JOHN Henry Sayers had the reputation of being one of the North of England's most feared criminals.

The convicted armed robber and tax evader has been found not guilty of conspiracy to murder, having been cleared in previous years of a door-step shooting, jury nobbling and rape.

Sayers, 54, has clashed many times with Northumbria Police since he was a child.

He grew up in Newcastle's tough West End and claimed to have had run-ins with the police from the age of five when he was helping on the family's street fruit stalls which, at the time, were illegal.

The ex-paratrooper was first convicted of robbery in 1990 and jailed for 15 years.

He was cleared in 2002 of being the mastermind behind the murder of Freddie Knights, who was shot on his mother's doorstep in Longbenton.

In 2009 Sayers was arrested and charged with plotting to nobble the jury in that murder trial but was cleared.

A juror at the trial in Leeds had received a threatening phone call the night before Sayers was acquitted.

The jury nobbling case collapsed because key information was not disclosed to the defence.

In 2008, Sayers pleaded guilty to a £350,000 tax fiddle after Northumbria Police mounted a financial investigation into his business dealings.

Over a period of years he had failed to declare secret earnings from his empire of up to 30 pubs, dodging tax, VAT and business rates.

Sayers would go on to be charged with rape in 2013, with officers carrying out forensic searches of his home, but the case was discontinued due to a lack of evidence.

Speaking three years ago, his brother Stephen told the Tyneside-based Chronicle newspaper that the family's reputation grew after John Henry was arrested for a major armed robbery in the late 1980s.

While promoting his autobiography Tried And Tested At The Highest Level, Stephen Sayers, who is now reformed, said: "We got treated like movie stars with muscle in the city centre and we still are today.

"In the criminal fraternity the Sayers name is the creme-de-la-creme.

"We are respected throughout this country and abroad.

"There's no getting away from it, we set the bar."