He received several threat-to-life warnings up until his murder in 2015
Paul Massey in 2012(Image: GMP)
The family of Paul Massey told a coroner they feel ‘punished, marginalised and criminalised’ as they continue their fight for an inquest into his death.
The loved ones of Salford’s ‘Mr Big’ are pushing for a full hearing to explore alleged police failures to protect him from threats on his life prior to his murder.
Massey received at least five so-called ‘Osman’ warnings during his life – from 2009 up until the weeks before assassin Mark Fellows blasted him to death with an Uzi sub-machine on the doorstep of his home in Clifton in July 2015.
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It came at the height of a vicious war between a Salford gang known as the A-Team – whose members considered Massey a mentor and elder – and a rival faction, the Anti A-Team.
Today (Thursday, August 21), his family made a final plea to a senior coroner at a further pre-inquest review. Massey’s family wants a coroner to hold a full inquest, claiming cops failed to personally deliver a threat-to-life notice to him weeks before he was gunned down.
His loved ones said he received his first threat-to-life warning from Greater Manchester Police in April 2012 – around the time he mounted a failed bid to become mayor of Salford – and that he talked openly about it and took steps to protect himself.
Paul Massey in 2015(Image: M.E.N.)
Massey’s final ‘Osman’ warning was delivered to his home in May 2015, eight weeks before his death. It was posted through the letter box.
His family believes officers should have made efforts to deliver it personally. They say he would never have gone to a funfair with his grandkids two weeks later if he knew of the threat.
A 2017 internal investigation by GMP cleared two officers who delivered the warning, the Manchester Evening News has previously reported.
The officers said nobody answered the door and Massey’s partner, when they informed her they had a threat to life warning for him, shouted from a window for them to post it through the letterbox ‘with the rest of them’. After his death, police found the document and Massey’s fingerprints on it.
GMP’s internal investigation found Massey was handed five ‘Osman’ warnings in his life, but said there was no record he received another one – as his family claims – during his failed 2012 bid to become mayor of Salford.
Paul Massey
National police guidance says such warnings should be handed over personally ‘where appropriate’, but can also be delivered in other ways – for instance over the phone if the subject is abroad.
Massey told the BBC in 1998 for a documentary, which was never aired, he could be murdered ‘at any time’. He suggested there would be dire consequences for any would-be assassin, laughing: “I pity the b*****d who did it after.”
He said he knew of supposed ‘friends’ who wanted him dead, but that he was ‘just laughing at them’ because they wouldn’t dare to do it.
Massey said ‘they know what would f***ing happen after’ and insisted he didn’t consider any of them a threat ‘because they ain’t got the f***ing balls’.
At the pre-inquest review at Bolton Coroners’ Court, to examine whether a full hearing should be scheduled, senior Manchester West coroner Timothy Brennand heard arguments on behalf of Massey’s family and GMP.
Mark Fellows(Image: PA)
He adjourned the case until next Wednesday (August 27), when he will announce whether there will be a full inquest. “Rushed decisions invariably give rise to bad decisions,” Mr Brennand said.
“I don’t want to put myself under pressure of time. I want to get it right.”
Earlier, Anna Morris KC, representing Massey’s family, asked GMP to provide details of the intelligence which prompted his threat to life notices.
She insisted an inquest was required as there has never been an independent review of what measures the force took to protect him. GMP has already provided the court a dossier of contacts Massey had with police.
Police potentially breached Massey’s ‘article 2’ right to life under the Human Rights Act 1998, claimed the KC, who questioned what steps the force had taken ‘to stop these threats materialising’.
Paul Massey(Image: MEN Media)
The coroner said it was a matter if ‘profound regret’ GMP had not provided information requested by the family about the nature of the threats to Massey 10 years after his death. He said any comment that Massey ‘lived by the sword and died by the sword’ was ‘not how any court should approach this matter’.
Jonathan Dixey KC, representing GMP, said the force held ‘a lot of material’ about the case and had ‘sought to provide what’s been asked for’. The force denied the service of the final ‘Osman’ warning was ‘sub-optimal’, he said.
Ms Morris said the Massey family, many of whom were in the public gallery, remain ‘devastated’ about his death and were still ‘fighting’ for answers a decade on. The family believes he may have taken ‘preventative measures’ had he known about the threat, said the KC.
The delivery of the threat was ‘casual’ and ‘did not indicate any sense of gravity’, she said.
Paul Massey and his daughter, Kelly Massey(Image: Kelly Massey)
Ms Morris said: “Yes, it does matter who Paul Massey was. It looks like there were a number of threats to his life throughout his lifetime. It’s clear from the evidence he’s somebody who’s known to the public and well-known to the police.
“What’s striking to the family to this day is the report of a retired police officer, that when Mr Massey was gunned down and killed, the police were elated that Mark Fellows had done them a favour. This has only increased the concerns the family have that police have not done enough to protect him.”
Summarising a statement Massey’s daughter Massey had made for the court, Ms Morris said the family felt it was ‘fighting for answers as to how their father died’ and felt ‘punished by the delays’ in finding them.
The family believes there had been ‘cover-ups’ and that they had been ‘marginalised and criminalised’ because of Massey’s reputation, she said. Massey was a ‘father who was loved and lost’, said the KC.
Proceeding