'He thought the false eye made him look like a Bond baddie': The cold-hearted killer with a taste for the dramatic

Dale Cregan’s false black onyx eye became a badge of pride and a mark of his hardman image on the streets of East Manchester.

He knew the false eye and the empty socket behind it – which had to be searched every time he came into court – looked menacing.

Criminal associates say he would use it to intimidate other drug dealers.

But mystery surrounds how he lost his left eye.

Some say it was badly damaged by a knuckleduster in a drunken bar-room brawl while others say it was knocked out in a fight with gangsters in Bangkok.

But a police source said officers were suspicious of the stories because there is no marking or scar tissue around his eye socket.

They suspect his eye may have been ‘plucked out’ by a knife-wielding crime rival.

The source added: ‘He thought it made him look like a baddie out of a James Bond film. He was definitely looking for a dramatic image and this fulfilled it.’

Cregan was subjected to twice-daily checks behind his false eye as part of the security operation surrounding his trial.

During the trial, a source at HMP Manchester, better known as Strangeways, said: ‘Every time he comes in and every time he goes out of the building he must be searched and checked – including behind his eye.

  More... Fury as convicted killers from Cregan trial to make whiplash claims after their van was involved in accident on way to court Why did they let him go? Police arrested Cregan for murder but released him on bail before he went on the run and executed three more victims A cold-blooded cop killer whose eye was carved out with a knife: Inside the paranoid world of Dale Cregan, who murdered two policewomen with a Glock gun and his 'calling card' hand grenades 'I'll be waiting': Shockingly calm 999 call made by on-the-run killer which lured two police officers to their death

‘Because he is a category A prisoner, each time he leaves these walls he is strip-searched and he must take his eye out so we can look behind it for drugs or some sort of weapon or anything he shouldn’t have.

‘And every time he comes back from court he gets strip-searched again and he has to take his eye out again – and it p****s him off.’

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Cold-blooded: Cregan decided in advance he would kill the police, and eventually took lives of PC Fiona Bone (left) and PC Nicola Hughes (right) after calling 999 claiming there was a burglary where he was hiding

* Cregan's use of grenades  during his killing spree was ‘incredibly worrying’, said Sir Peter Fahy, Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police.

He said: ‘It was military-style weaponry – grenades from a former war zone. The worry is that there are huge numbers of these weapons out there from other parts of the world and it is relatively easy for certain individuals to import them into this country.’

  More... Fury as convicted killers from Cregan trial to make whiplash claims after their van was involved in accident on way to court Why did they let him go? Police arrested Cregan for murder but released him on bail before he went on the run and executed three more victims A cold-blooded cop killer whose eye was carved out with a knife: Inside the paranoid world of Dale Cregan, who murdered two policewomen with a Glock gun and his 'calling card' hand grenades 'I'll be waiting': Shockingly calm 999 call made by on-the-run killer which lured two police officers to their death

Sources revealed that hand grenades, machine guns, bullets and even rockets were among a shocking array of firepower available on the black market.

Attack: Cregan emptied the magazine of this Glock handgun and then dumped it by the bodies of the officers he had just fatally injured 

Extraordinary: Greater Manchester Police discovered this stash of grenades inside a storm drain during Dale Cregan's 17-week trial

The ‘shopping list’ available to criminals means they can buy grenades for as little as £150 each, while semi-automatic handguns with bullets cost £250. Military-issue assault rifles cost £500 to £1,000 while a magazine of bullets for the weapons costs anything from £5 to £50.

Grenades are the latest addition to the arsenal of criminals as they ramp up the ‘terror quotient’.

Cregan had an arsenal of M75 hand grenades and used four during his murderous spree which claimed the lives of four people last year.

Only last week police found a cache of ten grenades believed to be linked to Cregan at an address in Greater Manchester.

Police say the grenades used by Cregan came from the former Yugoslavia. The M75 is a fragmentation grenade which has 3,000 tiny steel balls packed into its shell which explode over a 50m radius.

Police sources say the Yugoslavian grenades are available on Britain’s streets and are becoming a status symbol among criminals.