Looks at the gangland world of Glasgow, and Donal MacIntyre talks with former enforcer Paul Ferris, and crime journalist Reg McKay about the rise of gangland .
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00:00I don't think there is such a thing as a good criminal.
00:03You know, good criminals are the ones that don't get caught, aren't they?
00:05Twelve years ago, this man walked free from Glasgow's most notorious gangland murder.
00:12He had taken on the city's ruling crime family and seemingly got away with it.
00:21The stage was set for one of the longest-running gangland feuds in Britain.
00:26It's a story of raw revenge and hit jobs.
00:31We have spent six months getting close to this man to uncover the fight to rule Britain's most murderous city, where only the ruthless survive.
00:43Fuck the coppers!
01:01Mayhem in Glasgow this weekend. I'm Russell Walker with Clyde One News. Five people have been murdered in the city over the weekend.
01:10It is related to an ongoing dispute in the East End over the control of drugs empires.
01:14Strafkei police are describing this weekend's wave of violence as one of the worst on record.
01:25Glasgow's homicide rate is the highest in Western Europe, twice that of London and even greater than New York.
01:31It's a city plagued by long-running gangland feuds, where conspiracies run wild and memories are long.
01:39Through the eyes of a notorious crime mastermind, we reveal Glasgow's brutal underworld.
01:55He may look like an accountant, but gangster Paul Ferris is one of the most feared men in Scotland.
02:07He's been a hitman, drug dealer and gun runner, and has carried out shootings, stabbings, kneecappings and scalpings.
02:17People started calling you the robot because anything that I was ever asked today, I hadn't done it.
02:23You're very efficient.
02:24I like to think it was efficient.
02:26I was being given orders as much as somebody would be given a shopping list to go and collect the shopping.
02:32You know, you treated it purely as business.
02:34So you're kind of born into a kind of lifestyle where you completely disassociate emotionally from the crimes you do.
02:41Business, that's all it was. Just business?
02:42Just business.
02:43And the minute you pulled the trigger, you put that knife in.
02:46Business.
02:47Business.
02:48That's all it was.
02:49How do you feel about being described as an efficient operator, debt collector, enforcer, efficient killer?
02:54The emotional aspect is to achieve the goals in which people actually ask you to sit out and do it.
03:02There's a guy who had been stabbed in relation to threats that were alleged to have been made by him.
03:09That he was out to avenge something.
03:12And did you stay alone?
03:13Yeah, I did, yeah.
03:15But it turned out the information was not accurate.
03:20But that's something that I reflect back on and say that he was a casualty.
03:25The occasional blunder was an occupational hazard, but it only served to enhance Ferris' reputation.
03:35His violent exploits became legendary on the streets of Glasgow's East End.
03:40Paul Ferris' criminal apprenticeship came in the 1970s on Glasgow's hard streets.
03:51He learned from a young age that the knife is a powerful weapon, an equaliser.
03:56This is me getting into Hugging Field Street where I actually stayed for many a year.
04:05Number 19 over there, on the top.
04:07Not at all.
04:08Was this a base for a lot of your activities?
04:11Eh, in the early years, yeah.
04:14But I had to move because there was too much aggravation at my mum's house.
04:17So you were bringing the police to the door?
04:19I was bringing the police to the door and it was totally unacceptable.
04:24Now your dad was in prison. What was he in prison for?
04:28Bank robbery.
04:30The bank that he robbed was in Ridray.
04:32And er, because Berlini was in close proximity there, most of the prison officers' wages get paid in there.
04:44I never got paid that day because my dad nicked all the money.
04:48They thought that was quite funny.
04:50You know, any time I went in as a juvenile and my name got called out in reception,
04:56it was, is that Wally's boy?
04:57And then you'd get the older screws come in and go,
05:01I remember you fucking daddy stole our wages.
05:04I had a lot of happy times there.
05:06Growing up until the bullying aspect started.
05:10It just changed my whole life.
05:13Made me into somebody who was very vengeful.
05:17Always remembered bad things that happened to me then.
05:20Paul was systematically bullied at school.
05:22He waited until he was 17 and then unleashed his bloody revenge on one of his tormentors.
05:29He got him in a headlock and took a knife across his forehead and scalped him.
05:35And so all his skin from his forehead peeled off?
05:39Yeah.
05:41It must have been a horrific sight. Did it bother you?
05:44He never bothered me. He bothered his mother because he went screaming up to the house and she held him out the window
05:48until the ambulance arrived to stop the blood figuring all over the house.
05:54Obviously an impact on his mother.
05:56What impact did that have on you?
05:58None.
06:00Self satisfaction.
06:02Ferris' reputation for cruelty without remorse brought him to the attention of the East End Godfather, Arthur Thompson, who took him under his wing.
