Mine is the Gunn crime family in Nottingham.

Two brothers brought up on a council estate and ended up with a £50m empire. They were lauded on the estate and quite rightly so as there was hardly any crime and when there was people didn’t ring the police they rang them and they sorted it. They’d throw huge bonfire parties for the whole estate, give money to families who were struggling to buy presents for their kids, check in on the old lonely folk and make sure they were ok. They were like royalty and their subjects loved them.

They were implicated in a lot of shootings and many other crimes over the years and stories of them nailing the hands of their opposition to park benches, dousing them in petrol and flicking matches at them kept them safe from someone trying to steal their business.

It came crashing down when a nephew of theirs was shot at. He wasn’t hit but his best friend was and he died. This sent the nephew spiralling in to depression. At the killers sentencing he threw water over the victims family and said “your sons head looked like a donut with a big read hole in the middle”. The nephews depression went deeper after this, he wasn’t looking after himself and he died in his sleep from pneumonia.

This next bit is all according to the courts although many people think they are innocent, I’m not passing opinion. The family blamed the killer for the young man’s death and looked to seek revenge. They couldn’t get to him but just a week after the nephews death the parents of the killer were gunned down in their seaside bungalow in a peaceful little community where they thought they were safe and hidden having had their home in Nottingham shot at with a machine gun just an day after their son killer someone.

This along with the crime families connection to a killing of a mum who was shot dead in an armed robbery jumping in front of her daughter to save her life meant pressure was mounting on the police to do something. The 19 year old gunman in that killing was last seen just two hours after the shooting with rumours he was killed and buried as punishment.

I won’t go in to details about the trial but one of the brothers was convicted and the other found not guilty. It was the first time mobile phone location was used as the main evidence in a trial as there was nothing physical really to prove they were involved. The trial also uncovered corrupt police officers. The brother who was convicted was also involved in a helicopter escape plot from prison.

There’s a couple of documentaries and interviews about it all and it’s a lot more fascinating than I’ve made it sound.