Marvin Berkeley stares impassively at the camera holding a pistol in his right hand. He's already carved out a formidable reputation on the violent and bloody streets of Manchester's gangland despite the fact he's barely in his 20s.

Marvin and twin brother Michael had risen from teenage ASBOs to shot-callers in what was called the Fallowfield Mandem, a splinter group of Moss Side's notorious Gooch Gang. As reported by the Manchester Evening News, FMD began life in the early 2000s as a Grime-inspired sound system.

They were initially known more for anti-social behaviour rather than serious criminality. Ben Black wrote in Shooters: "They were considered more of a neighbourhood nuisance than hardened gangbangers, and no-one outside their turf knew who they were."

However, in January 2003, that all changed when 19-year-old Marcus Fullerton was shot dead on Thelwell Street in Fallowfield after an argument. Black explained: "It should have served as a salutary warning to any local youths. Instead a number of lads who had grown up with Marcus and who called themselves Fallowfield Mandem, patois for 'those Fallowfield men', were drawn, as too often happens, into gang culture in the years following his murder."

Front and centre were the Berkeley twins - and the brothers were delighted in playing the gangster. They also spotted the potential in the lucrative, if highly dangerous, pursuit of 'taxing' drug dealers. The thinking was that victims would be highly unlikely to go to the police.

The downside was they were also highly unlikely to be dangerous and very possibly armed. And for a while, the racket paid off, until the night they targeted the wrong people. The FMD decided in February 2006 that two men they'd seen sitting in a Mazda on a street in Gorton were drug dealers. After sitting and watching for a while, one of the gang opened a rear door and threatened the men with a screwdriver.

When the driver sped off, they were run off the road while the back windscreen was blasted with a shotgun. The men tried to run, but were caught bound with plastic cable ties and bundled into the back of a car and driven to Sale Water Park.

'You're going to work for us,' they were told. One of the men was then put on the phone to Michael Berkeley, who was in prison at Rye Hill in the Midlands, but had access to a contraband mobile.

Berkeley ordered: "Do what my mate says. It will be easier for you to do what they say. If I was there I would chop you into pieces." The pair were then dumped on a main road. In fact they weren't drug dealers, just a painter and decorator and his mate.

The botched kidnapping came three days after two other men in a Volkswagen Golf were tailed through the streets of Hyde by a Honda. IT pulled alongside the Golf and a gun was pointed through the window.

One gang threatened: "Do what we say or you’re both gonna get shot". The men were then interrogated about whether they sold drugs and ordered to phone a friend, who was also taken hostage at gunpoint.

When two of the victims made a run for it, one of them was shot in the back, kicked in the head, and bundled back into the Golf. Six hours after their ordeal began, the men were let go, having been 'taxed' of their cash and jewellery.

In May 2006, Marvin was arrested with a number of others. Michael, who by then had been released from prison, was arrested that November. Marvin, then 22, was given an indeterminate sentence after pleading guilty to conspiracy to kidnap, possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life and conspiracy to commit robbery at Manchester Crown Court in May 2007.

Michael, who was also 22, was convicted for assisting offenders and was jailed for two years and four months. Six others were jailed with them.

Sending them down, Judge Clement Goldstone QC said he had no hesitation in handing out lengthy jail sentences. "Maybe if the gang members of today are locked up for a long time, those wannabe gang members, many of whom are in their early teens will find the possession of guns and their use less of a status symbol and attractive option than it appears to be," he said.

"Manchester as a city is thoroughly fed up with you and your like, terrifying the living daylights out of decent law abiding citizens. The police do their best with limited resources to make our streets safer and the courts, wherever they can, will back them up."

But it wouldn't be the last time the twins found themselves on the wrong side of the law. Marvin - also known as Marvollos, T Dogg and Trubo - made headlines from behind bars when it emerged he'd had an affair with a prison guard at HMP Garth in Leyland, Lancashire.

The guard became 'besotted' with Marvin and told a friend she wanted 'to have a chocolate baby' with him. She was rumbled when a syringe containing Marvin's semen was found in her handbag during a routine search and later jailed after being convicted of misconduct in public office.

Marvin was released on licence in 2016 - but was soon back up to his old tricks, this time in Blackpool. On three separate occasions in January 2018, he was caught selling Class A drugs to undercover police officers in the seaside town. Marvin was stopped in a car travelling from the M61 to the Fylde coast with another man in the passenger seat in August that year.

More than £1,000 worth of heroin, crack and cocaine was found on the passenger, while Marvin had the key to a flat in Lytham St Annes, where officers found a further quantity of cocaine with a purity of 73 per cent. After pleading guilty to possession with intent to supply class A drugs, Marvin was jailed for four years. And, in 2018 Michael was also back in court for his part in a vicious brawl between two rival gangs which ended with a man getting shot in the leg.

Michael Berkeley, then 34, was spotted kicking the victim as he lay bleeding on the floor on Castle Street in Bolton. He was jailed for 12 months after pleading guilty to violent disorder.

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