'Enough is enough': The pub truce that brought a halt to the Gooch, Doddington and Cheetham Hill gang war

manchestereveningnews.co.uk:

The large group of men gathered around the pub table appeared to be regular punters. But if their fellow drinkers had cared to pay closer attention they might have picked up on the tension in the air - and the fact some were wearing bulletproof vests.

The meeting in Whalley pub in Whalley Range in the summer of 1994 was the first in a series of remarkable talks between Manchester's three main gangs which resulted in a truce that, temporarily at least, brought an end to a decade or more of bloodshed.

Sat around the table that night were leading figures from the Gooch and the Cheetham Hill gangs. Cautious and untrusting, the Doddington mob stayed in the car park while the talks were held, but warily agreed to the peace.

News of the truce was broken by the Manchester Evening News on Saturday, August 13, 1994 in a page two story headlined 'Gun gangs call halt to war on the streets'. READ MORE: 'My life with Curtis Warren and the Cali Cartel' "Murdering gangsters who have brought bloodshed and death to the streets of Manchester have been having secret 'truce' talks," wrote crime reporter Andrew Nott. "The violence in the inner-city gun war has reached such ferocity that influential gang members have decided 'enough is enough'. "Now members of the two Moss Side factions, the Gooch and the Doddington, have met with the Cheetham Hill mob, to try to call a halt to the tit-for-tat shootings which have left a trail of misery over the past decade." Nott quoted one gangster as saying: "It is very delicate because it only takes one small thing to wreck all that has been done, but so far the peace seems to be holding.