A police investigation has been launched after photographs were taken inside a courthouse during the sentencing of Dale Cregan’s nephew. Pictures show lawyers sitting in a courtroom as Oscar Cregan made a video link appearance at Minshull Street Crown Court in Manchester, on Manchester evening news understands
Some hearings are now televised, but taking pictures or video in court can result in a contempt of court charge.
A spokesman for Greater Manchester Police confirmed that a complaint had been filed on January 19 and that the investigation was “active”. A spokesman for the Attorney General’s Office said that it is not currently involved in the matter.
Oscar Cregan, 20, a self-described ‘bad man’, helped set up a cocaine trafficking ring in his neighborhood after returning to the UK from a stint in hiding in Spain with his family.
He was arrested during a stop and search in Dukinfield, Greater Manchester in March last year and was found in possession of two Nokia “burner” phones used to sell drugs.
Data was downloaded from both phones, showing hundreds of messages about the supply of cocaine, heroin and cannabis.
These ‘blast’ messages advertised the sale of drugs to a large number of contacts at various times and dates and were, in essence, drug lines from county lines – one operating in Morecambe and the other in High Peak. Both were executed from their address at the time in Manchester.
While in custody, he was caught scratching the words “f**k Greater Manchester Police” and “Oscar Cregan is a bad man” on a door in the exercise yard at Forest Bank Prison in Salford. It transpired that he too had stolen a £5,000 Rolex watch from a pawnbroker in Plymouth.
At Minshull Street Crown Court, Oscar, the youngest son of Dale Cregan’s sister Kelly, blamed his crimes on living in the shadow of his uncle, now 39, who is currently serving four life sentences for the murders with guns and grenades of PCs Fiona Bone and Nicola Hughes plus a father and son during a murderous rampage in 2012.
A judge said there were ‘people in similar circumstances living law-abiding lives’ and sentenced Oscar to three years in a Juvenile Offenders Institute for involvement in the supply of cannabis, crack cocaine and heroin, theft of the Rolex in Plymouth and crimes Damages in Banco Forestal.
Oscar Cregan was a child when Dale was jailed in 2013 for killing 32-year-old Fiona and 23-year-old Nicola, as well as father-and-son gangland rivals David, 46, and Mark Short, 23. .
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