Ranking Dread was born as Winston Brown although he was also known by various aliases including Robert Blackwood, Michael Dicks, Errol Codling and Boyark, or Bowyark.

By 1987 Scotland Yard and the National Drugs Intelligence Unit had gathered files on ‘Yardie mobsters’ in Britain who they believed were out to control ‘West Indian’ crime. Among their hit list was Ranking Dread who they believed to be involved in drugs, prostitution and gangland murders.

It is thought that Ranking Dread left Jamaica as a fugitive, wanted for questioning in connection with a string of crimes which included the shootings of four police officers.

In Jamaica he’d reportedly been an enforcer under JLP (Jamaican Labour Party) Claude Massop who led a posse around Rema, Tivoli Gardens and Denham Town in Kingston, Jamaica. Massop’s JLP aligned group would later become known as the Shower Posse and Ranking Dread's alias of Boyark was linked to the killings of drug dealing rivals aligned with PNP (People’s National Party) posses.

In 1978 after jumping bail for one of the police officer shootings he fled to London under the name of Errol Codling, and after authorities failed to extradite him from Britain, he set up base from an address in Stamford Hill, north London, establishing a drinking club, a prostitution network, and through armed robbery funded a series of shipments of cannabis to Nottingham and New York,

In 1986 Ranking Dread became Scotland Yard’s number one suspect in the murder of Nigerian drug dealer Innocent Egbulefu who was thrown out of the eighth floor window of a high-rise flat in Islington, north London.

It’s thought that Egbulefu sold Ranking Dread and his gang a consignment of marijuana concocted of herbs and tea leaves. Returning after examining their product, the men forced their way back into the flat, Egbulefu ending up plunging to his death.

In May 1988 investigative television series, The Cook Report, labelled Ranking Dread as the head of Shower Posse operations in the UK in their exposé of the Yardies. Presenter Roger Cook intercepted Ranking Dread walking down a busy London street, but when these accusations were put to the man himself he coolly denied them without even breaking his stride.

Ranking Dread’s street reputation also did not go unchallenged and at least one-attempt at taking over his business interests was documented whereby a British born teen attacked him with a machete in a London shebeen.

He had a number of very close scrapes, some people putting his escapes down to his belief in Obeah, a folk magic and religious practice in the West Indies derived from West Africa. Some gang members believe that occult rituals can protect them in gang fights by cursing their rivals, and even protect themselves from bullets. It seems though that one thing they cannot protect against is law enforcement.

On 14th April 1988 police officers raided a shebeen in Clapton, east London. The derelict property owned by Hackney Council had become a focal point for serious and organised crime, particularly the trafficking of cocaine.

Following several weeks’ surveillance, a team of officers stormed the address and arrested twenty suspects including Ranking Dread. As well as the arrest police recovered several weapons including a machete. Small quantities of cannabis and cocaine were discovered, however, there were no firearms or crack.

Under the name of Errol Codling, he was granted bail by magistrates at Highbury, north London, having been accused of possessing cocaine and cannabis with intent to supply. Three accomplices were bailed on similar charges.

A few months after the raid in east London a close friend of Ranking Dread was killed in an early morning shoot-out in Harlesdon, north-west London. Rohan ‘Yardie Ron’ Barrington Barnet, took two bullets to the chest as ten rounds were discharged. Yardie Ron fired at two of his rivals, both of whom were wounded, before he was bundled into a vehicle and taken to St Charles Hospital in Notting Hill, west London, where he died.

At the scene, Detectives recovered spent shells from three high-calibre firearms. The scene displayed all the hallmarks of a ‘Yardie’ incident, the highly public exhibition of violence failed to turn up any witnesses and police attributed the killing to a drugs feud.

On 8 November 1988 a decision was made not to try Ranking Dread in Britain for drugs charges. Instead Home Office officials decided to deport him and he was flown to Jamaica with two detectives from Scotland Yard.

Shortly after being deported from Britain Ranking Dread fled to Toronto, in July 1989, where he went on to serve a 12-month sentence for assaulting a police officer. He was again deported back to Jamaica in November 1992 after his attempts at gaining refugee status were unsuccessful, passing away in a Jamaican prison four years later.

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