06:15That's a Thompson household there. First and last houses. The best advice my dad ever gave me was never to get involved with Thompson.
06:27I knew better, or I thought I'd had. It turns out my dad was right. The rest of the family was right and I was wrong.
06:33John. How are you doing? How are you doing? Pleased to meet you. Pleased to meet you. Pleased to come in. Yeah? Come on.
06:40Paul Ferris quickly impressed the Godfather. He became Thompson's most feared debt collector and enforcer.
06:48His exploits earned him the nicknames The Wee Man, Lucky and The Robot.
06:53This is the kind of final one that I did something. Excellent.
07:00Well, it's probably one of very few that I would identify as Arthur Thompson, the senior, who in real terms was the Last Godfather.
07:09Ah, yeah.
07:11Everybody's always got a nickname. The Last Godfather.
07:15Jimmy the Hammer. The Penguin. The Licensee.
07:18One of the most derogatory ones I've ever heard of was Brian the Tosser Makin.
07:25You know, basically saying he's a wanker.
07:27Probably could be called a wanker myself, but never in that context.
07:31A reporter had described me in court as a weasel-phrase crook with a cunning beyond his years.
07:39You know, so...
07:40That's what I was trying to portray in this.
07:41I think it's important that if we're going to create a kind of rogues gallery, I should be included in the rogues gallery.
07:52When Glasgow's Godfather died in 1993, Paul Ferris was seen as the natural heir to the crime empire.
07:59But one man stood in his way.
08:03Tam, the Licensee McGraw.
08:08Reg Mackay has been reporting on Glasgow's gangsters for over ten years.
08:13This is Thomas McGraw, known as the Licensee, in a rare, rare public outing.
08:18He's attending the funeral of one of his hitmen who'd been knifed to death in his own patch the year before.
08:24He's called a Licensee because he remarkably escapes conviction, investigation, prosecution for a wide range of offences.
08:34Has done for well over twenty years.
08:37It's part of the trade-off. That's why he's called a Licensee. License to commit crime.
08:42The underworld believes that in return for informing on fellow criminals, the police have afforded McGraw a degree of immunity.
08:50An official inquiry in 1996 cleared Strathclyde police of these charges, but the rumours persist.
08:58Despite being a major figure linked to organised crime, McGraw has not had a significant conviction in over twenty years.
09:07This is a rare sighting of McGraw in 1988, when he was cleared of running an international drug smuggling ring.
09:14That same year, Paul Ferris was sentenced to ten years for gun running.
09:21With Ferris behind bars, it's alleged that McGraw took control of Glasgow's multi-million pound drugs empire.
09:29He has every right to be afraid about being taken out. He probably has more enemies in Glasgow than anybody else.
09:36Ferris and McGraw have a history. In the 1980s, they both worked with the Godfather, Arthur Thompson.
09:43But an act of treachery tore them apart.
09:46Ferris believes Tam McGraw had a hand in the gangland killings of his two closest friends.
09:53The licence coverage that McGraw has got itself, it can all extend to not going to prison.
09:59It doesn't extend it not going to hospital.
10:01In January 2002, Paul Ferris, the heir apparent to Glasgow's East End crime empire, was released from prison for gun running.
10:17In his absence, Tam, the licencee McGraw, had become Scotland's richest criminal.
10:23The stage was set for the two sworn enemies to go face to face. Ferris versus McGraw.
10:34Since Ferris has returned to Glasgow, war has erupted on the streets of the East End.
10:39With the death toll rising, the licencee looks increasingly vulnerable.
10:43He did have a driver, a minder, a bodyguard who were killed.
10:52Then he went on another recruitment programme and got another minder, bodyguard and driver who were shot.
11:00Who knows, third time lucky.
11:04The next time they might get McGraw instead of the driver and the minder.
11:09Yeah.
11:11Tam, the licencee McGraw, is said to be worth £20 million, but his life is under constant threat.
11:19The licencee surrounds himself with bodyguards, often wears bulletproof vests and rarely leaves his fortified villa.
11:27He chose not to speak to us.
11:30How much would it cost to kill Tam McGraw?
11:33As far as finances would be concerned, there are people that would do that for nothing.
11:39Quality?
11:41Quality people that would do that for nothing.
11:45Short me.
11:49Over the last two years, Mark Clinton has been implicated in several murders of McGraw's henchmen.
11:54Clinton has been charged with stabbing one of McGraw's most trusted lieutenants 27 times.
12:02It's just a long knife.
12:04Shit's black up.
12:06It's better to have it than not have it.
12:09You never know at a moment at this point it's $20 million.
12:12Even in the 21st century, knives are the weapon of choice in Glasgow.
12:22Violence here is personal and intimate.
12:28That was just a...
12:30I can't wear the marks for the machete, I think.
12:38So how many of those wounds did you have?
