Heartbreak as grandma, 86, dies after being struck by electric motorbike ‘while using zebra crossing' in horror crash
Gloria Stephenson was mowed down as she used a zebra crossing on Burdon Road in Sunderland on May 16, police revealed.
The black Sur-Ron e-bike was travelling in a southbound direction when it was said to have hit Ms Stephenson, said Northumbria Police.
An 18-year-old was later arrested later on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving after allegedly fleeing the scene.
The teenager has since been released on police bail pending further inquiries.
Gloria's family have now paid tribute to the "amazing" pensioner, saying she was "full of life".
'We are all devastated at the loss of our vibrant, active, beautiful, and intelligent mam, grandma, mother-in-law and great grandma," the family said.
They added: "She was active, fit, healthy, and had years left to give her love and share her energy and zest for life with everyone who knew her.
"The family want to express their heartfelt thanks and gratitude to everyone who supported mam, and her daughter and grandson at the scene."
Locals said she was walking her daughter's rescue terrier at the time.
Most read in The Sun
Following the tragedy,
neighbours
revealed Gloria was walking her daughter's rescue dog - and said she was so fit and healthy that they had expected her to live to 100.
Northumbria Police has urged witnesses to contact them with information and footage of the collision.
Sergeant Russell
Surrey
, of Northumbria Police, said: "Our thoughts remain with all of Gloria's family and loved ones as they try to process what has happened.
"We will support them in any way that we can, as we look to get them the answers they deserve."
1
Gloria Stephenson died after she was allegedly hit by an electric motorbike while she used a pedestrian crossing in Sunderland
Credit: PA
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The Irish Sun
2 hours ago
- The Irish Sun
The baby-faced molls running £20m drug empires & even plotting MURDER in Love Island-inspired ‘gangster chic' crime wave
Crime expert tells The Sun why young, glamorous women are risking their freedom for life in the narco underworld - and reveals how 'genuine sociopaths' live among us GLAM WARS The baby-faced molls running £20m drug empires & even plotting MURDER in Love Island-inspired 'gangster chic' crime wave THEIR jet-setting selfies make these young women look like they have the world at their feet, but behind the glamour lies tales of heroin smuggling, child 'slaves' and even a hitman murder. In a new phenomenon known as 'gangster chic', baby-faced criminal molls are ditching office jobs to help run county-lines drugs gangs and cocaine empires, showing off their ill-gotten designer gear in boastful social media posts to make them look like Love Island stars. 29 Georgia Burns got involved in a county lines dealing heroin and crack cocaine Credit: Cavendish 29 Sian Banks was helping to import huge amounts of drugs Credit: Facebook 29 Hairdresser Jessica Lang was in a gang with her family and boyfriend Credit: Cavendish Press Earlier this year, it was revealed that glamorous grade A student Sian Banks was busted for running a £20million drugs import empire with her boyfriend Eddie Burton. The trial heard how the 25-year-old revelled in painting a lavish picture of her life, posting snaps from yacht parties to glamorous nights out. But Banks is not the only Insta-savvy young moll to have emerged in recent times who, instead of finishing their studies or heading on their first girls' holiday, are spending their golden years behind bars. While some of these young women may have been lured in by the designer bags, flash cars, 'influencer lifestyle' and the lucrative spoils a gangster life can bring, others may be vulnerable victims of childhood trauma, manipulation and control. Criminologist Alex Iszatt explains: 'These young women are not simply naive girls led astray. They are the product of a perfect storm of vulnerability, ambition and the deep failings of the society around them. 'Low self-esteem, fractured family relationships and histories of abuse leave some women craving safety and belonging. 'That craving acts like a flashing neon sign to 'some' men who can spot vulnerability instantly, and then wrap exploitation in the language of love and protection, while manipulating and gaslighting." Alex also believes that some women begin as victims but adapt to survive and develop a taste for the very power that once terrified them. And she says social media has had a pivotal role to play in making a life of crime seem like a glamorous and exciting career choice for some young women. 'Social media puts a golden glow on to what's seen as 'gangster chic' making it a marketable fantasy,' she explains. 