Gun & Dusted – David Cameron’s Killer
INTRODUCING Ryan Florence – the man who would kill David Cameron.
Had David Cameron turned around and seen 17-year-old Florence firing at him with an imaginary pistol, the Tory leader would surely have strode up to his would-be killer and trapped the hooded youth in a bear hug.
Cameron wants to hug a hoodie. But before Dave can grapple with a teenage boy in the full glare of the media, the Sun wants to see what he’d be letting himself in for.
“He is one of the young people going off the rails and that is what we have to address,” says Cameron.
Ryan says: “It’s no good everyone else having guns and you not. You would be f*****g dead. There are shootings every week but they don’t get heard about because no one wants to grass. You can get guns for £30 — blank firers which are drilled through. For £50 you get something better, ready to go. You can pay up to two grand.”
So Ryan has a gun?
“Guns are a way of life. Lots of my friends have them. They need them for protection if there’s trouble. If rival gangs come here causing problems they need to be sorted out. “
So Ryan’s friends have guns?
“Drugs are everywhere. I smoke weed every day, all my friends do. I’ve been on it since I was ten,” say Ryan. “There’s nothing wrong with it if you don’t get caught. I have tried sniff (cocaine) but didn’t think much of it. At the weekend I like a drink — either Jack Daniels or Southern Comfort straight.”
So Ryan know where to score some sniff and some weed? How close Cameron came.
Ryan, who lives on the Manchester council estate, Benchill, has been in trouble with the law. Ryan has an electronic tag on his ankle. The Guardian (“The hoodie who wouldn’t be hugged”) says his tracksuit trousers are hitched up to show his tag off. Ryan has a Staffordshire bull terrier.
He says he has been in custody three times for charges such as burglary, street robbery, car theft and breaching parole conditions. Ryan has already served four months in a young offenders’ institute for robbing a teenager of a mobile phone. He’s in gang called the Benchill Mad Dogs
Ryan was once awarded a certificate of achievement by Manchester City College.
“I’m not bothered about the stories in the papers about me,” says Ryan in the Times. “They can say what they want about me.”
Of course, they can’t. Ryan is the identikit yoof. You can just imagine the hacks charging roaming around the estate looking for Ryan’s illegitimate, the one unchecked box on their Hoodie Chart.
But there is no child. And there is no gun. “It’s what we call a `click bang’ around here,” says Ryan of his finger gesture. “I was doing it for a laugh and a buzz. I thought it would be fun to showboat for the lads so I went up behind him and made like I was pulling the trigger. My mates all thought it was well funny.”
Ryan says he was just “messing around”. And of Cameron: “He says he’s coming round to stop the crime and that, but what’s he doing? He’s not stopping us, is he?”
Well, no. Which makes us wonder what a suited and booted Cameron is doing on an estate rife reportedly with guns and drugs…
Posted: 24th, February 2007 | In: Uncategorized Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