12:41Fifteen or something.
12:42Fifteen?
12:43Just like slash marks there.
12:47What did you say to them when they were slashing it?
12:50Just tell them about and make sure I've not got a pulse left when they leave me.
13:02How many murders have the police called you in on?
13:06Four.
13:07Every five.
13:08The past two years.
13:10What's it like to stab a man?
13:13Nah.
13:17Any of that life you don't...
13:19It's nothing.
13:22It's nothing.
13:23It's easy to find the world today.
13:25Yeah.
13:28If you're in that situation.
13:30Yeah.
13:32Me, personally, any time I've been finding somebody with a knife that I've just been...
13:36Trying to stab him as many times as possible.
13:38You get him done before anything happens to you.
13:44Stabbed somebody once and I had a bone in the knife.
13:47The blade of the knife broke.
13:50Must have had a quite hard bone.
13:53And I think it was not much worse that the actual blade snapped.
14:02The knife broke.
14:05On the 24th of September 2002, the first of McGraw's henchmen was fatally stabbed.
14:11An hour and a half later, he was found by a passing police car lying in the pavement just outside the bar.
14:26Stabbed to death several times.
14:27People were shocked when Gordon Ross was killed here on East End, in the middle of his own territory.
14:32To be taken out in this way, right here, in one of his locals.
14:36Yeah, I think the licensee would have been very, very worried at that point and wondered what the hell was going to happen next.
14:42This is Billy McPhee.
14:45Billy McPhee is an other henchman, hitman for McGraw.
14:49A close associate of Gordon Ross.
14:51The two of them carried out many, many jobs together.
14:54How many murders would this man be responsible for?
14:56He's never been convicted of murder, but to my information, he's seen off at least six people.
15:03Usually with a knife.
15:04Some months earlier, McPhee had been shot in the face in one of his regular haunts.
15:11And this was his first time out from that injury.
15:14Serious, serious injury to his jaw.
15:17He felt quite vulnerable, I guess.
15:19An attempt had already been made in his life.
15:21Hmm. Yeah.
15:23You know, if the gun had been of a higher calibre, he'd have been dead.
15:26McPhee had been told at that funeral that he was next.
15:30And when you see McPhee, I mean, it's a picture of a dead man walking.
15:35Billy, the Iceman McPhee, had a reputation as a brutal hitman and major drug dealer.
15:44In 1998, McGraw and McPhee both walked free from court where they faced drugs charges.
15:52He was believed to be one of the licensee's most trusted associates.
15:55This is where Billy McPhee met his end.
16:01Shortly after that funeral of Gordon Ross, he decided to take in a Rangers game and a rugby match.
16:08He survived the Rangers match. He didn't survive the rugby match, unfortunately.
16:13This is a Middle East territory. He felt safe. He felt secure.
16:16He was relaxed. And all of a sudden, an individual with his head covered walks into the pub, straight up to Billy McPhee and stabbed him.
16:27What can only be described as a bloody frenzy.
16:30Stab wounds went to his neck, his head, his legs, his arms, his arse, his genitals.
16:3427 wounds. Horrible, bloody murder.
16:39McPhee, said to have been a close associate of crime boss Tam the Licensee McGraw, was rushed to hospital but died shortly after.
16:46It is related to an ongoing dispute in the East End over the control of drugs empires.
16:51The Knifeman made no attempt to hide his face. He was wearing a grey hooded top and jeans.
16:55So far, no arrests have been made, but detectives say that justice will be done.
17:00In the middle of a packed family pub, diners witnessed a savage and personal attack on McPhee.
17:07He was stabbed in the eyes and the throat.
17:10Getting justice was always going to be a difficult task.
17:14Although the pub was full, few witnesses came forward.
17:17The CCTV was said to be broken and sources have told us that blood and hair, other people's DNA, was scattered across the scene by the killer to put the police off the scent.
17:30Since you've come out in 2002, some of McGraw's henchmen have been killed.
17:37Are you responsible?
17:39No.
17:40Do you know who is?
17:42Probably, yeah.
17:43Are you going to tell me?
17:44No.
17:47The frenzied attack on McPhee seemed to fit the style of one man.
17:51And within weeks, Mark Clinton, already implicated in other attacks on the licensee's gang, was charged with murder.
17:59The only reason I was put in was because the narrowed it down to so many people that would brazenly walk into a pub and follow a full gang of so-called enemies and take the main man out.
18:12They're threatening all his pals.
18:14So they've done that.
18:15Well, there's only maybe two or three people in the full city that would have done that.
18:20They've moved it through and they've done that.
18:21Like one of them's in prison.
18:23One of them was here.
18:25Where was he?
18:26So it's got to have been him.
18:29Because the other two are accounted for.
18:31He's not.
18:32And we know that that's his thing.