'Designer clothes, BMW selfies and luxury holidays serve as proof of status rather than warning signs. Gangster gran who used family to run UK-wide cocaine ring & splashed cash on designer accessories for her CAT is jailed 'But with all social media, the curated images hide the relentless paranoia, the endless waiting, and the ever-present threat of violence." It's easy to see why teenagers may crave the lifestyle - actively searching for a partner that can give them an adventure, they don't see the reality that it's a trap, which some women only escape when they are killed or imprisoned. 'And who can blame them when their role models are just as fake?" says Alex. "The Love Islanders with their bought faces and sponsored lifestyles. The reality stars, famous for being famous. The influencers peddling designer dreams with no substance behind them. "These hollow icons have normalised the idea that image is everything - that worth comes from labels and likes rather than character." But Alex says there is another explanation for the baby-faced moll that society does not want to contemplate - the ruthless young woman who herself is the criminal mastermind. 'In reality we want to cling to comfortable narratives about female criminals: the vulnerable girl, the loyal partner, the victim of circumstance,' she says. 29 The molls desperately try to pursue flash, selfie saturated lives with their ill-gotten earnings Credit: Cavendish 29 But this haul by the National Crime Agency shows how inevitably, the molls lose out Credit: NCA 'But this is fiction. There exists another kind of woman who unsettles precisely because she defies explanation. She isn't driven by fear, love or survival, she commits crimes because she wants to, she enjoys it. 'These women – the genuine sociopaths, narcissists and psychopaths– refuse to fit our neat categories." Here, we reveal the astonishing lives of Britain's baby-faced gangsters' molls - and how the law finally caught up with them. Sian Banks 29 Grade A student Banks was busted for running a £20 million drug smuggling empire Credit: Facebook 29 She ended up being arrested in a nightclub in Ibiza Credit: Facebook Banks and 23-year-old Burton orchestrated two large-scale drug imports as the pair conspired to flood the UK with heroin, cocaine and ketamine. Border Force officials stopped two lorries in the summer of 2022 containing 307kg of drugs with a street value of £20million. A huge manhunt was launched for Burton, whose DNA was found on the smuggled goods. Cops managed to track the criminal to party island Ibiza where he was arrested in Pacha nightclub. Burton's life of crime started when he was just a freckled youngster, dealing drugs on the streets of Liverpool from the age of just ten. 29 The A-grade student was put behind bars for five years Credit: NCA 29 Burton had been dealing drugs since he was ten years old Credit: NCA While wannabe influencer Banks was no stranger to crime herself - carrying out illegal activity to fund a luxury lifestyle. She was studying at a top university, but her barrister claimed it was her 'love of the lifestyle' offered by Burton that pulled her into a life of crime. But that lifestyle is over as she was sentenced to five years behind bars earlier this year after pleading guilty to six offences including importing class A drugs and money laundering. Georgia Burns 29 Georgia Burns helped her boyfriend run a county lines gang when she was just 19 Credit: Cavendish 29 The glam moll helped her boyfriend exploit teenage "slaves" Credit: Cavendish At the age of just 19, Georgia Burns was helping her boyfriend to run a racket in which three 16-year-old schoolboys were used as ''slaves'' to deal drugs. Burns, from Failsworth, near Oldham, agreed to repeatedly drive her boyfriend 100 miles from their homes in Manchester to Hull where one of the exploited teenagers was set up in a squalid flat. Officers seized heroin and crack from the flat worth £2,295 plus £3,162 in cash. Burns had driven Upton, 25, to Hull four times and made two trips with one of the boys. 29 Burns avoided jail by the "skin of her teeth" Credit: MEN Media 29 Jamie Upton was jailed for nine years and three months Credit: Cavendish Her defence barrister told Bolton Crown Court that she had been in a relationship with Upton since being just 16-years-old, and that she did not like the excitement of a criminal lifestyle - she had been manipulated and controlled. In May 2023, Burns, who was at this point, 22, and Upton of Newton Heath, Manchester admitted being concerned in the supply of crack and heroin between March 2020 and March 2021. Burns was told she had avoided prison "by the skin of her teeth", and was sentenced to two years jail suspended for two years and was ordered to complete 200 hours unpaid work. Upton, who also pleaded guilty to arranging the travel of another person with a view to exploitation under the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and possession of Class A drugs with intent to supply, was jailed for nine years and three months. Jessica Lang 29 Jessica Lang was jailed for five years for helping her brothers and boyfriend run a criminal empire Credit: Cavendish Press 29 The hairdresser was just 21 when she was jailed Credit: Cavendish Press Pretty hairdresser Jessica Lang was only 21 when she was jailed for five years for helping her brothers and boyfriend run a £3million drugs empire. The mum-of-one would join her lover Scott Le Drew on cash deliveries and liaised with her brothers Bradley and Anthony Gill as they arranged vast quantities of cocaine, cannabis and amphetamine to be ferried from Manchester to Blackpool. Police using bugging equipment taped Lang as she sat in a car with Le Drew and advised him how he should conduct his money collections. She also passed messages between members of their gang using encrypted mobile phones as they peddled the narcotics to addicts in Blackpool. 