Urgent hunt for gangland boss after he ‘breaks out of jail’
An urgent manhunt is underway to track down a notorious gangland boss who has escaped jail where he was serving an indefinite sentence for turning Liverpool into ‘Hell’s Kitchen’.
Daniel Gee, now aged 44, was a leading member of a powerful gang that turned the Grizedale estate in Everton, Liverpool into a 24-hour open air drug market.
Police and the Prison Service are working to recapture the gangster who is understood to have escaped a Category D prison.
He was jailed indefinitely in 2010 for the public’s protection after a secret probe found he conspired to buy guns and threatened to kill a teenager.
Notorious gangland boss Daniel Gee has absconded from prison, sparking a manhunt, with police and the prison service working together to locate and recapture the criminal
The gangster was plotting to arm himself after making death threats to Jamie Starkey – a 16-year-old gunman who shot him during a New Year’s day confrontation in 2008.
Jailing Gee indefinitely, the Recorder of Liverpool, Judge Henry Globe QC said: ‘I am in no doubt that the public must be protected from you in the future.
‘I really do not know when it will be safe to release you.’
He ordered Gee to serve a minimum of four years behind bars before his case could go before the parole board.
At the time, Gee’s barrister, Stuart Lawson-Rogers QC told Liverpool Crown Court that the gangster was ‘terrified’ an indefinite sentence would mean he would ‘never see the light of day again’.
The sentence ran at the same time as the seven-and-a-half year sentence he was serving for drugs offences.
The Liverpool Echo understands Gee was later transferred to a Category D open prison, from which he has escaped. The Ministry of Justice confirmed yesterday that Gee has absconded from prison.
A Prison Service spokesperson said: ‘All prisoners in Category D prisons are robustly risk-assessed and absconds are rare. Offenders who break the rules are punished and face extra time behind bars and we are working with the police to recapture this prisoner.’
Gee is one of Liverpool’s ‘Gee brothers’ who were known for dominating the Grizedale estate in the mid-2000s. His brother, Darren Gee was jailed for 18 years in 2006 for planning a revenge shooting of a member of a rival crime gang.
In 2017, another brother Stephen Gee, was handed a six year and eight month sentence after he robbed an OAP while high on cocaine and his dead brother’s anti-psychotic medication. He told Liverpool Crown Court that he had gone off the rails after his brother, Billy Gee, was tragically found hanged in 2016.
An abscond is an escape that does not involve overcoming a physical security restraint.
According to the Prison and Probation Service, Category D prisons have minimal security and allow eligible prisoners to spend most of their day away from the prison on licence to carry out work, education or for other resettlement purposes.
If an offender breaks the rules in an open prison, they are not permitted to return to an open prison for at least two years.
In a trial in October 2009, Gee was found guilty of two counts of threats to kill and another two of blackmail.
Jurors were unable to agree on the two more serious charges of conspiracy to murder and conspiracy to possess firearms and ammunition.
As his second trial was about to start, Gee, formerly of Maryport Close, Everton, admitted the second charge.
But Mr Lawson-Rogers told the court he had been in severe amounts of pain and trauma after Starkey’s ‘murderous and unprovoked’ attack.
