A former Salford armed robber has said he was trying to 'emulate the generation before us' as he spoke of his regret at his life of crime. Patrick McCann was jailed in 2017 after a petty feud between three rival gangs exploded in violence. An innocent by-stander was shot in the back, shots were fired at two homes and one gang member accidentally blasted himself in the stomach during a spate of shootings across Salford.
Jailed for firearm conspiracy
McCann, then 32 and said in court to be the leader of the 'Farnworth gang', was jailed for 17 years and two months after being convicted of conspiring to possess a firearm. McCann, who was released last year after a decade behind bars, told the Terry Stone Connection podcast the crime was the 'worst mistake of my life' and said that despite the lengthy sentence thought he had gotten off lightly.
"All I did there basically was get someone a firearm, right?," he said. "[But] it could have been worse, man. That could have been well, well worse. Four shootings, two people got shot, two houses were shot up all at different locations. I thought we did all right to be honest."
From childhood crime to armed robbery
Now 40-years-old he described how he was raised in an Irish Traveller family, before moving to Salford as a child. He told host Terry Stone how he began committing crimes as a child in the late 90s and early 2000s, before moving onto the Salford's underworld's speciality of armed robberies as teenager.
"It was something I wanted to do like, because you were hearing all of the stories of like 'His brother's done this' or 'This guy's just done that'," he said. "It was like something I just wanted to do to say that I'd done it."
Ram-raid on Altrincham jewellers
McCann, also known as Par, told how his first significant jail-time came in 2005, when aged 18 he was tackled by a have-a-go-hero in a security van during a ram-raid on luxury Altrincham jewellers David M. Robinson. On the way to the heist McCann said they bumped into another crew who were planning to raid the same store at the same time. And when couple of his associates got cold feet McCann decided to join forces with the other robbers.
"We basically slapped the [Ford] Granada through the Rolex display window," he said. "As I've rammed the window what's he done? He's rammed me. The Securicor van has seen what we're doing. Like we're slapping the jewels in broad daylight. He's rammed me and pushed the car more into the window so I can't get out and activated his alarm. And obviously them other lads they didn't wait around. They've got off. Then basically we got jumped on by heroes. Have-a-go-heroes."
But McCann said looking back more than 20 years on he regrets the fear he caused to his victims. "I'm 40 now and I'm not proud of any of the robberies that I've done," he said. "I was proud of them at the time, but right now to be honest I do feel bad because even though I've never hurt anybody on a rob the threats of violence is just as bad. We're trying to emulate people, a generation that came before us."
Comparing Salford to Boston's Charlestown
McCann also compared Salford to the formerly rough-and-ready Boston neighbourhood of Charlestown, as depicted in the Ben Affleck crime film The Town. "I know it's not nothing to be proud of, but for me it is," he said. "Some of the best armed robbers in this country came from Salford. That's a fact. If I could explain Salford in a nutshell, it's Charlestown. That little area... one little blue-collar neighbourhood. There was so many armed robbers come from there and it was like a trade passed down from father to son. That is legit what Salford was like."
And McCann, who in 2016 was jailed for breaching a so-called 'gangbo' injunction, also told how from being a 'devout Catholic' and self-confessed Islamophobe he converted to Islam while in prison. McCann, who says he now hopes to establish himself in the music industry, said he became interested in the religion due to his support for Palestinians. Then after a 'very well-known' gangster from Manchester 'dropped dead' in the prison yard decided to convert.
"My mate.. he's come up to me. He's like, 'Have you heard about?' I said, 'Yeah, bro. Sad'. And he's like, 'Look at you, man. You don't know. You might not even make it home'. And then I just thought, yeah, you know what? That was that same day I took Shahada, became Muslim."