29 Lang was caught when police bugged her car Credit: Cavendish Press 29 Le Drew was jailed for 11 years Credit: Cavendish Press In 2018, at Preston Crown Court, Lang, from Grange Park, Blackpool, denied wrongdoing but was convicted of conspiracy to supply cocaine and cannabis and sentenced to five years in prison. Anthony Gill, 33, from Middleton, and Bradley Gill, 28, from Blackpool both admitted conspiracy to supply cocaine and were each sentenced to 14 years. Le Drew, 31, was jailed for 11 years and four months after he was convicted of conspiracy to supply class A and class B drugs and possession of a prohibited weapon CS gas. Amy King 29 Amy King escaped jail after she made a brave statement about her drug dealing ex Credit: Cavendish 29 The 25-year-old pleaded guilty to possession of cannabis with intent to supply Credit: Cavendish Amy King came from a devout Methodist family but faced up to seven years in prison after stashing cannabis for her drug dealer boyfriend. The 25-year-old pleaded guilty to possession of cannabis with intent to supply and conspiracy to deal in cannabis in 2023 but escaped jail after the judge praised her bravery in giving a statement about her drug dealer ex. She was given a 12-month community order at Chester Crown Court after she was arrested when police raided her home in Chester, Cheshire, and recovered 1.6kg of cannabis worth £17,000. 29 Her boyfriend Chadwick was jailed for 11 years Credit: Cavendish 29 Chadwick's partner McLoughlin was also jailed for ten years Credit: Cavendish Judge Steven Everett accepted King was under "pressure and stress" after she claimed she was forced to keep cannabis in her flat having run up a drugs debt with ex-boyfriend Alfie Chadwick. She had already served 16 months on remand while awaiting trial. Meanwhile, Chadwick, from Blacon, Chester was jailed for 11 years at an earlier hearing after he was convicted of drugs offences. His drug-dealing partner Jordan McLoughlin, 25, was also jailed for ten years. Bretony Gallimore 29 Bretony Gallimore tried to help her boyfriend get away with murder Credit: Men Syndication 29 Gallimore was jailed for three years Credit: Social Media - Refer to Source Beauty therapist Gallimore was only 24 when she was jailed for trying to help her boyfriend get away with murder. She booked a hotel room for Anthony Henry and allowed him to use her phone after he ordered a hit on Kieran McGrath. Gallimore, from Manchester, was jailed for three years in 2016 after she was found guilty of assisting an offender. Liverpool Crown Court heard that bare-knuckle fighter Henry, 31, was angry after Mr McGrath "battered" him twice in pre-arranged duels during a feud over a girl. But when scaffolder Mr McGrath offered his opponent a third round, Henry declined and retorted: 'It's alright, I've got someone to do you.' 29 Anthony Henry ordered the hit after he lost a feud 29 Remi Adams carried out the hit Credit: Men Syndication Just days later Mr McGrath was about to drive away from a pub when a hitman drew up alongside him and shot at him four times. Henry, was convicted of murder after a three-month trial and was jailed for life with a minimum recommendation he serve 33 years. Hitman Remi Adams, 33, was convicted of murder after a retrial at Manchester Crown Court and was jailed for life with a minimum term of 30 years. Jace Smith, 31, and Troy Beckford, 23, were also convicted of roles in the murder and each got a life sentence. Smith got a minimum 30 years and Beckford 31. Emma Lavery 29 Emma Lavery was living a life far more expensive than her Topshop earnings should have allowed Credit: Cavendish 29 Lavery and her boyfriend Adam Hussain embarked on a luxury 'Instagram' lifestyle Credit: Cavendish Shop assistant Lavery earned just £7,000 a year in Topshop, but still managed to splash out on designer gear, a BMW, European city breaks and private healthcare. But after she clocked off from her day job she was secretly helping her boyfriend run a cocaine empire. Don't forget bags, have you got bags, I need bags Emma Lavery Lavery, then 24, carried a Gucci handbag and moved into a luxury apartment with Adam Hussain after he set up a drugs racket in which he ran a team of street dealers. The gangster's moll would bag up the drugs for Hussain, sending text messages to him