worsley qc. It was the most senior treasury council at the time and Representing the defendants included michael mansfield qc and william cleb qc to the most eminent defense council in the country The trial drew an awful lot of attention both from the media and also members of the public All four men stood trial at the old baylee and They all united involvement just said it wasn't us. We weren't there But of course we had the fingerprint evidence and we also had the cctv evidence, which This animation was easily presented to the jury What the animation showed was the four northern Irishmen across the road from cullens waiting to rob it and then the metro turning up Meek and Mullins going into cullens coming out with the bag after they robbed it Then two of the northern Irish gang crossing the street where they shot meek and mullins in the cull The jurors were therefore able to see this really This is an animation with absolute clarity It was a fascinating trial to be involved in to be honest as a young i still confused about how that even worked because you can't Say it's exactly this person of that version detective a number of different Defenses were put up by those representing the defendants ranged from the shooting being the responsibility of a rogue flying squad Team that night to the fact that it couldn't have been them as they committed a burglary on a garden center in south London that evening And were burglaring that premises rather than in Islington So the whole combination of different defenses I mean I specifically recall having to ask the flying squad to provide a statement prove that none of their officers were on duty armed that evening to try and negate the playmate by Those representing brown that it was actually the flying squad did shot meek and mullins and not the northern Irishman that had been arrested on the night Samuel mcclay, you know who pan for them top lawyers In Clifford wilson gang him If brown the three men that were involved at cullens in islington who shot meek some mullins They got 20 years each Kenneth mcmillan Was committed only of the armed robbery at west london in february he received 12 The northern Irishman upon conviction was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment at the time and in hindsight I think that's a fair sentence to be perfectly honest in all the circumstances And given their background I ain't even gonna lie buddy right here. He don't need no time He's he's he's learned his lesson. He'll never rob again all the circumstances And given their background Judge michael kuhn qc sentenced to men and remarked that it was obvious that they're ruthless men Utterly selfish and utterly determined to enrich yourselves no matter who might be hurt physically or materially When you look at the sentences these men received at the time they seemed about right 12 certainly mcmillan 12 years One armed robbery seemed about right the other three I suppose were sentenced Really as if they committed a murder, you know, they got 20 years this was Before the days where the aggravation of using a firearm meant You know these days if you murder somebody with a firearm the starting points around 30 years But that wasn't the case at the time and the sentences were what we expected And I think reflected the the criminality and the ruthlessness of the men Gary Mullins was never fit enough considered fit enough to be able to stand trial his his health had already deteriorated He was a paraplegic at stoke manderville hospital and by the time We came to prosecute collin meek Uh Mullins was in extremely serious ill health meek on the other hand collin meek went back To life as before and that life as before included committee armed robberies and he was Eventually arrested by the flying squad for a number of armed robberies in about 1997 They started to put A series of crimes to him and one of the crimes they put to him was the armed robbery at cullens in livable road islington in easter 1994 I was heavily involved in the trial of collin meek um We'd he'd been arrested by on our behalf by the flying squad um his home address in stoke newington And he said ah, yeah, I I did do that but I have this letter that Says that I can't be prosecuted for it And they looked at it and decided that it probably wasn't legally valid and charged him with it. Anyway, dang Imagine that meeting it showing the letter makes it that it's not valid His defense was primarily that he'd uh being granted immunity from prosecution Um to try and secure his witness evidence in relation to the trial of the north nourishment Oh, that's new from the beginning Got that letter and still got jammed. That's great That was not an argument that held sway at the old bailey So almost inevitably his I would have fought that defense team seized upon this and and spoke to the cps and uh there's a degree of of Misremembering around me here at the cps because they Kind of didn't recall having a conversation with duck harvey and myself about the letter anyway And I was summoned to go to the old bailey to collin meek's trial and was given a pretty sort of tough time by his team in the witness box and and I just Obviously told the truth and told it what it was like and said this was a position We were in we spoke to the cps. They told us to write the letter. We wrote the letter He actually didn't tell us very much, but yeah, we didn't know that he complied with his side the deal It's a matter for the court to decide what should be done about it and the decision of the court was that The letter shouldn't be a bar to prosecution. He was convicted of the collins robbery you know Cut a deal get it signed by all the proper channels and still get jammed Listen to this Several years later that sounds bogus to me for this that's another armed robberies So despite the fact that collin certain was given the worst grilling in the witness box that he'd ever had in his career The judge decided it wasn't a bargaining situation and he was convicted Of the crimes Ultimately the collins robbery. There's no doubt that collin meek's sentence of 10 years Actually was in part lowered to that figure because of the injuries that he suffered on the night I'm pretty certain about that that I would have expected a robbery of that level of violence and sophistication Ordinarily would probably received a longer term of imprisonment than at 10 years He Decided I think to retire from armed robbery but in 2005 He finally got his own 20 year prison sentence because he was convicted of a murder a murder of a drug dealer Who he shot while riding a motorbike and it's all there was a contract killing so Perhaps he thought that was an easier way to make money than doing armed robberies It was just another way for him to get into prison After the conclusion of all the trials and I went to see gary mullins at stoke manderville hospital by that stage gary was A paraplegic unable to move out of his bed, but he did speak to us quite candidly for some time He was very open about a life of crime that he committed. That was pretty clear in speaking to him The mullins was probably regretful Of how that night had played out And I think it was fairly obvious that he'd wished actually that he probably died on the night He didn't live for very long. Yeah, I ain't gonna lie man. Don't let me not be up. Don't don't I don't want to Just take me out the game coach. Be honest. He ended up Needing all sorts of full-time care obviously because of his condition and he died in a Some sort of residential care Facility in in west london about two years three years later It was an extraordinary case to be involved in and one that I learned from a lot Ultimately, I was it to end with a 30 year career in the cid And including myself as a detective inspector on homicide and serious crime And of all the cases this is the most fascinating actually and the one that When you get asked about what's the most interesting case you've ever been involved in Yeah, it is pretty interesting for sure the events of that april 1994 colin's in islington is the case that I referred back to Are there a work group? Oh, we don't Tla leave a like comment subscribe turn on your post notification. Very interesting. We don't need to watch this segment