Serial murders, rapists and underworld bosses have all been ushered through the doors of Strangeways. HMP Manchester, which it is officially known as, was opened on June 25, 1868, and since then has seen famous executions, prison riots, and thousands of inmates.
Late last year it was revealed that Manchester city council had approached the government about the prospect of Strangeways prison being closed and relocated out of Manchester.
The council argued that the prison is 'coming to the end of its natural lifespan' and is not suitable for the 'significant remodelling and expansion' needed to bring it up to modern-day standards.
With the prison's future in question, the Manchester Evening News looks at the cases of some of the most dangerous prisoners to have spent time at Strangeways.
Ian Brady
Brady spent just three months in Strangeways - at 17-years-old - before he became a notorious serial killer. In his teens Brady was in and out of juvenile court. He eventually moved to Manchester where he was caught smuggling a sack full of lead seals from a market and was sent to prison.
Years later, Brady went on to horrifically lure five children to their deaths, between the years 1963 and 1965, with his partner Myra Hindley. The pair buried their victims' bodies on Saddleworth Moor.
Dr Harold Shipman
The doctor from Hyde was remanded at Strangeways for four months while he awaited trial for 15 counts of murder. In 30 years as a GP in the town, Shipman is believed to have killed between 215 and 260 people, injecting mainly elderly patients with lethal doses of diamorphine
He was sentenced to 15 life sentences and a four-year sentence for forgery. Shipman eventually took his own life in his cell at Wakefield Prison in 2004.
Mark Bridger
Mark Bridger was held at Strangeways after he was charged with the child abduction and murder of five-year-old April Sue-Lyn Jones. April’s case was one that gripped the nation after the little girl disappeared, having been seen climbing into a vehicle near her home in Wales. ‘
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Dale Cregan
One eyed spree killer Dale Cregan was the stuff of nightmares. In 2012, he went on a terrifying campaign of murder - one that saw him kill a gang rival father and son before staging the sickening ambush of two female police officers, who died at his hands.
In May 2012 he shot 23-year-old Mark Short in the Cotton Tree Pub in Droylsden - and attempted to kill three other men. Police arrested Cregan but were unable to charge him due to a lack of evidence and he was released on bail. Then, just a few months later he went on to murder Short’s father, David, by shooting him and throwing a hand grenade onto his dead body.
Cregan went on the run for 42 days, wanted for the double murder, before committing his most gruesome and appalling crime.
In September 2012 he made national news when he lured two female police officers to his home in Hattersley in an ambush where he unleashed a hail of bullets at them and threw grenades at the fallen pair. The two women sadly lost their lives in the unprovoked attack.
Cregan then chillingly handed himself in at Hyde Police Station and was eventually sentenced to life in jail. The years that followed saw Cregan go back and forth between psychiatric hospitals and Category A prisons including Strangeways.
Dr Buck Ruxton
Known as the ‘jigsaw killer’, Ruxton was hanged at Strangeways for the brutal murder of his wife and maid.
The Indian physician from Lancaster had mutilated the bodies of the women he killed, dismembering them to the point were detectives could not identify their sex. Buxton’s case was monumental in that it was the first where a criminal was identified by using fingerprints.
He spent most of his days at Strangeways where he was executed aged 37.
Reyhnard Sinaga
The case of serial rapist Reynhard Sinaga shocked the nation to its core. The most prolific rapist in British judicial history, Sinaga raped men who had been out clubbing in Manchester.
The Indonesian PHD student would lure men back to his city centre flat before poisoning them with GHB, raping them and filming them while they were ‘comatose’.
Detectives believed that the true number of victims is at least 195, based on the hundreds of hours of video footage he took of the attacks.
Sinaga was caught after a teenager he had lured back to his home woke up while Sinaga was assaulting him and beat Sinaga so badly that he had to hospitalised. Sinaga was given a life sentence and was originally held at Strangeways before being transferred to HMP Wakefield.
Dominic Noonan
The notorious gangland boss' darkest secret was that he was also a sex offender. Dominic Noonan was initially known for his grip on the Manchester underworld but in 2018 he was found guilty of 13 historical sex offences against four young boys, aged as young as 10.
Noonan was already serving an 11 year sentence for arson, blackmail and perverting the course of justice when he was sent down for the sex offences, for which he was given a separate 11 year sentence.
Born to Irish parents and raised in Whalley Range, as one of 14 siblings whose first names all began with the letter D, supposedly for Dublin, Noonan rose to notoriety alongside his brothers Damien and Dessie by initially specialising in armed robbery.
Kiaran Stapleton
The death of Anuj Bidve was a tragedy that made headlines across the world. The international student from India lost his life in a senseless attack, when he was shot and in Ordsall Lane in Salford.
Anuj had gone to visit some friends in the area on Boxing Day in 2011 when he was gunned down by local factory worker Kiaran Stapleton when their paths met on the street. Stapleton who once referred to himself as ‘Psycho Stapleton’ was convicted of Anuj’s murder and was jailed for life at Strangeways.
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