A former gang member who served 18 years in jail for organising the murder of an innocent man has spoken about his enduring sense of guilt.
Darren Gee, now 40, organised the murder of David Regan during a violent north Liverpool drug war which raged across the city in 2004.
Gee was a leading member of a powerful Everton gang that turned the Grizedale estate into a 24 hour open air drug market.
His gang profited from the misery caused by drugs and used fear and violence to protect their territory.
Teenagers dressed in North Face were paid to stand on street corners and watch out for police and rival gangs.
But a fall out between William Moore and the Gees led to a spate of shootings, with Moore paying former SAS soldier Darren Waterhouse to try and kill members of the Gee family.
The former Coldstream Guard blasted the Gees' car and killed the wrong man - Craig Barker, 18, who died in hospital after the attack on Robson Street.
Ian Gee was riddled with bullets and nearly died, while Everton crook Mark Richardson, who was also in the car was wounded.
Gee, intent on revenge, soon set about plotting the murder of car wash boss David Regan.
He revealed to the ECHO about the endless guilt he still feels at organising the murder of the wrong man and discussed the aftermath of the shooting.
Gee said: "After we lost Craig I just went on a drugs bender - I was in bed at night with two guns by my side in case they came for me.
"I was told that David Regan was the getaway driver for Waterhouse and everyone around me wanted revenge. Craig Barker was dead and my brother Ian nearly died. There was pressure on me to do something so I organised David's murder.
"But when I later discovered that David Regan was not the driver it killed me. We had shot the wrong man and I had to live with that in jail. I also felt guilt over Craig's death.
"He died because he was with us and I blamed myself. Craig was just a kid who managed a local football team. He was not involved in crime. I have to live with this guilt everyday. You can't just shake it off."
Gee said ultimately realised he 'wasted his life' and bitterly regrets the decisions he made when he was involved in serious crime.
He said: "Yes if I could go back I would do things very differently. I should not have got involved in the conspiracy to murder David.
"But I can't and now I have to live with the consequences of what I did."
Gee told the ECHO how he and his brothers had a rough, dysfunction childhood that set them on the wrong path in life.
He said: "Danny and I slept in the same bedroom. We both got in trouble at school. I was expelled and then sent away after bottling a lad in a social club. That was it - I was done for.
"Danny and I both went into the system in our teens. My education was over by the time I was 13."
Gee explained some of the background to how he got involved in more serious crime.
He said: "Basically we saw everyone else was eating well and we were starving. I got into commercial burglary but it involved too much jail.
"Drug dealing was so much easier. At first it was hard to get it because the established crime firms [gangs] did not want to deal with us. But once we got some cash together that soon changed.
"People who hate you will sell you drugs if you have the cash. And once you are doing well everyone loves you - they want to be around you.
"I tried to stay away from direct involvement in the drugs but I lived off it. I had the nights out in town with well-known criminals but I was never really into the ego thing. I just had an orange juice.
"I just wanted to feed my family - I was never in love with the fame. I suppose the Craig Barker murder marked the beginning of the end."
Gee told the ECHO about the night Waterhouse tried to kill him.
He said: "Normally we all carried guns but on that particular day we had been to a funeral in Speke so were not carrying.
"After the funeral we had been to pick up a car in Southport and then headed back to our estate.
"I had swapped seats with Craig and Ian was driving. We spotted this car parked up with no lights on and then some fella jumped out of the back and fired a shot straight through a passenger seat window. And then Ian stalled the car.
"He then ran at our car and I remember thinking that he was well trained. He was not a local scally with a gun.
"I remember him leaning into the front of our car and shooting Craig at point blank range - he just kept firing. It all seemed to happen very, very slowly."
He said: "When the shooting stopped Mark Richardson ran off and I tried to save Craig. I got Ian out of the driver's seat and headed into town to the hospital. But the gearbox was not working I could not get out of second gear.
"The engine was screaming so I had to stop another car.
"I got Craig into the second car but Ian told me to leave him. An armed response vehicle took him and probably saved his life.
"Later on I remember hearing the screaming in the ward and I knew Craig was dead."
Gee said that he now realises that drugs had ruined north Liverpool.
He said: "I hate drug dealers because of the harm they do. Drugs destroy families. Children start robbing from their parents and then the police come. That is the start of the end for any family.
"I know of schoolgirls who are addicted to cocaine. They have come to me for help. The problem is that they get bored with coke after a few years and then move onto the crack cocaine. Then they become crack addicts.
"The dealers know all this. They groom the girls and turn them into addicts. They pass them around. Some girls turn to prostitution to fund their habits.
"They can be high class prostitutes in fancy flats in town paid for by a sugar daddy, or just work on the street."
He said that he was particularly concerned about the amount of young people smoking cannabis in the city.
Gee said: "When we started it out it was Moroccan and very mild. But the Cali weed now is so strong. You can imagine the effect it has on young people's minds.
"I think its a potential mental health time bomb in Liverpool. In the north of the city all the kids smoke the Cali weed and I mean all. It's nothing to them now."
Gee said that he has seen drugs change Liverpool.
He said: "I remember when the drugs money started to flow through around the end of the 80s and early 90s. Everyone was suddenly in Sierra Cosworths and BMW Alpinas."
He said that he did not agree with the argument that legalisation offered a way forward.
He said: "Yes in the legislation would to an extent remove criminals from the equation. But the results would wreck society. Drugs are bad for you- people tend to forget that point."
Gee said that Liverpool's crime scene had become more anarchic over the years.
He said: "When we came through there were still the heavy established firms that kept a lid on things. But as they have been jailed for gone into decline, the new breed have taken over.
"It's anarchy now with gangs fighting over rival patches and street corners across the city."
Gee accepted that he had helped sow the seeds of drugs and crime that had now become embedded.
He said: "Yes we were partly to blame. Drugs have ruined Liverpool and I hate drug dealers. Looking back we had a couple of years in the sunshine and that was it. And that is true for the firms now. You have a little go and then it all goes bad."
the first part of the ECHO's interview with Darren Gee about threats made against his life and a 'new wave' of young criminals who want him dead.
Full story behind the Gees
Darren Gee was directly involved in a gang war which raged across the city in 2004
Gee, along with his brothers Daniel and Stephen, were based on the Grizedale estate in Everton
Police set up a community task force based at Walton Lane police station to try and target the brother's crime group
When the Gees fell out with a rival crime group gang it resulted in a spate of shootings. Craig Barker, a friend of the Gees, was shot dead on the estate
In retaliation Darren Gee organised the cold blooded murder of David Regan, who owned a car wash in Old Swan.
In the same year criminal associates of the Gees let off a wave of massive car bombs outside nightclubs, family homes and police stations.
Andy Cooke, the Chief Constable of Merseyside Police, recently spoke to the ECHO about the level of threat posed by organised crime in 2004
He said that there were 10 fatal shootings and 112 discharges in 2004, compared to five fatal shootings and 79 discharges over the last 12 months.
Daniel and Stephen Gee are now serving long prison sentences. William Moore and Darren Waterhouse are serving life sentences for the murder of Craig Barker.
Mark Richardson, a former associate of the Gees, is serving a life sentence for the murder of Michael Wright.
