The pub meeting that led to brutal murder: Cocaine kingpin's killers plot to put tracker on his car before torturing him to death - as video shows fugitive 'mastermind' as he's arrested on plane

Daily Mail​

a day ago

To the uninitiated, it could be any pub gathering between three mates.
But the footage played to a jury of three men meeting at a watering hole in Chadderton, Oldham on June 27 2022 was not a pleasant social occasion.
The trio on camera - John Belfield, Reece Steven and Steven Cleworth - were in fact plotting to place a tracker on a drug-dealing love rival's car, which would later be used to follow him home, steal his drugs and torture him to death.
On Friday, Belfield - who fled the country to evade justice for three years - was convicted of masterminding and executing the murder of father-of-two Thomas Campbell, 38, on July 2 2022, days after he met with his co-conspirators.
He had become 'obsessed and furious' with Campbell after his victim-to-be began dating his ex-girlfriend, Demi-Lee Driver, whom he branded a 'money grabbing little dog' in a series of threatening messages.
Working with Campbell's estranged wife Colleen to trace his movements, Belfield and his co-conspirators hatched a plan to fit a tracker onto a car in order to follow him to his house in Tameside in a white Vauxhall Combo van.
The silent CCTV footage obtained from the pub shows Reece Steven, a balding bearded man in a fleece and shorts, grinning as he walks over to Steven Cleworth, dressed all in black with a baseball cap.
John Belfield sidles out from behind the table he is sitting at with a cup of coffee in one hand and his mobile phone in the other.
Belfield was infuriated with rival drug dealer Campbell (pictured) after he began a relationship with his ex-girlfriend, and conspired to find him and steal his drugs and valuables
Belfield, dressed in a blue t-shirt and a black gilet, looks highly animated as he steps out to speak to Reece Steven, who appears fully engaged in the conversation.
As they talk, Steven Cleworth paces in the background, using his fingers to lift scraps of food from a discarded plate of food.
Shortly after the pub meeting, a tracking device is activated in the presence of Belfield, Cleworth and Steven - later confirmed by police through mobile phone data.
Cleworth would later fit the device to Thomas Campbell's car. On July 2, Belfield, Steven and another co-conspirator followed the tracking device to his home - and attacked him as he walked to his front door, dragging him inside.
For almost two hours they subjected him to almost unspeakable torture, scoring parallel slashes into his face and binding his feet and hands with duct tape bought in a B&Q store in nearby Oldham.
They stripped him, poured boiling water over his genitals and wrapped his arm in a tourniquet after inflicting a slash injury on his arm - not to keep him alive, but to prolong his descent into death.
After dealing 61 injuries to Campbell, who could be heard screaming as the attack began, Belfield, Steven and the third attacker sought to remove any evidence of their involvement, stripping the house of a CCTV hard drive and a video doorbell.
They then fled the scene in the van and drove to Hyde, six miles away, where they burned Campbell's clothing and disposed of the tracker and a phone.
The vehicle's number plates were swapped and a roof vent was removed to change its appearance. It has never been found.
Given his status as a major drug dealer, Mr Campbell had many enemies, meaning suspicion did not at first focus on Coleen, who had by then broken up with him after accusations of cheating.
Campbell's body was found the next morning by horrified neighbours after they saw blood in the hallway through the ajar front door.
Cleworth, the other pub plotter, did not take part in the brutal act himself. He had an alibi - hanging out at a swingers' club called Decadence in Rochdale.
'Gangster's moll' Colleen Campbell - who helped her husband's killers after he allegedly cheated before they split - sought to cover her tracks with stomach-churning social media tributes to the man she had just helped to kill.
'Forever great full (sic)... I would do anything to hear your giddy laugh or your none stop (sic) moaning just one more time,' she wrote.
Chillingly, she shared a meme on the evening of July 2, hours before Campbell was killed which read: 'I don't accept apologies, you did what made you happy at the expense of my emotions and I understand but I won't respect it.'
She even had the gall to share a news article reporting on the fact Steven Cleworth had been charged in connection with Campbell's death just over a week later.
Justice did not wait long to catch up with her, nor with Cleworth, or Reece Steven.
In March last year, 29-year-old Steven was found guilty of murder with conspiracy to rob, and is serving at least 37 years behind bars.
Cleworth, 38, was found guilty of manslaughter and conspiracy to rob, and is serving 12 years.
Ms Campbell, 38, was found guilty of the same and is serving 13 years - of which she must serve at least two-thirds before being eligible for parole.
She was foiled after providing intricate details of her husband's injuries to his mother - claiming to have been told them from beyond the grave by a psychic.
It took longer to find John Belfield, who seemingly vanished in the hours after Thomas Campbell was found dying in his hallway.
After helping to beat, stab and torture his love rival to death, Belfield disappeared, taking a ferry to Ireland from Wales before travelling to Amsterdam, France and Spain.
He then left Europe altogether, flying to Brazil and eventually settling in the former Dutch colony of Suriname in South America.
All the while, he was texting his co-conspirators with twisted taunts, mocking Campbell's final moments.
'All the lights on but no-one at home. Actually, the lights have been smashed out of him,' he wrote.
Reece Steven wrote back: 'Tommy crumble. Dripping in tom juice everywhere... a little bit of Tommy ketchup. He ran out of sauce. Empty bottle. No lid on.'
Outrageously, he was even texting his co-conspirators as they stood trial in 2023, helping them to invent evidence and coaching them in how to answer questions under cross-examination.
But the allure of crime proved too much and he began doing the only thing he knew: dealing drugs. This proved to be his downfall.
In March 2023, less than a year after murdering Campbell, Belfield was arrested by police in Suriname who sentenced him to a year in prison on drugs charges.
But they also notified Greater Manchester Police that they found Belfield, who had long been regarded as a suspect - and after he did his time in South America he was sent on a plane home to Britain, where police were waiting.
Footage shows a gaunt-looking Belfield, his hairline thinning, being led from the rear door of an airplane in handcuffs by police officers and loaded into a van.
Upon arriving at a police station, he is informed by an officer he is under arrest on suspicion of murder - as he appears to eyeball him through the grate of the van cage.
More than a year later - and almost three years to the day he tortured Thomas Campbell to death - Belfield has run out of places to hide, and was convicted of murder and conspiracy to rob on Thursday.
Sentencing him to at least 37 years in prison, Mr Justice Garnham told him he was sure that Belfield had taken 'pleasure in the infliction of pain' on his love rival.
The judge said: 'Mr Campbell was no saint. Like you, he was involved in the sale and distribution of illicit drugs. But he was also a human being, and the manner of his death was horrific.
'I have no doubt you took pleasure from his pain.'
The conviction and sentencing brings to an end a tireless investigation by Greater Manchester Police, who pored over hundreds of hours of CCTV and gathered thousands of pieces of evidence in