Glam barmaid, angelic schoolboy and undercover informant – are unsuspecting assassins living in YOUR neighbourhood?

FROM an unassuming bar worker to a shadowy "master" lurking in the darkest corner of Britain's criminal underbelly, we shine a light on the terrifying world of the British hitman. And as the case of a fantasy killer who dubbed himself Evil Jesus shows, hiring a contract killer is often just a click away.

Martin Ready, 42, paid over £5,000 in Bitcoin after accessing a fake website called Online Killers Market in 2022. He believed he had hired a hitman to target a prosecutor known to him called Darren Harty. The unsuccessful plan saw Ready diagnosed with delusional disorder and convicted of attempting to conspire to murder.

So, who are the heinous killers ready to be hired - and could they be lurking in your neighbourhoods?. The Sun spoke to criminologist David Wilson who explained why the topic continues to fascinate even if we "abhor" and "condemn" it. The professor interviewed an actual hitman while conducting his research and found their reality was "far seedier and shabby" than how media portrays it.

He told The Sun: "British hitmen, and I uncovered only one hitwoman – a Maori working in a bar in London called Te Rangimaria Ngarimu - did not occupy a life of international travel, intrigue or espionage but something far seedier and shabby. "These men were often driven to offering lethal violence as a commodity because they were down on their luck, had recently been divorced, made redundant, had debts, or were facing bankruptcy.

"A casual remark down the pub about being willing to 'do anything for a few quid' could take someone on a journey that they were usually ill-equipped to accept and so they often ended up dead themselves, having abjectly failed to end their target’s life.".

It follows his research for Birmingham City University alongside Dr Elizabeth Yardley, Donal MacIntyre and Liam Brolan. The team trawled through a digital archive of national and local newspapers from across Britain and compiled a list of contract killing cases.

They discovered there were 27 murders, committed by 36 hitmen, for fees ranging from just £200 to £100,000. The average killer's age was 38, with the youngest being 15, and the average age of their victims was 36. Mr Wilson concluded the research pointed to four different types of UK hitmen - Dilletantes, Novices, Journeymen and Masters.

The first group of contract killers were categorized by people who had little criminal background. The professor continued: "I described this type of hitman in my research as Dilettantes - those with a clean slate. "Men with little or no background in violence and who rarely had access to, or experience with, guns thanks to our toughened gun laws in the wake of Dunblane shootings in 1996.

"So, they tried to kill their intended target in other ways, or the gun that they used malfunctioned during the attack. "The average cost of hits undertaken by Dilletantes came to little more than it would have taken to buy an average, second-hand family car.".

Mr Wilson highlighted the case of Carlton Alveranga, 20, and Richard Austin 19. The infamous duo stormed the Brass Handles pub, in Salford, in March 2006 holding handguns. But they failed to execute their targets - David Totton and Aaron Travers. Alveranga and Austin had owed money and accepted the hit to square off their debts.

But they were inexperienced and "out of their depth". "Austin managed to fire six rounds, but Alveranga’s gun jammed and this gave Totton, Travers and their associates the opportunity to retaliate, turning the guns on Alveranga and Austin, who both died from single shots to the chest," recalled Mr Wilson.

Another notorious 'hitman', Paul Cryne, entered the twisted arena as a former bodyguard and underwater swimming champion. He was hired to kill Sharon Birchwood in December 2007, as a way of settling business debts he ran up in Thailand. He strangled his victim, who was registered disabled, and left her tied up with parcel tape and an electrical cord on her bed at her home in Ashtead, Surrey.

The monster was eventually tracked down because he left traces of DNA left on Mrs Birchwood’s hand and the tape used to bind her. Mr Wilson explained: "The hit had been ordered by Mrs Birchwood’s ex-husband Graham, who was eventually sentenced to life imprisonment in 2009 and who died of heart disease at HMP Wayland ten years later.".

Meanwhile, Cryne was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2010 and had to serve at least 28 years before being considered for parole. However, the killer died eight years later in 2018. David Wilson told The Sun during his research he only uncovered one hitwoman - Te Rangimaria Ngarimu.

The 28-year-old Maori was handed a picture of Graeme Woodhatch, 38, by two of his former business associates - Deith Bridges and Paul Tubbs. She accepted a fee of £7,000 given to her by the men as a barmaid in London, but only ever received £1,500. In May 1993, she walked into Hampstead’s Royal Free Hospital, where her target was working.