Inside the manhunt team which snares killers, robbers, drug dealers and a dangerous stalker
He was sitting on Aer Lingus flight EI105 from Dublin to John F Kennedy Airport, New York. It was due to depart at 10.55am on April 5 this year.
After staking out the house for days Best, 26, climbed onto wheelie bins against a rear wall, dropped into a backyard, and walked into the property through an open door. The woman he was seeking was away on holiday. By chance her cousin was there feeding her cat. Detective Inspector Simon Akker, head of the seven-strong team, regards what happened over the next 48 hours as one of the unit's finest achievements this year - but one of many. "We came into it the following morning. We were asked to support the Tameside District police. They told us they had an individual who they suspected was responsible for an aggravated burglary and false imprisonment, and they believed he had been stalking someone who was not present at the address.
DI Akker's team apply to companies for information on account holders. "In this modern world - how people pay for things, how people travel, all of that leaves a trace. Some companies are more forthcoming than others. Every contact leaves a trace is a forensic saying - but it is true in communications too," he says.
"We don't have any jurisdiction in Ireland. We just had to give them the facts and rely on the people to make the decisions for that airline and Ireland. It was down to intelligence we shared and the fact there was a threat to life. We had an opportunity to mitigate that threat. We didn't know what he was going to do after he had landed in the US.
Offences for which suspects have been arrested range from threats to kill; robbery; burglary; murder, conspiracy to murder; death by dangerous driving; and serious assaults. Last year the unit arrested 48 targets and an additional 21 people for other offences. In 2020 the figure was 96 - swelled by a spate of attacks between rival crime groups in North Manchester, and swoops in Blackpool where targets were involved in county drug lines activity.
On August 22, detectives named the man wanted on suspicion of murdering Thomas Campbell, whose body was found by a neighbour having suffered a 'quite horrific' level of injury. The man they are seeking is 28-year-old John Bellfield, of the Openshaw area, with members of the public warned to not approach him. Mr Campbell, 38, was found dead at a property in Riverside in Mossley, Tameside, on July 3.
The man they were after , Khayam Ali Khurshid, of Eton Hill Road Bury, was later one of three men convicted of Cole's murder and must serve 27 years.
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