Handcuffed between two prison guards in the back seat of a taxi, Dominic Noonan was supposed to be on his way to jail. The notorious gangster knew he wouldn't be spending the night behind bars. As the cab pulled up at a set of traffic lights on Broad Street, Salford, two masked men jumped out of a waiting car. Armed with a hammer and a pistol, they smashed the windows of the cab and fired a single shot into the air before forcing the guards to release their prisoner. As stunned witnesses watched, the gunmen then bundled an apparently reluctant Noonan, who was on remand for wounding a policeman, into a waiting Vauxhall Cavalier and sped off.
Taxi driver's terror
"These people are demented to do what they did," the terrified taxi driver told the Lancashire Evening Post. "If I had hesitated I would have been shot, I certainly wouldn't be sitting here today. What happened to me could happen to any driver, any time, any place, anywhere."
With Noonan gone, theories as to the reason for his seeming abduction soon began. 'Gang killing link to prisoner taken in gunpoint kidnap', read the headline in the next day's Manchester Evening News. "The kidnap of a dangerous prisoner may be linked to the murder of a gang leader," the paper reported, speculating that the hijack could be linked to the killing of Anthony 'White Tony' Johnson, an infamous member of the Cheetham Hill gang, who had been shot dead in a pub car park two years earlier.
Investigation and mystery
No one has ever been convicted of the murder of Cheetham Hill gangster Anthony 'White Tony' Johnson. Noonan's brothers Desmond and Damien, both now dead, had been charged in connection with the murder. At the time of Dominic being snatched, Damien had been cleared, but Desmond was facing a retrial. But detectives investigating the kidnapping were at pains to make it clear they were keeping a very open mind. "At this stage we don't know whether Noonan has been abducted or whether it's an elaborate escape," Det Chief Insp Andy Tattersall said.
The mystery deepened the following day when a female friend of Noonan's was visited by four men who demanded to know about the 'missing money' - a sum said to be more than £100,000. They told the woman Noonan's family had until Friday to come up with the cash. Hours after the snatch, armed police raided the woman's house in Cheetham looking for Noonan, but left empty-handed. Then Noonan himself surfaced.
Noonan's claims
In a dramatic phone call to the Manchester Evening News, the then 28-year-old claimed he had been locked in a cellar in Whalley Range for four days before being released that morning. "I was set up," he said. "Someone knew what time I was leaving that court. They took me to a house in the Whalley Range area and put me in a cellar." Then, after disappearing for five days, Noonan turned up at the gates of Preston Prison and handed himself in. It turned out the authorities had been right to be sceptical.
In November that year, Noonan, who had been working as a bouncer at the Hacienda, went on trial at Manchester Crown Court charged with conspiracy to rob; escaping from custody; and having a revolver with intent to rob. He told the jury he needed £1,000 so he could get his girlfriend and baby 'out of the way' after being snatched by gunmen because they thought he had 'ripped them off for £50,000'. "I was reading a paper when the glass of the taxi was smashed and I got dragged out," he told the court. "I was fighting not to go. I was taken to a cellar, handcuffed, beaten and burnt with cigarettes. They said I had ripped them off." He did, however, admit that he had told reporters a 'pack of lies' about the alleged kidnapping, saying he had been held for three days when he had been released two days earlier having spent the time with his girlfriend in Salford. "If I had given myself up I would not have been able to see my girlfriend and baby," he said.
Prosecution's version
The prosecution had a different version of events. Soon after the hijack, Noonan was seen laughing with his 'captors', they told the court. That was because the 'kidnap' had been staged so Noonan could take part in a planned £1.5m armed robbery. The day after his alleged release, Noonan was seen wearing his security guard uniform when he met with another man. They were planning a heist on a security van as it travelled to a bank in Old Trafford later that day. The raid never took place, prosecutors said, because police spotted Noonan who then jumped into a van driven by his partner-in-crime saying: "Drive, drive it's the police."
Noonan surrendered at Preston prison the following day. Following a week-long trial, Noonan was found guilty on all counts. In December 1993, he was jailed for 14 years. "I need to punish you and deter others from arming themselves with lethal weapons," Judge David Owen told him as he sent him down.
Later convictions
In May 2018, Noonan, who changed his name to Domenyk Lattlay-Fottfoy, was convicted of 13 historical sex offences against four boys as young as 10. He was jailed for 11 years after a jury found him guilty. By the time of his sentencing, he was already serving a separate 11-year jail sentence handed down in 2015 for arson, blackmail and perverting the course of justice. In December last year, the Manchester Evening News revealed how Noonan was back behind bars after he deliberately breached his parole terms. He had been released two months earlier before he had served half his sentence as part of emergency measures introduced by the Labour government to ease overcrowding in jails. He has spent most of his adult life behind bars.