saying: 'Don't forget bags, have you got bags, I need bags.' 29 Lavery would help her boyfriend package up drugs Credit: Cavendish 29 Police found thousands of pounds in cash in their flat Credit: Cavendish In raids on their luxury flat police found up to £115,000 in cash spread over their bed bundled into £1,000 wads and a stash of designer gear including a Rose Gold Rolex watch valued at £28,850. Investigations revealed Lavery had private health care despite earning less than £30,000 between 2015 and 2019 whilst car valeter Hussain, also 24, was apparently paid nothing in wages. In 2021, at Bolton Crown Court, the pair admitted conspiracy to supply cocaine and possession of criminal property. Hussain, who also admitted possessing drugs with intent to supply, was jailed for six years whilst Lavery, who had an eight-month-old daughter by him, was given 16 months jail suspended for two years. The court heard she had been the victim of a bungled kidnapping after their arrest but she declined to help police catch the abductors.
The Irish Sun
20 hours ago
- The Irish Sun
Moment thug pulls out gun before shooting girl, 9, in head when she was caught in crossfire of botched gang hit
THIS is the moment a thug pulls out a gun before shooting an innocent nine-year-old girl in the head in a botched gang hit. The youngster was eating with her family inside the Turkish restaurant in Dalston, East London, when the horror unfolded. 5 A gunman opened fire on a restaurant - hitting a girl in the head Credit: PA 5 His getaway driver Javon Riley had a key role in the planning of the shooting Credit: PA Advertisement She was caught in the crossfire as six shots were fired in two seconds by a gunman on a Ducati Monster motorbike. The girl , who cannot be named, will be left with 'physical and cognitive difficulties throughout her life' after a bullet lodged in her brain. Javon Riley, 33, was today found guilty of attempting to murder three men and causing grievous bodily harm to the girl. The gunman has never been caught with cops offering a £15,000 reward for information that leads to his capture. Advertisement The Old Bailey heard the horror was a "planned assassination of members of a rival gang by Mr Riley and others'. A gruesome rivalry between two rival groups in London known as the Tottenham Turks and the Hackney Turks had been mounting for over a decade. In the months leading up to the shooting, Riley sat in the bar opposite Evin restaurant sipping on a pina colada as he studied traffic flow in the area. On May 29, 2024, he was captured driving from North London in a stolen car to pick up the gunman. Advertisement He then cruised past the restaurant several times to ensure his rivals from the Hackney Turks were inside. As the girl innocently tucked into some ice cream, the gunman was filmed approaching the building before pulling his gun out. He hit the girl in the head and blasted his enemies Mustafa Kiziltan, Kenan Aydogdu and Nasser Ali. The court heard while he did not fire the weapon, Riley played a key role in orchestrating and implementing a plan intended to end the lives of his rival gangsters. The girl was rushed to hospital where she underwent several intensive operations. Advertisement Several parts of her skull had to be removed to ease swelling to her brain and replaced with a titanium plate. She had to stay in hospital for three months before being allowed to return home. While the youngster has made "a relatively good recovery", she will struggle physically and mentally for the rest of her life. Her mum said: "In a single moment, the future we had imagined for our daughter was torn away. She was once an energetic, adventurous child — everything that celebrated movement, energy, and life. "Now, weakness on her left side means she can only watch from the sidelines, living with a titanium plate in her skull and a bullet still in her brain. Advertisement "As parents, we are shattered — emotionally, physically, mentally, and financially. Each day brings new challenges, from her slower growth on one side to the emotional and mental scars that cannot be seen. "The world we once believed was safe for our child now feels frightening and uncertain. This was not just an accident — even if our daughter was not the intended target, those responsible were still attempting to take lives, It is brutal and inhumane. "We live with this pain every day, knowing nothing will ever be the same for our family." Riley will be sentenced on September 12. 5 Riley picked up his accomplice in a stolen car Credit: PA Advertisement 5 The girl was shot as she ate with her family Credit: Paul Edwards
The Irish Sun
a day ago
- The Irish Sun
I snared evil ‘Manson-like' landlord who sealed tenant in concrete tomb after warped ‘disciples' lured him to his death
