A well known thug from Warrington has now begun an 18 year prison sentence after he became involved in gangland violence.
Shawn O'Malley threatened to shoot two lowly workers at a remote cannabis farm before he tortured them.
O'Malley was brought in to persuade Darren Hall and Joshua Childs to tell him where they had hidden a haul of stolen cannabis.
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Over the following hours he tied, beat and threatened the men with weapons including a pick axe, claw hammer, wrench and sledge hammer.
During the attack the two victims were told that they would be tortured with power drills unless they revealed where the drugs were.
O'Malley was jailed for 18 years during a hearing at Liverpool Crown Court last month, but his name was mentioned during a separate hearing in the summer.
In July Bolton Crown Court heard how O'Malley's partner Annie Webster sent thousands of pounds to him while he was on the run in Dubai.
O'Malley had left the country after he was involved in a gangland shooting in the Bolton area and needed cash to stay out in Dubai.
Police called around to Webster's home on January 24 when she told the police that she had split from O'Malley in November 2019 and was no longer in contact with him.
On March 6, 2020 police executed a warrant at her home in Warrington, when she was arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.
After a search of her home police found evidence which revealed that she had been wiring thousands of pounds to her partner Dubai.
They established that she had flown out to Dubai in December 2019 where she had had bought 5,000 Dirhams and made cash payments to a Dubai based law firm.
When police interviewed Webster detectives asked her if she he had spent time with O'Malley and Warrington gangster Leon Cullen.
Webster later pleaded guilty to concealing, disguising, converting, transferring or removing criminal property and was sentenced to a two-year community order with a 25-day rehabilitation activity requirement.
The Cullen connection
Bolton Crown Court also heard how Leon Cullen was involved in gangland violence across the North West.
Prosecutor Andrew Scott said that drug boss Cullen asked O'Malley to organise a gun attack on a home on Hilden Street, Bolton.
O'Malley and two accomplices drove to the residential street in a stolen car, when gunman Lewis Sinclair fired six shots at the property.
Mr Scott said that O'Malley organised the shooting for Cullen, which was linked to a "long standing organised crime group dispute."
O'Malley, also acting on Cullen's orders, then arranged for the handgun used in the shooting to be planted on Craig Millington in order to settle a personal grudge.
However Andrew Johannessen, who drove the gang to Bolton , was wearing an electronic tag at the time, which alerted the authorities to his presence in the area at the time of the shooting.
Sinclair and Johannessen, both 38, were jailed for 12 years each last week after pleading guilty to conspiracy to possess a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence.
Mobile phone analysis later revealed O'Malley was involved in a plot to to frame another man for the Bolton shooting by placing the gun used in the attack under the seat of his car and tipping off the police about the weapon.
O'Malley was long standing associate of Leon Cullen. The two men had been jailed together in 2012 for their role in cocaine drug supply ring.
Cullen, 33, was arrested in Dubai last January and brought back to the UK to face justice following an international man hunt. He was jailed for 22 and a half years earlier this year after he admitted drug and firearm offences.
The ECHO has already documented how Leon Cullen and his associates were targeted by violent criminals from Greater Manchester following a dispute over a drug debt.
Greater Manchester Police have told the ECHO that Leon Cullen will not face charges in relation to the shooting on Hilden Street.
Enforcer for organised crime
The full scale of O'Malley's criminality was revealed during a sentencing hearing at Liverpool Crown Court last month.
Jonathan Duffy told the court that O'Malley used extreme violence to try and extract information from Darren Hall and then Joshua Child at a cannabis farm in the St Helens area.
Mr Duffy said: "The men were terrified for their lives, however, they told Shawn O'Malley that they did not know anything about the missing cannabis... Mr O'Malley in particular systematically beat both victims and at one point he told them he had been paid to torture them."
O'Malley admitted false imprisonment and grievous bodily harm with intent against both Mr Hall and Mr Childs, and conspiracy to possess a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice in relation to the shooting and framing plot.
Judge David Swinnerton said: "There was planning, there were highly dangerous weapons used, there was a prolonged assault."
Addressing O'Malley, the judge concluded: "You were an enforcer for organised crime."
O'Malley was handed a tariff of 18 years, with an additional five years extended licence.
He will serve at least 12 years in jail and, once released, he will spend the remainder of that 18 years, plus five more, under the constraints of licensing conditions.
O'Malley's two accomplices were also jailed for their part in the torture attack at the drug farm in St Helens.
David Scurfield, 32, from Burtonwood was sentenced to nine years in prison for two counts of false imprisonment and two counts of section 18 wounding
Billy McColl,19, of Henshall Avenue, Latchwood, Warrington was sentenced to 10 years in prison for two counts of section 18 wounding, two counts of false imprisonment and possession of a firearm seized in Warrington.
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