Gangster

It’s New Year’s Day 1994 and Tyneside is waking up to the news of Viv Graham’s brutal murder. There is tension in the air and nobody knows what is going to happen next. What follows is a spiral of repercussions and tragedies which have spanned the decades and are still being felt to this day.

In the final episode, presenter Livvy Haydock meets pathologist Dr John McCarthy, who walked the scene of Viv Graham’s murder hours after his death, before carrying out his autopsy. It was the start of one of the most high profile murder investigations in Northumbria Police’s history. The killing happened just off a bustling street on one of the busiest nights of the year. Hopes were high that someone must have seen what had happened. More than 1,000 people were interviewed, hundreds of homes were searched and there were countless arrests but they couldn’t make a breakthrough.

Presenter – Livvy Haydock

Viv Graham is released from prison following a vicious assault on rival bouncer Stu Watson. He needs to make up for lost time and remind everyone who is boss. But while he’s been away in jail, Tyneside’s nightlife has been transformed in an explosion of ecstasy. This is one fight Viv Graham won’t be able to win.

In this episode, we follow Viv Graham as he tried to reassert his dominance on Tyneside’s nightlife, following his spell in prison. His services were in just as much demand as ever among pub and club owners but the arrival of ecstasy had raised the stakes. Now controlling nightclub doors was more lucrative than ever because it meant criminal gangs could also control the supply of the drugs into the venues. The problem for the gangs was Viv Graham protected many of the most lucrative bars and clubs and he played by his own rules. With every week that passed the threats to Viv Graham’s life were getting more serious. Graham himself knew he didn’t have long left and told his partner Anna he wouldn’t live to see 40. And he was right. On New Year’s Eve 1993, Viv Graham stepped out of the Queen’s Head pub in Wallsend and walked a few yards to a corner shop. Moments after leaving and walking towards his car, a gunman fired three shots at him from close range. He staggered back to the pub but his life was slipping away. Those three shots rang out across the city and through the decades.

Presenter - Livvy Haydock

It’s the summer of 1989 and the atmosphere on Tyneside is febrile. The economy is shrinking and tumbling towards recession but at the same time the nightlife is bouncing. And among the criminal underworld battles are raging to control the supply of drugs into pubs and clubs. Viv Graham is right in the firing line and danger lurks on every corner.

This episode tracks Viv Graham as he linked up with a member of the notorious Sayers crime firm. Graham was recruited to lead a vicious gang attack on another nightclub bouncer called Stu Watson. Graham pounded Watson with a relentless barrage of punches which left his victim bloodied and dazed. Stu Watson told presenter Livvy Haydock he was powerless to defend himself because he feared he would have been killed if he did.

Presenter – Livvy Haydock

Archive credits:

Viv Graham is right at the peak of his powers.

After starting as a nightclub doorman in Gateshead, he has grown to become the most powerful figure in Tyneside’s booming nightlife, with a vast pub and club protection empire. But trouble is brewing because a new party drug is landing and it’s going to turn his world upside down.

This episode charts the arrival of ecstasy in the North East and the dramatic changes it had on the region’s nightlife. A prominent DJ in Newcastle, Tom Caulker, remembers it all like it was yesterday - especially when the criminal gangs launched vicious battles to try to control the lucrative supplies of ecstasy in to clubs. The problem? Viv Graham had swathes of Tyneside’s most lucrative clubs and pubs sewn up - and he played by his own rules. These were dangerous times for Viv Graham and anyone associated with him. Guns were freely available among the criminal underworld and they were pointing at Viv Graham.

Presenter – Livvy Haydock

Archive

Viv Graham, a young man from the country, is about to land in the city and make a very big impression. In fact he’s going to take over the town.

Presenter – Livvy Haydock

Archive credits

On New Year's Eve 1993, Viv Graham, a 17-stone man mountain, stepped out of a Tyneside pub and walked a few yards towards his Ford Sierra Cosworth. But he never made it. Lurking in the shadows was a gunman who fired three shots at him from close range.

Presenter - Livvy Haydock

Archive credits:

A new series of Gangster tells the story of Viv Graham, a man who ran a protection empire which spanned Newcastle and beyond.

Viv Graham, a 17-stone man mountain, a man feared and revered in equal measure, came to dominate Tyneside’s nightlife through brutal and uncompromising violence.

His murder, in an organised hit on New Year’s Eve 1993, sparked recriminations and repercussions which echo to this day. It remains one of the country’s most notorious unsolved murders.

Presenter – Livvy Haydock

The EncroChat hack has given the police unprecedented access to the secrets of organised crime. Nearly four years on from the hack, the detective who led the Met’s EncroChat investigation, DCI Driss Hayoukane, reveals what the police have learnt about OCGs which they didn’t know before.

Presenter Mobeen Azhar hears about the impact of the EncroChat operation from Driss and from the National Crime Agency. There have been thousands of arrests, 200 threats to life averted and tonnes of drugs seized. But has taking out the kingpins cut crime?

Thanks also to Beena Khetani, Adele Humbert, Hugh Levinson, Ali Rezakhani, Rhiannon Cobb, and Jack Griffith.

The truth unearthed about Met police officer PC Kashif Mahmood is stranger than an episode of the fictional drama Line of Duty. And it was evidence unearthed in the EncroChat operation which made him plead guilty.

PC Kashif Mahmood had won five awards for his outstanding service as a police officer. But he was secretly working for an OCG in east London.

A detective from the Met police’s anti-corruption unit talks publicly for the first time about the most brazen case of corruption he’s ever seen.

Presenter: Mobeen Azhar

Little is known about who invented the EncroChat network and who owned it. Even the police who investigated the criminals using the network, know little about who’s behind it.

Journalists David James Smith and Joseph Cox explain what their investigations into the company reveal.

Plus, why an expert in cryptography thinks the whole EncroChat operation could fall apart on a legal technicality.

Presenter: Mobeen Azhar