WHEN trusting Christophe Borgye took delivery of a cement mixer, on behalf of his landlord, he was effectively signing his own death warrant. The cement would later be used to encase Christophe's body in a concrete tomb in the shed of his garden - after his evil landlord and two housemates lured him to a 'kill room' they'd secretly set up in his kitchen. 12 Flight attendant Christophe Borgye was bludgeoned to death by his housemates in 2009 Credit: Handout 12 Dominik Kocher was the ringleader of the trio of murderers Credit: Cheshire Police 12 Christophe was buried in a concrete 'tomb' in the garden shed Credit: Amazon Prime They then beat the flight attendant with hammers and stabbed him with knives at his rented terraced home in Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, before hiding his bound-up body in the makeshift tomb. His body may have been left there to this day – unbeknown to the unsuspecting neighbours and the house's new occupants - if it weren't for an extraordinary confession and painstaking police work that helped convict the three twisted perpetrators Dominik Kocher, Sebastian Bendou and Manuel Wagner. The complex case, which spanned over nine years, is laid bare for the first time in new documentary Murder in Concrete. The case began to unravel in April 2013, four years after Christophe was reported missing, when one of the murderers, Bendou, travelled from Dumfries in Scotland back to Ellesmere Port and called police in a confused state confessing to the crime in broken English and French. Read more on murder cases 'MUST BE NAMED' Harvey Willgoose's mum says killer should be named when he's sentenced Anton Sullivan, now a retired inspector, was on duty that day at another station but was called in to help as he was known to be fluent in French. 'Bendou looked very dishevelled, very confused,' Anton told The Sun. 'I introduced myself and I said 'Right, tell me in French'. He was quite relieved that I spoke French and started telling me he'd been involved in killing someone and hiding the body. 'Initially he didn't give a lot of detail, he gave a name, a place and a time. 'Looking at the state of him, how he presented and the fact he was confused, of course I had my doubts. Later on it was established he had mental health problems, so it could have been quite easy to dismiss. 'But I did think, let's just check to see if there's any veracity to any of the comments he's making. Why I want to meet my monster dad Ian Huntley 'I just felt there was something in what he was telling me, call it a gut feeling or a sixth sense.' Colleagues ran checks and found Bendou's story correlated with the disappearance of Ryanair flight attendant Christophe, who had been reported missing by a colleague on May 2009. 'I wrote in my pocketbook, in French, a record of the conversation I'd had with him then, as is standard practice, I gave him the book and I said, 'Can you just sign here to confirm that this is what you said?' 'At that point he read it and he said, 'I'm not signing anything until my solicitor gets here'. He said that with a calm and detached air about him and I thought, 'There is something to this now'.' The case was passed over to Detective Steve Curry on the murder team, who told The Sun: 'I've got to be honest, when the logs hit our office the next morning and we spoke to Anton, we thought, 'Really?' 'When you're on a murder squad you rarely get someone banging on your door saying, 'Can I show you where I've buried a body?'' 12 Steve Curry, who was senior investigative officer, next to the shed where the tomb was built Credit: Supplied 12 The concrete block where victim Christophe was entombed Credit: Amazon Prime 12 Anton Sullivan, retired inspector at Cheshire Police, used his French skills to help crack the case Credit: Supplied Nevertheless Steve headed straight out to the two addresses on the same street in Ellesmere Port – and was horrified by what he found. 'The first address didn't look like the kind of place a body could be buried," said Steve. 'So I headed to the second and they had a brick built shed at the bottom of the garden, I went into the neighbour's gardens and looked at their sheds, then back to that one and it was clear there was a hand built brick-made 'structure' inside the shed. It didn't fit with the rest of the street. 'We brought Bendou down and, handcuffed to a cop, he went straight to the shed and pointed it out. 'Then we started the three and a half day excavation of Christophe's body from there. 'It was really eerie. Even before we started digging, we brought in experts, forensic archaeologists and entomologists, experts in cement, experts in brick. We don't really 100 per cent know if he was still alive when they dumped them in there. Retired detective Steve Curry 'It was a baking hot day in spring and when we first cracked open the concrete, the first thing that got you was the smell because he'd been airtight for all those years. 'The cement had set in around him, so it was a personal tomb around him. 'Clearly what they'd done is built a box with bricks then after attacking him, they'd wrapped him up in his quilt - he was still in his football shirt, jogging bottoms and flip flops. They put a pillow in there and threw their murder weapons in – knives and a hammer. 