Thaindian News

London, Aug 12 (IANS) Mark Duggan, a suspected drug dealer whose killing by police sparked off the London riots, was the nephew of a mafia leader who ran the Manchester underworld for over 20 years, a media report said.

Duggan’s uncle has been revealed as late Desmond “Dessie” Noonan, whose “feared crime family” ruled Manchester’s underworld, the daily Telegraph reported.

In 2005, the 45-year-old Noonan featured on a TV documentary “Gangster” and claimed his family were “untouchables”.

“I’ve got a bigger army than the police. We have more guns than the police,” he boasted.

In the documentary, he joked that key witnesses at his court hearings failed to turn up because “some are deranged”.

Noonan’s second wife Julie, 50, is the sister of Duggan’s mother Pamela.

Duggan regularly visited his uncle’s family to babysit their children, the report said.

Even when the couple divorced following Noonan’s 1993 acquittal for the murder of a gangster, Duggan continued to visit him at family parties.

“They took Mark under their wing, they liked him, not just as a nephew, but as a mate,” a source told The Sun.

In 1995, Noonan was described as a “psycho” in court for a violent attack. He was jailed for 33 months.

In 2005, Noonan was stabbed to death by drug dealer Derek “Yardie” McDuffus.