One of Britain’s most feared gangsters – dubbed the “Godfather of Death” for his brutality – was confined to his bungalow in a wheelchair as he built a drugs empire worth millions of pounds and ordered the executions of rivals.
Julian Bell was paralysed from the waist down at the age of 12 and received a whopping £500,000 in compensation after the accident.
He quickly got to work using the cash to avenge the death of his older brother Orville, who had been gunned down in a gang fight that plagued his area of Longsight in Manchester.
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Using the pay out, he bought a specially adapted BMW and smart bungalow before putting the rest towards funding his move into crime, reports Manchester Evening News.
It helped him build an arsenal of weapons including a Mac 10 and Uzi sub-machine guns, with respect and loyalty bought through Rolex watches, gems and bulletproof jackets.
His bloody Longsight Crew were soon at war with rival gangs the Pitt Bull Crew, Doddington Gang and Gooch Close Gang who battled for control of the city’s multi-million-pound drug trade, with at least 26 killings linked to the feud between 1999 and 2004.
But in February 2000, Bell was sent behind bars for two-and-a-half years after he threatened to kill a witness who was due to testify in a gangland assault trial.
On his release he employed a “chief minder” who was later jailed for shooting a man dead – and the investigation that followed was key to bringing down the gang lord’s estimated £1m drugs empire.
Cops raided Bell’s bungalow, where they seized guns, ammunition, a drug-cutting agent and a list of drug customers.
He was jailed for 20 years at Manchester Crown Court in March 2004 for conspiracy to supply heroin and conspiracy to possess firearms.
But decades later he was back on the streets and wasted no time in returning to his life of crime with a return to the drugs trade – this time in the south-west towns of Cheltenham and Gloucester.
Under the guise of running a jewellery business it’s thought Bell moved at least £500,000 of drugs into the two towns.
(Image: Gloucestershire Police)
The career criminal was then arrested once more when a total of 14 people were jailed for various drug trafficking and money laundering offences in 2018.
Bell, by then aged 40, was given ten-and-a-half- years after pleading guilty to supplying crack cocaine and heroin.
By the time he’s released once more, the bloodthirsty crime lord would have spent the majority of his adult life in prison.
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