'Then they tied him into a big ball with bungee cords and dropped him into this tomb and just poured cement over the top, skimmed it off and left him in there. 'I mean, it must have been horrific. We don't really 100 per cent know if he was still alive when they dumped them in there. 'We wanted to X-ray the bundle as a whole unit. So Christophe was transported to the Royal Liverpool Hospital and, lo and behold, you could see the full form of a human, along with the knife and the hammer and everything they had thrown in there, on the X-ray.' Tracing family Anton was then asked to use his French skills to track down victim Christophe's family in France, who at the time – thanks to a forged email by Kocher – believed he had gone travelling to China with a girl he met. Using his knowledge of France he eventually managed to contact police in the village the family had moved to, and spoke to Christophe's dad Yves, a former police officer in Paris who incidentally had been one of the officers at the scene of Princess Diana's car crash. 'Of course it was a difficult conversation to have, I didn't know Yves very well then, but he was very matter of fact. He was recently retired police officer, he'd done 30 years as a cop in Paris, so although the news was devastating, because of his professionalism, he kept calm. I explained what information we had. 12 The horrific crime was carried out on this street Credit: Supplied 12 Sebastian Bendou cracked and confessed the murder to police Credit: Cheshire Police 12 Manuel Wagner was freed then re-arrested in 2015 when new evidence came to light Credit: Cheshire Police 'At this point we haven't confirmed this was Christophe, so we had to start the process of getting a formal identification, which again proved a challenge because there were no dental records, there were no medical records, we had no DNA, there was no crime scene at that stage that had usable DNA. 'The offenders had systematically erased every aspect of his life, including his physical belongings, so we had nothing to go on.' Eventually Christophe's family members came over to the UK and used their DNA to confirm the body was his. As the police investigation unfolded, more sordid details of his murder emerged. Horror kill room The calculated killers had built a kill-room in the kitchen, covering all the sides with plastic and tarpaulin under the pretext they were deep cleaning, then lured Christophe downstairs to help. Once defenceless Christophe was down on his knees cleaning, they rained hammer blows down on him followed by knife wounds. 'The attack was absolutely brutal and then they've bagged him up and wrapped him up like a big ball of rubbish. And they clearly already had this tomb built,' Steve said. 'They've bought the knives with a load of shampoo and stuff to clean themselves up after the attack. This is all very, very calculated and pre-meditated.' Through house to house enquiries, police began to unravel the strange dynamic between Kocher - the ringleader, who lived on one side of the road with his family - and the other perpetrators Bendou and Wagner, and victim Christophe, who lived across the road. Christophe and the other two men had their wages directly paid into Kocher's bank account, and Kocher took charge of paying their bills and bringing them food. 'It was very weird how Kocher was controlling all the three of them,' Steve said. 'It was almost like they were his slaves. He took their wages, put them in the house, paid the bills and food was taken across to them. 12 Anton Sullivan's French skills helped to crack the case Credit: Supplied 12 Scenes from the case are reenacted in new documentary Murder in Concrete Credit: Supplied 12 Reconstruction of remorseless ringleader Kocher in the dock during his trial Credit: Supplied 'But essentially they were paying for Kocher's house and living expenses too. "He was a conman, he coerced money out of his football team, he spun this yarn about himself having cancer as a sympathy thing. 'We just didn't understand why people were falling for it. You knew he was lying because his lips were moving. That's the best way to spell it out. He had a knack of manipulating people to his will. 'After he killed Christophe he even used his card to buy his wife an anniversary card. That kind of sums up what kind of a person he was. What kind of sick b*****d does that?' But how did Kocher persuade Bendou and Wagner to go through with the horrific crime against defenceless Christophe, who by this time had been their housemate for 18 months? 'Like Charles Manson' 'I always used to think it's a bit like Charlie Manson. How did he persuade these educated young people to commit such horrible crimes?,' Anton said. 