Danny Regan was found dead inside the high-security home he ran to in 2002
A drug dealer who fled his hometown in a desperate bid to escape the dark hole he had fallen into was killed inside his high-security home.
Danny Regan told his mum that he did not think he would live to see his 30th birthday – an ominous premonition which proved correct, as he was shot dead aged 26.
Nearly 24 years later, his murder remains unsolved. Danny, 26, had moved to Haydock from Leeds just 12 months before he was killed on December 12, 2002. The dad-of-two lay dead for days before his body was finally discovered, three days after it is believed two men broke into his house and shot him in the chest with either a pump action or semi-automatic shotgun, reports the Liverpool Echo.
The hitmen escaped in a silver or grey Rover, which was later found burned out on Cooper Lane.
Two men aged 22 and 25, from Leeds, were arrested in connection with the incident. An e-fit of the suspect was also later released by police. But nobody was ever charged with Danny’s murder, and his killers have so far evaded justice.
On the second anniversary of her son’s death in December 2004, Danny’s mum Pat Regan told the Yorkshire Evening Post: “I miss Danny so much more this year than last year, because last year it felt like he would still come home.
“Every day I thought I would walk in, and find the trail of cornflakes he used to leave on the kitchen table, which would mean he’d been here. It’s still so hard to face the idea that my son is never coming home.
“My son was no angel and became involved in drugs and with dealers. I would not want anyone to go through it.
“Danny knew the dangers he was facing and I was always waiting for a knock at the door. He came home in a coffin and his designer gear came home in big brown envelopes.
“He wanted to escape the world he lived in and knew the dangers he was facing. I was always waiting for a knock at the door and eventually it came.”
Danny, who had ties to Leeds’ criminal underworld, had been living in a fortified property on Station Road, surrounded by security cameras and a 6ft-high spiked fence.
It was later discovered the house was owned by an on-the-run drugs baron, Mark Lilley. The 6ft tall, 20-stone bodybuilder was sentenced in his absence to 23 years in prison in April 2000 – but had disappeared mid-trial after skipping bail, and was believed to be hiding in Spain or Holland.
He was one of the UK’s most wanted criminals before he was finally apprehended in the Costa Del Sol and extradited in August 2013.
In the wake of her son’s death, Pat became a fierce voice in the fight against gun crime. She set up a Mothers Against Violence group in her hometown of Leeds, and also campaigned for Mothers Against Guns (MAG) and Mothers Against Murder and Aggression (Mama).
The mum-of-six said in 2004: “When I first met other mothers who had felt what I did, | was speechless, and felt numb at finding others who could understand what my family has been through.
“It made me determined to try to stop this violence, which is why I set up the Leeds branch of Mothers Against Violence. l know it’s too late to save Danny and persuade him to give up the lifestyle which led to his death. But it’s not too late to save others, and if the work I do can make another young man think twice, then perhaps Danny’s life won’t have been lost in vain.”
Her tireless fight for justice ended in tragedy four years later, when she was stabbed to death by her grandson, Danny’s nephew, Rakeim Regan, 21.
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Rakeim, who had paranoid schizophrenia, had experienced a severe decline in his mental health before the attack, and believed his grandmother was “conspiring with police to get him”. He admitted manslaughter and was detained indefinitely in a secure psychiatric hospital in 2008.
In a final appeal for Danny’s killer to be exposed, made one year before her own death, Pat said: “I know that Danny’s lifestyle may have led to his death and some of the things he did were wrong. But he wasn’t an evil person and didn’t deserve to die like this.”
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