A tree surgeon seen bringing down a violent drugs boss in a BBC TV crime series has died, it has emerged. Cameron Brooksbank, then 17, was almost killed in a "barbaric" axe attack in which his hand was almost severed when he stepped in to defend an elderly woman.
At the end of the series finale last night, it was revealed that Cameron passed away earlier this year. Today, it emerged he died aged 24 on June 18. An inquest into his death opened in July but has been adjourned and no date has been set for its conclusion. Cameron was attacked in October 2017 when he intervened in a road rage incident in the Newbold Estate in Rochdale, Gtr Manchester, where he was working. He and his workmates came across gangster Habibur Rahman launching a furious tirade at a woman sat in a stationary Citroen.
The attack prompted further police efforts to dismantle the gang and a second key witness came forward to finger Sajid as the attacker. Sajid was jailed for 18 years after being convicted of Section 18 wounding at a retrial and his conviction helped to bring down bosses of the OCG. Viewers were left shocked when the second witness had earlier been kidnapped by the gang with his three-year-old son from a barbers in the town over a drug debt. They also saw how the gang groomed tearaway teens in the area to deal drugs for them and threatened them with violence if they refused.