'It reminded me to a degree of that. You've got Kocher who's clearly very manipulative and if you look at all of the people that we interviewed, he comes across as plausible, he's got a bit of a charisma about him and people are drawn in.' Kocher and Wagner were cousins, but had lived together from a young age so were like brothers. Bendou knew the pair from school in France and after getting into trouble as a young adult, had been taken under Kocher's wing. Wagner and Bendou were described as 'doing anything Kocher told them'. Cristophe came into the group by "pure chance". After working in Ireland, he got a job with Ryanair in Liverpool and moved to the city, initially sofa surfing. But a colleague at the airport passed him Kocher's number. 'Kocher says to Christophe, 'Look, you get the best room in the house with an en-suite, you just pay your money into my bank, so you don't have to mess around with English bank accounts because you can't trust them," says Anton. 'I will cook for you, clean for you. I'll have meals ready for you when you come in, all you have to do is work, enjoy your life, travel, do whatever you want and I will provide anything that you need. 'And Christophe, being relative naive, probably thought, 'What nice people'. When you speak to his family, that was a trait of Christophe. He took people on face value, he took them at their word, he trusted people. 'For 18 months everything goes swimmingly but at some point Christophe decides he wants to move to Brussels and starts making arrangements to leave. Christophe took people on face value, he took them at their word, he trusted people. Retired inspector Anton Sullivan 'However for Kocher that means having to explain where all his money's gone because Christophe was actually paying for everything in that house. He was paying the rent, he was paying the council tax, the electricity bills, Kocher was using the victim's money to fund his own home and his life." Christophe was due to fly to Dublin to meet with his company's HR department on April 26, 2009. The brutal attack occurred three days before, on April 23 - but it had been a long time in the planning. 'If you look at the chronology, the plan to deal with Christophe in Kocher's mind had started some time before," says Anton. "He had been drip feeding Wagner and Bendou a story that 'This guy's evil, he's working for the authorities, he's working as a spy for the Americans and for the French, he's got an alter ego' – all false allegations of course. 'You can convince anybody to believe anything if you drip feed them enough information.' Steve recalls how some 'lucky' detective work uncovered more evidence against the three – including tracing the knives used in the attack to the local Asda who painstakingly went through files to find Kocher's card being used to buy three of the exact same knives. A neighbour recalled seeing the three men take a large package of some kind to the shed, from her window, around the time of Christophe's disappearance. Then in July 2013, after a painstaking first investigation, Kocher and Bendou were charged with murder and Wagner with assisting an offender and preventing a lawful burial. Anton spent every day in the trial, translating everything into French and relaying it to Christophe's family. 'No justice' Bendou and Kocher were convicted of murder but disappointingly Wagner was cleared and set free. Anton and Steve said they were 'absolutely gutted' that only two of the three were convicted as 'everything pointed to three men being involved'. Anton recalls Christophe's sister Aurelie looking at him in court after the verdict and saying in French, 'Wagner got away with it. How's that justice?' Over the months that followed, Aurelie's comments began to 'gnaw' away at him. 'It was a conversation I had in a pub one night with one of my colleagues from the team saying 'This isn't right. I wonder if given the relationship I've developed with Bendou, he can give us something that might allow us to have another crack at Wagner''. 'So we then had to persuade the senior officers that this was of value because these inquiries take tremendous amounts of time, resources and money. 'And thankfully Cheshire Police gave us a second shot.' Prison confession Anton went to see Bendou in prison and tried to persuade him to tell the whole story in its entirety. 'At first he said he would talk if he could get something out of it – like a transfer to France so he could be closer to his family,' Anton said. 'But I said 'No you either tell us because it's the right thing to do or you don't'. 'And he agreed, he allowed us to access his records from the law firm that represented him. 'And we start to learn things about Christophe's murder that we did not know during the initial investigation. 'Bendou describes in graphic detail how he had hit the victim's head with a hammer but the hammer had slipped in his hand with the blood and it was the claw end that went into his skull. I remember the room closing in on me and I started feeling a bit queasy. Retired inspector Anton Sullivan 'You could see distinctive hammer claw injuries in Christophe's skull. 'The first one, they miss and it hits the Formica top that later panicked Kocher painted over. Then we go back and find the exact divot in the Formica that forensically matches the hammer. 