A British man convicted of murdering four people, including two unarmed British policewomen in a gun and grenade attack, was given a life sentence today.
Dale Cregan, 30, had admitted killing officers Fiona Bone and Nichola Hughes as they responded to a burglary call near Manchester in September. Earlier in the trial he also pleaded guilty to murdering father and son David and Mark Short in separate incidents last year.
Pronouncing sentence, Judge Tim Holroyde said Cregan "acted with pre-meditated savagery" and that the seriousness of the crimes made him conclude that Cregan should never be released from prison.
"You, Cregan, drew those two officers into a calculated trap for the sole purpose of murdering them in cold blood," Holroyde said.
Cregan went on the run days after he killed the Shorts last year. Prosecutors say those killings stemmed from a long-standing feud between two Manchester crime families.
In September, he made a bogus emergency call and lured Bone and Hughes to a house near Manchester. As they arrived, he opened fire with a Glock pistol, firing 32 bullets at the officers, before lobbing a military fragmentation grenade into the yard of the house as he fled.
Cregan turned himself in to a police station shortly after, telling an officer he killed the officers because police were "hounding" his family.
Several other men were also convicted today for their part in the killing of the Shorts.
