History of horrific violence

The Sonnex family was feared across south London. Bernie Sonnex, the father, has 47 convictions, including drugs and firearms offences and has been jailed six times. His wife Kathleen Quinlan left him.

Dano's older brother Bernie junior — described by Dano as "very violent" — has been jailed 10 times for 34 offences. Their sister Louise was jailed for three years in 2004 for glassing a drinker in a pub and is serving a five-year sentence for beating the father's new girlfriend with a golf club.

Dano's associate, father-of-two Nigel Farmer, 34, a £100-a-day crack cocaine and heroin addict who lived with the Sonnex family in Deptford, said Bernie junior had told him: "Yeah, I killed three people and got away with every single one of them." Bernie junior allegedly shot a pub DJ five times in the face with a gas gun for refusing to play a record. Despite 20 people being in the pub, nobody would give evidence against him out of fear.

Dano's violent life began aged 17 in 2002 when he stabbed a youth three times in a dispute over a car.