Grave robbers try to dig up body of gangland enforcer linked to the Krays to ‘get his ultra-bling jewellery’
Billy Isaac's resting place is thought to have been dug up by grave robbers who were hoping to find expensive 'bling' jewellery hidden amongst his remains
THE body of a gangland enforcer who worked for Britain's most infamous crime family has been exhumed by cops after his grave was desecrated TWICE in a week.
Billy Isaac's resting place has been set upon by suspected grave robbers in the hope that he was buried with valuable jewellery.
The ex-boxer, who was an enforcer for the infamous Adams family in London, had been buried in the same plot as his mother in his native Manchester.
He died aged 45 following an accident at his remote luxury mansion in the Irish Republic in 2013.
During his criminal career Isaac organised security at the East End funeral of Ronnie Kray and was cleared in 1997 of carrying out the "professional" killing of a Manchester businesswoman. He was also a close friend of boxer Ricky Hatton.
Today Greater Manchester Police were linking the two grave attacks on June 28 and July 4 at Blackley cemetery near Manchester where Isaac was buried with his mother Rita who passed away in 2006 aged 67.
Their family insist he was laid to rest with nothing of financial value, however his remains have been now exhumed and the burial plot secured.
Det Insp Claire Moss from Greater Manchester Police said: “Enquiries are ongoing.
"We believe that this incident was targeted to this specific plot.
"This is a despicable act, and it has caused the family an enormous amount of anguish and grief in finding out that their loved one’s grave has twice been disturbed in what is meant to be a place of rest.
"The motivation for this incident is unclear at this stage of the investigation, but the family want to make it known that their loved one was not buried with any items of monetary value.
"We will do everything we can to find out who is responsible for this, and I would appeal to any members of the public who know anything to please get in touch with police."
Isaac, who has a boxing bulldog tattoo on his left arm, picked up convictions for various assaults before coming to criminal prominence in 1995 when businesswoman Pat Hayes, 46, was shot twice in the head as she slept at her home in Denton, Greater Manchester.
A LIFE IN CRIME: Underworld hardman Billy Isaac's criminal past
He was once rated as among the five hardest men in London and was named at the Old Bailey in 2000 as an associate of the Adams crime family during the trial of a corrupt CPS clerk who took a bribe to leak confidential information.
Isaac was said to have met an intermediary of the clerk at Heston Services on the M4 during the summer of 1998 and was given sensitive documents about inquiries into the Adams family.
In 2001 he was arrested and charged again over two serious assaults, one in which a barber was forced to watch his face being slashed with a Bowie hunting knife and the beating at of a man at a pub which left the victim with a multiple fractures and a punctured lung.
During the police investigation, a man decapitated himself by tying a rope around a lamp-post and the other end around his neck before getting into his Citroen Saxa and driving away, ripping off his own head.
One GBH trial was opened but the case collapsed after a detectives was accused in court of lying. The officer was subsequently exonerated of any wrongdoing after an official inquiry but the other trial also folded.
In 2006 Isaacs - who ran a security firm 24:7 was jailed for three years after detectives found four bullets for a Smith and Wesson revolver hidden in a white sock inside his luxury Jaguar.
Bullet proof vests were also recovered.
Following his release from jail he moved to a secluded gated property called Ratsville near Cork in the Republic of Ireland after he inherited it from his father. But in 2010 Isaacs was also acquitted of threatening to kill a businessman's wife and children if he did not hand over £2.5m after boxer Ricky Hatton gave evidence on his behalf.
Then a month before his death in September 2013 Isaacs was sentenced to five months jail but freed pending appeal after he was convicted of assaulting a waitress at a restaurant in the village of Durrus.
Police believe he had been locked out of the house and had tried to climb in through a ground window after standing on a bin. He was found dead in a bathroom by a workman after hitting his head with tests showing he had suffered 'positional asphyxia'
He was accused of carrying out the shooting on the orders of his mother Rita who stood to inherit Hayes' bungalow and several properties they owned together in Florida. But he was acquitted of murder whilst Mrs Isaacs was acquitted of arranging the murder after a key witness undermined the case.
Mother and son later moved into the dead woman's home.
Following the acquittal Isaac was brought to trial a further four times for gangland related violence but on each occasion the trials folded amid legal argument.