'Then he tells us when he pulled the the hammer out of Christophe's skull, because it was stuck there was a jet of blood that went all over the walls and the ceiling. That's why Kocher decided to paint the kitchen red because he thought it would help mask the colour. 'Also as he's pulling the claw out of Christophe's skull, Wagner is looking over his shoulder because they're in this killing frenzy, and he cracks Wagner on the side of the face by accident with the blunt end of the hammer, giving him a big bruise.' Investigators started going through Facebook pictures and found a selfie Wagner took while he was working in a bar at Cheshire Oaks, sporting a big bruise on the side of his face, which was verified and used as evidence in the second trial. Anton, who had by this point become close with Christophe's father Yves, and his brother and sister Noel and Aurelie, said hearing Bendou talking so nonchalantly about the savage murder made him feel sick to his stomach. 'From a personal note, it's really difficult as police officer deal with an offender and not be disgusted, we're humans first and police officers second,' he said. Timeline of the Christophe Borgye case The case was one of the most chilling and unusual Cheshire police had ever dealt with, here is a timeline of key events: April 2009: Christophe Borgye is killed by three men and his body is sealed in a concrete tomb under a shed. May 2009: A colleague reports his disappearance. A housemate, Dominik Kocher, sends a fake email to Borgye's family to make them believe he is safe. November 2012: The three men involved in the murder, Dominik Kocher, Sebastian Bendou, and Manuel Wagner, move from Ellesmere Port to Dumfries, Scotland. April 13, 2013: Sebastian Bendou confesses to the crime to the police, initially claiming he acted alone in self-defence. April 17, 2013: Wagner and Kocher are questioned as witnesses. May 2013: Bendou changes his statement, revealing Kocher's and Wagner's involvement. Both are re-arrested on suspicion of murder. July 2013: Kocher and Bendou are charged with murder, and Wagner is charged with two lesser offenses. March 2014: Kocher is convicted of murder. May 2014: Bendou is convicted of murder and sentenced to life with a minimum of 14 years. June 2014: An appeal to increase Kocher's sentence is rejected; he is to serve life with a minimum of 23 years. September 2016: Wagner is charged again with murder. June 12, 2017: Wagner's trial begins. June 28, 2017: Wagner is convicted of murder and given a life sentence with a minimum of 16 years. 'I remember sitting in the room as Bendou described murdering Christophe in graphic detail and by this point I know his family and it's heartbreaking to listen to. 'You've got to have this professional attitude, but I remember the room closing in on me and I started feeling a bit queasy. 'I said to my colleague who's a highly experienced murder investigator ''How do you sit there and listen to that?' 'He said 'I've dealt with death all my life in the job but I've never had anybody sit there and tell me, as if I'm telling you how to make a cake, how they killed somebody with a hammer and a knife and how they coerced him into being in that position. 'It's actually quite unusual to get somebody to openly admit how they killed somebody.' Eventually, the exhaustive second investigation concluded and Wagner was convicted of murder and jailed for 16 years on June 28, 2017. The jury returned a unanimous guilty verdict. Christophe's three murderers were all finally in prison. Steve, who has a career spanning 30 years of murders across London and the North West, says it's one of the most unusual cases he's worked on. 'As a standalone single victim, what Christophe went through is absolutely horrendous. Plus the dynamic between the three of them is just definitely the weirdest thing I've ever been involved in," he said. For Anton, he was just glad the family finally had closure. 'I always felt that this was a story that needed to be told so that there was some legacy for the family, for the victim, and that they were remembered," he said. 'It's a case that will stay with me for a long time. I've left the police this year and I retired in order to help tell this story. 'If it hadn't have been for Bendou coming forward, I think Christophe would still be there to this day, I'm convinced of it. 'And if somebody had written this story as a drama purely fictitious, you'd say 'No it's too far-fetched, I don't get the plot line'. 'Truth is always stranger than fiction and in 32 years of policing I've seen the worst of people and I've seen the best of people and this case went from one polar opposite to the other. 'But the stoicism and the strength of Christophe's family and the lengths which police officers dedicated their time and effort to seeking justice really stay with me from this case." Murder in Concrete will be streaming on Prime Video from August 31
