Honicknowle Defence Regiment


The Honicknowle Defence Regiment was a mid-2000s criminal gang from Honicknowle, Plymouth. At one point they were dubbed one of the most feared gangs in the United Kingdom.

History and founding

The HDR is thought to have first appeared in 2003. By 2004 the group had already committed hundreds of acts of vandalism around Honicknowle, as well as serious assault and robbery. At the time there was also sexual offences directed at the gang.
They later met on a bridge to fight with a copycat group named The Whitleigh Mental Mafia.

Disbanding

Between 2008-2009 many senior members of the group were charged after an effort by the Police to try and disband the organization, which was reported as at the time as becoming a more sophisticated crime syndicate. The leader, Nathan Danvers was handed a prison sentence in 2008 and others received non prison sentences over the following months and years, although many were later incarcerated for separate crimes. The last reported crime credited to the HDR was in 2011.

Legacy

Even though Honicknowle is now free of organized gang activities, houses in the area generally sell for less than other areas in Plymouth, even if these areas have much higher crime rates. In fact, there was no robbery reported in the area over the whole of 2016, which cannot be said for many of the other places in the area.
The group is the first criminal organization from Plymouth to be reported about in a national newspaper, being featured in The Mirror and in The Daily Telegraph. The group also received quite extensive coverage from the BBC.