How 'Yardie' Williams set out to be the Gooch gang's 'next boss' -but dramatically grassed himself up
| Published date | 17 September 2023 |
| Publication title | Manchester Evening News: Web Edition Articles (England) |
Somehow Williams had gotten hold of the supposedly secret phone number of a protected witness in the biggest gang trial Manchester had even seen. But the problem, for Williams at least, was that every word he said was being recorded -he'd grassed himself up.
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Williams got his nickname because he had moved from 'Yard' -Clarendon, Jamaica -to Manchester when he was a small boy. "Narada still retained a whisper of the accent behind heavy Mancunian tones," writes Ben Black in Shooters, a history of Manchester's gangs in the 21st Century
"Solidly built, with a goatee beard and the bearing of jocular pugnacity he bore a passing resemblance to legendary boxer Roberto 'Hands of Stone' Duran."
As a teenager he had, alongside his younger brother Ricardo, been part of a small, Gooch-affiliated crew called the Longsight Street Soldiers, who had been involved in shootings and drug dealing. But when Narada was 22 and Ricardo was 20, they were jailed for conspiracy to supply class A drugs.
On their release from prison the brothers met up with Gooch head honchos Colin 'Piggy' Joyce and Lee 'Cabbo' Amos. It proved to be their entry into the big leagues of gangland Manchester.
The brothers became the Gooch's main drug dealers, recruiting petty criminals they had met in jail. They would dominate the drug markets in the Tameside towns of Ashton-under-Lyne and Stalybridge, seen as easy pickings for lads raised on the violent streets of inner-city south Manchester.
Their business model was simple but highly effective. Heroin and cocaine, bought wholesale from sources both in Manchester and Liverpool, was packaged into £10 and £20 wraps and then distributed to street dealers.
Gang members used pay-as-you-go mobile phones to conduct their business, along with high-performance hire cars with dark tinted windows to patrol their patch and carry out drive-by shootings. Street dealers were paid £50 to £100 a day -and were kept in check with brutal violence.
They also established Moston as a gang stronghold. Narada Williams took over a council property in Moston...
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