Drugs boss found with prison letters from pal Dale Cregan when police raided his home

A drugs boss had prison letters from one-eyed cop killer Dale Cregan in a bedside draw when police raided his home. Leon Atkinson, 44, stood trial accused of murder nearly ten years ago alongside his pal Cregan but was acquitted.

Now, though, been jailed for 15 years for his role in an international cocaine gang which also laundered more than £9 million in dirty money. During a search of his home in Atherton, officers found 'prison letters addressed to Aki from Dale Cregan', Manchester Crown Court heard.

The letters were found in a bedside table in a chest of drawers in the property's master bedroom. Cregan will die behind bars after being handed a whole life term for four murders, including police officers Pc Nicola Hughes, 23, and Pc Fiona Bone, 32.

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Cregan also murdered 23-year-old amateur boxer Mark Short at The Cotton Tree pub in Droylsden in May 2012, before murdering his victim's father, 46-year-old David Short, in a gun-and grenade attack at his home in Clayton three months later. Prosecutors at Cregan's trial alleged that he was acting on orders from Atkinson to exact revenge against the Short family, after one of them had 'disrespected' his mother.

Atkinson denied any involvement and told jurors that Cregan, a gym partner with whom he had been ‘good friends’, may have ‘done it off his own back’. Atkinson was cleared of murdering Mark Short and three associated counts of attempted murder.

PCs Hughes and Bone were murdered by Cregan in September 2012 while he remained on the run. They were lured to a house in Mottram, Tameside, to bogus reports of a burglary. Cregan ambushed the unarmed officers and opened fire, before using his 'calling card' of