Notorious gangster the public ’must be protected from’ absconds from prison

29 May 2024 , 10:03

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Notorious gangster the public ’must be protected from’ absconds from prison

Daniel Gee Gee was jailed after a secret probe caught him conspiring to buy guns and threatening to kill a teenager

A notorious gangster a judge said the public ’must be protected from’ has absconded from prison, the Ministry of Justice has confirmed.

Daniel Gee, now aged 44, was jailed for the public’s protection in 2010 after a secret probe caught him conspiring to buy guns and threatening to kill a teenager. 

The gangster was plotting to arm himself after making death threats to Jamie Starkey - a 16-year-old gunman who shot him during a New Year’s day confrontation in 2008.

Gee was a leading member of a powerful Everton gang that turned the area’s Grizedale estate into a 24-hour open air drug market.

Jailing Gee indefinitely, the Recorder of Liverpool, Judge Henry Globe QC said: “I am in no doubt that the public must be protected from you in the future. I really do not know when it will be safe to release you.” 

He ordered Gee to serve a minimum of four years behind bars before his case could go before the parole board. The sentence ran at the same time as the seven-and-a-half year sentence he was serving for drugs offences.

Gee, reports The Echo, was later transferred to a Category D open prison, from which he has absconded. A Prison Service spokesperson said: “All prisoners in Category D prisons are robustly risk-assessed and absconds are rare. Offenders who break the rules are punished and face extra time behind bars and we are working with the police to recapture this prisoner.” 

An abscond is an escape that does not involve overcoming a physical security restraint. According to the Prison and Probation Service, Category D prisons have minimal security and allow eligible prisoners to spend most of their day away from the prison on licence to carry out work, education or for other resettlement purposes.

If an offender fails in an open prison, they are not permitted to return to an open prison for at least two years. In a trial in October 2009, Gee was found guilty of two counts of threats to kill and another two of blackmail. Jurors were unable to agree on the two more serious charges of conspiracy to murder and conspiracy to possess firearms and ammunition.

As his second trial was about to start, Gee, formerly of Maryport Close, Everton, admitted the second charge. Prosecutor Ian Unsworth QC said Gee’s desire for revenge “knew no bounds” after he was shot by Starkey outside the Salisbury Arms pub on Anfield’s Pulford Street. Within hours of the 5am shooting he was planning his revenge.

But Mr Lawson-Rogers told the court had been in severe amounts of pain and trauma after Starkey’s “murderous and unprovoked” attack.

Emma Davis