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Introducing: Blood on the Dance Floor

Introducing: Blood on the Dance Floor

Released Monday, 3rd July 2023
Good episode? Give it some love!
Introducing: Blood on the Dance Floor

Introducing: Blood on the Dance Floor

Introducing: Blood on the Dance Floor

Introducing: Blood on the Dance Floor

Monday, 3rd July 2023
Good episode? Give it some love!
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Journalist Jordan Dunbar joins Gangster's Livvy Haydock for a special introduction episode to the captivating podcast series Blood on the Dance Floor.

Livvy and Jordan discuss true crime investigative reporting, the city of Belfast, and the dark underbelly of organised crime.

Blood on the Dance Floor

The untold story of the murder of a gay police officer in Northern Ireland in 1997

Belfast 1997. But not just any part of Belfast, gay Belfast. A place you've probably never heard of before. Cigarette smoke, aftershave and expectation fill the air in the only gay bar in the country. Sat having a drink on a night out is Darren Bradshaw. He was just 24 years old when he was shot dead in front of hundreds of people. His brutal murder by terrorists sparked fears of a return to all out violence as the new Labour government under Tony Blair sought to bring peace to Northern Ireland - on the road to the Good Friday Agreement.

This is the untold story of his life and murder. A story of both love and eventually betrayal.

Presenter Jordan Dunbar grew up in the city, he was a comedian and drag performer on the Belfast scene and yet this murder and Darren's life was never talked about.

Following Darren's story brings to life the struggle of being gay in The Troubles, how Belfast got its first Pride parade only in 1991 and its very first openly gay club in 1994 -The Parliament bar where Darren was tragically shot dead.

It's a community surviving as well as thriving against a backdrop of violence and discrimination. He meets the original drag queens, DJs and club pioneers determined to claim back the city centre from the terrorists and create a safe place of their own.

Determined to piece together for the first time how Darren was killed that night and why, Jordan uncovers stories of bigotry, bravery and betrayal.

Host: Livvy HaydockReporter: Jordan DunbarSeries Producer: Paul GrantProducer: Patrick KiteleyTechnical Production and Sound Design: Craig BoardmanAdditional technical production: Nicky Edwards and Richard HannafordJournalism Assistants: Tim Fernley and Jordan KingProduction Manager: Sarah PaytonAssistant Commissioner: Lorraine OkuefunaCommissioning Editors: Richard Maddock and Dylan HaskinsEditor and Executive Producer: Carl Johnston

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From The Podcast

Gangster

Gangster presents... A 6-part true crime podcast documenting the biggest organised crime bust in British policing history. It happens in 2020 when police in France penetrate an encrypted phone network called EncroChat. According to police, the phones were used exclusively by criminals. For over two months, police forces across Europe were reading the secret communications of major league criminal networks. The Metropolitan Police, working with the National Crime Agency and other forces, used this information to uncover the workings of organised crime groups. “It was like being in a room with them and they are talking freely, and they don't see you there,” says DCI Driss Hayoukane, the Senior Investigating Officer who led the Met’s EncroChat operation. Police went public about the EncroChat hack in July 2020. This is the first time that the inside story of some of the Met’s biggest EncroChat cases has been told to a broadcaster. Talking exclusively to BBC Sounds, police officers reveal how they used the gangsters’ messages to uncover arms dealing and expose murder plots as well as major drug trafficking and money laundering operations. Stories featured in the series include: - A murder plot unearthed by the Met in a joint operation with South Wales police. - Two apparently legitimate businessmen, living in a Buckinghamshire village, whose wealth really came from cocaine trafficking and major league money laundering, - A corrupt police officer who was working for a notorious London crime group. At a time when the Metropolitan Police Service has been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons, it’s a rare story of an extraordinary success: nearly 1000 arrests; over 400 convictions; the seizure of £19 million in cash, three tonnes of Class A and B drugs and 49 guns. But presenter Mobeen Azhar does not shy away from what have been difficult issues for the Met police: an officer from the Met’s anti-corruption unit speaks for the first time about how hacked EncroChat messages helped to expose the worst case of police corruption he had ever seen; and Mobeen asks the officer leading theMet’s EncroChat investigation about the experience of being an ethnic minority officer in a force found to be institutionally racist. Catching the Kingpins is a BBC Studios Production for BBC Sounds. Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Series Producer: Andrew Hosken Editor and Executive Producer: Innes Bowen Sound designer: Peregrine Andrews Assistant Commissioner: Lorraine Okuefuna Commissioning Editor: Louise Kattenhorn Production Executive: Laura Jordan-Rowell Creative Director for BBC Studios: Georgia Moseley Unit Manager: Lucy Bannister Production manager: Elaina Boateng Development Executive: Anya Saunders Editorial Policy Advice: Su Pennington Legal advice: Hashim Mude and Andrew Downey Consulting editor: Steve BoultonProduction Co-ordinator: Juliette Harvey Thanks also to Beena Khetani, Adele Humbert, Hugh Levinson, Ali Rezakhani, Rhiannon Cobb, and Jack Griffith.

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