Mr Stafford has always maintained that Mr Sibbett was shot by a Scottish criminal
Mr Stafford has always maintained that Mr Sibbett was shot by a Scottish criminal. His licence was revoked after he breached its conditions by moving to South Africa. Their alibis covered them for all but 45 minutes of the night.But detectives reckoned it would have taken only 40 minutes to kill Mr Sibbett and drive to the Birdcage, in atrocious weather. Mr Luvaglio told his family the Krays wanted to take over Newcastle’s social club business. He also maintained that fingerprints found in Mr Sibbett’s car were neither his nor Mr Stafford’s. The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) began a review of the case last year.Although Mr Luvaglio and Mr Stafford have denied the crime, the former has made few public pronouncements over the years.
A relative, Vince Landa, ran the fruit machine business and tempted him from London to work with Mr Stafford. Mr Luvaglio became a prime suspect when, at 5.15am on 5 January 1967, a miner found Mr Sibbett’s body in the Jaguar which his takings had enabled him to buy. He was arrested the next day.The timing of the murder was an important part of the court case. Mr Luvaglio and Mr Stafford maintained they were at Newcastle’s Birdcage Club at 12.30am on the night Mr Sibbett was shot, 16 miles away.
He wound up dead in the back of a Mk 10 Jaguar, his body riddled with bullets.
Mr Luvaglio, 69, and Mr Stafford, 71, were convicted of the “One-Armed Bandit Murder”, made famous by Ted Lewis’s book, Jack’s Return Home. In 1971 it was turned into the gangster filmGet Carter, starring Michael Caine and Bryan Mosley (aka Alderman Alf Roberts in Coronation Street), who was bumped off by Caine in the film.But though Get Carter has assigned the murder a place in history, the men convicted of it have always denied the crime and Mr Luvaglio’s family publicly protested his innocence yesterday after he suffered a heart attack which is believed to have left him gravely ill at London’s Westminster and Chelsea Hospital.Through the family, Mr Luvaglio said he did not want to go to his grave with the crime on his name and insisted the Kray twins, widely believed to have failed to muscle in on the Newcastle scene, were responsible. We have been carrying out extensive work in the Hartington Street area and we urge Miss Rooney to work with us on her release.”. The rich pickings offered by the thriving nightclubs and gaming tables of Newcastle upon Tyne in the mid-1960s were irresistible to Michael Luvaglio and Dennis Stafford.
They were doing nicely working for one of the characters who installed fruit machines and booked cabaret acts until another employee, Angus Sibbett, started siphoning off £1,000 a week in takings. Taking people to court is a last resort for the council but we do have a legal duty to collect council tax.”We don’t like to see people jailed for non-payment. “It’s daunting, but I feel that I have to take a stand in order to make this council listen to us,” she said. “I planned this nearly two years ago when I read about that pensioner down in the West Country, and I wanted to find a way of committing civil disobedience – in the way conscientious objectors do so in South American dictatorships and other parts of the world.”Outside court, her brother, Father Liam Rooney, said: “It’s very humiliating to see your sister being handcuffed and taken away from you like that.”It’s not for me to criticise this council but any individual from time to time should be able to challenge an authority on what they find to be unjust.”Derby City Council’s deputy leader, Dave Roberts, said: “We are sorry that Miss Rooney has taken this route.