Raised on the streets of a 'tough Manchester council estate' Shay Doyle could easily have turned to a life of crime. Instead, he ended up playing the part of a gangster and helped bring down some of Manchester's most feared underworld figures.
The soldier-turned-undercover policeman risked his life to infiltrate south Manchester's gangland. He was also on the frontline of some of the most high profile police operations in Greater Manchester history, including the Stepping Hill poisonings and the hunt for double cop killer Dale Cregan.
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But the 17 years he spent in his covert career took a terrible toll on his personal life and mental health, sparking a catastrophic breakdown. Now, in an explosive memoir, Doyle (not his real name) has told how he went from a council estate kid to become one of the UK's elite undercover cops.
Doyle began his career in Greater Manchester Police on the beat in Tameside. But his talents and street smarts were noticed by his superiors from the off.
Soon he was headhunted by GMP's specialist undercover unit and tasked with infiltrating the city's underworld. All of his old life was removed and he was given a new identity - that of Belfast-raised 'grafter' and armed robber Mikey O'Brien.
His new persona even came with a criminal record that included arrests for armed robberies, assault and a firearms possession in the Netherlands. Then came the training.
Shay, the son of second generation Irish parents, was sent to Belfast to perfect his cover story. There he received firearms and explosive handling instruction from the Special Branch, while back in London MI5 officers gave him a crash course in lock-picking, car theft and counter surveillance.
"It was like I'd vanished. I was given a new passport, birth certificate, driving licence, bank cards, credit cards, all the essential documents for a new identity," said Doyle in a interview with the Star. "I learned how to make cutting charges to blow a hole in a wall and how to breach the skin of an armoured cash van with a shape charge.
"I was even sent to a diamond centre to learn about clarity and cut. No stone was left unturned.
"I'd wear designer jeans – Diesel or Armani – a Boss or Ralph Lauren polo and Members Only-style jacket with a five-grand kettle, usually a Rolex.
"It was decided I needed a girlfriend so Nikki (a fellow UC officer) would be dressed to the nines in Jimmy Choo heels with a Gucci or Vuitton handbag. I had a 50 grand Mercedes, a tidy bird by my side, pockets fat with cash and the menace of a big league villain."
Then came the hard part - infiltrating the Moss Side gangs. Shay and Nikki got a flat above a newsagents on the Princess Parkway and began hitting bars and restaurants as a couple, getting their faces known. His mission was to convince the local crime bosses that he was a force to be reckoned with.
Residents in the redbrick terraces of Claremont Road must have been tearing their hair out when they saw him roaring down the street in a black Mercedes convertible with personalised plates - roof down, Prada shades on, garage music pumping out of the speakers.
"That was who Mikey O'Brien had to be," said Doyle. "He had to give off that 'I'm someone to be reckoned with, I don't give a ****' vibe."
And the plan worked. Over the course of a year Doyle became known around Moss Side and Hulme and became a regular drinker in the area.
From there he slowly worked his way in, doing the odd drug deal, and building valuable acquaintances with some of the main players in south Manchester. He was put to work to gather info on criminals taking over from the feared Gooch Gang, many of whom were jailed in 2009. Ringleader Colin Joyce was caged for 39 years and Les Amos was given 35 years for a catalogue of crimes, including murder.
Based on intelligence he’d gathered, police arrested four gangland figures and found a fully loaded MAC-10-style machine gun and a couple of kilos of skunk in a car. But pretending to be a gangster played havoc with Doyle's home life.
"Even going to the supermarket with my girlfriend was a f***ing drama," he said. "One time we were in my local Tesco when I spotted someone I knew turning into the aisle we were in.
“I quickly turned on my heels and walked out without being seen. Socialising was a no-go. I was exhausted from long late-night deployments. The pace was relentless."
Doyle stepped back from undercover work and moved onto GMP's major incident team. There he investigated the Stepping Hill hospital poisonings and conman killer Stephen Seddon.
The biggest case of his career began just after midnight on May 25, 2012 when Mark Short was shot dead as he played pool in the Cotton Tree pub in Droylsden.
The suspected gumnan was one-eyed drug dealer Dale Cregan. He fled to Thailand, but was arrested at Manchester Airport on his return.
After being questioned over Short's murder, he was released on bail. But on August 8, Cregan struck again, shooting dead Mark Short's dad David at his home in Clayton, before throwing a grenade at his lifeless body.
Ten minutes later a second grenade was thrown at another Short family member's house in Droylsden, but no-one was injured. The attacks sparked one of the biggest manhunts in UK history.
"I remember watching it all unfold and thinking it was like Northern Ireland in the bad old days," writes Doyle. "There was an air of excruciating tension unlike anything I'd ever witnessed in the police before."
A £50,000 reward was put up for information leading to Cregan's arrest. Based on his undercover expertise Doyle was drafted into a three-man covert team, dubbed the proactive intelligence cell, tasked with using underworld contacts to find the killer.
But on the morning of September 18, 2012, Cregan struck again in devastating fashion. He lured PCs Fiona Bone and Nicola Hughes to Abbey Gardens, Mottram in Longdendale through a false report of a burglary.
There he unleashed a hail of bullets on the two unarmed officers, tossed a hand grenade on their dying bodies and then calmly handed himself in at Hyde police station.
Doyle arrived minutes after Cregan. "He was on his knees, head bowed, his bloodied hands cuffed behind his back," he writes.
"My calm facade belied the rage erupting inside. For 42 days he'd been at large, 42 days that ended in an act of unimaginable horror. I can still see his face. It still haunts me."
Doyle was medically discharged from the police in 2020 suffering from PTSD. Now in his 40s, he feels he has paid a heavy price for his career. "I sacrificed my mental health for it," he said in an interview with the Daily Express.
And a big part of that, he says, is that new officers, without experience in covert work, failed to understand the role. "In the business world, you put experts in their field in charge of certain areas of operation. The police quite often don't follow that model," he says. "Ego hinders management in the police world."
But despite the disllusionment and the toll the job took, Doyle remains proud of what he achieved.
"I'm proud of the work I did that kept people safe, that stopped them from being shot dead, that removed guns from the streets. That's what I signed up to do.
"I put myself up for the risky stuff because I felt I could do it and I felt I should. The police get such a bashing, but we don't hear about the every day, when a child is saved, or a vulnerable person is protected."
Deep Cover by Shay Doyle and Scott Hesketh is available through Amazon, Waterstones, and WH Smith.
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