18:35He'll not go into a pub with a big army.
18:37He'll just walk in his cell.
18:39See what he's got to do and walk out.
18:41Clinton, by his own admission, has a short fuse.
18:46I snapped a guy five times and smashed another one for me to get my father.
18:53I thought, you know, I locked my phone.
18:56But all that he showed you on camera was like, at once he says, oh, I'm punching a guy.
19:02And he's behind.
19:03But I wasn't.
19:04I was sticking it up back up his ass.
19:06I'm giving it up about five times or something.
19:09But the blame was about that one.
19:11I had him right into the horn.
19:13Five times.
19:15And when I got back up and his pal was done.
19:19I just, like, kind of, drew him my horn across his stomach.
19:23And it's just all done by done.
19:33Mark Clinton's trial started a year after McPhee's death.
19:47If found guilty, Clinton would be facing life behind bars.
19:59Under cross-examination, the eyewitness's evidence crumbled.
20:03With no conclusive forensics, the case collapsed.
20:07Mark Clinton was unexpectedly free.
20:10On you go, we, man!
20:13Fourteen months of police harassment for Duffel.
20:17Can fight with me on my mother.
20:19In an hour, it was to me.
20:21Try to fight me on my mother.
20:26Yeah!
20:28Don't kick off us!
20:34I'm very relieved.
20:35I've had fourteen months of a nightmare hanging over my head.
20:39And, I've had three attempts on my own life where I was given bail.
20:45Through, but, the police would have been as well painted a target on my back and my forehead.
20:51And just saying, on you go, kill him.
20:54But, I'm a very relieved man that justice has been seen and done today.
20:59And, I've been acquitted for murdering William McPhee.
21:03When that murder trial collapsed, the police made no announcement.
21:07Um, frankly, police often make no announcement.
21:12And the message they send is, we had the right man, we just couldn't get a conviction.
21:17It's impossible to prove, but Mark Clinton claims that Tam, the licensee McGraw, approached him outside the High Court and made him an unbelievable offer.
21:28I was told that, er, if I set Paul Ferris up to be murdered, that, that person would make sure that I walked through William McPhee's murder.
21:41Er, and who told you that?
21:46Er, Mr. McGraw.
21:49Er, and he says if I didn't set Mr. Ferris up, there would be witnesses coming in, that hadn't come forward already.
21:57And, that the note was definitely me that had done it.
22:03What was your reaction?
22:05Er, and, er, I found a tax thing, getting a tax thing, I phoned, er, Paul Ferris and tell him.
22:14It was, a lie's to have been put to him, that, er, he can get, McGraw can get Mark Clinton, er, an out, if he's prepared to set me up.
22:26Comes as no surprise.
22:28It's not the first time I've heard that, it certainly won't be the last either.
22:32Who else was with McGraw that day?
22:35Er, a fella Craig Devlin and Joe from McCartney, and the next day they threw them a shot in the Royal Oak.
22:43Craig Devlin and, er, fella McCartney.
22:46Detectives are waiting to question two men gunned down in broad daylight outside a Glasgow bar.
22:5441-year-old John McCartney is critically hurt, and Craig Devlin, who's 31, is in a serious condition in hospital.
23:01It's understood businessman, Tam the Licensee McGraw, rushed the pair to hospital in his car following the shooting in Nitzel Road.
23:10This was a typical gangland Glasgow hit.
23:13Busy pub, Thursday afternoon, full of, you know, normal people having a quiet drink.
23:18Door swings open, nobody pays any attention.
23:20It's February, it's cold.
23:22Guy's got a hood up, he looks round the room, sees his targets, straight up to them.
23:27He knows they're wearing bulletproof vests, that means they're protected from there.
23:31Shoots them low, shoots them the genitals, shoots them the thighs, you know, shoots them several times.
23:35Standard Glasgow issue is what they call the Glasgow send-off.
23:39Even if you've killed somebody, it's quite common here to shoot them once up the arse.
23:43It's an insult, as well as a very lethal shot.
23:47And typical Glasgow, the pub was packed, but guess what?
23:51No witnesses, nobody was here.
23:54Miraculously, they survived.
23:57But just days after the shootings, the pub, a well-known underworld headquarters, was burnt down.
24:02The elusive, Tam the Licensee McGraw, had had a narrow escape.
24:09Were you surprised to learn that McGraw was with Devlin and McCartney when they were shot at the Royal Oak?
24:16Was I surprised?
24:18Yes.
24:20Quite a big surprise as it happens.
24:23As I said to you before, I'm sure that if the people who committed that offence knew McGraw was there,
24:29I don't think McCartney and Devlin would have got shot.
24:33Who would have got shot?
24:34McGraw.
24:36But McGraw was at the toilet at the time?
24:40No, no, I heard they took a 9.9 dive under the pool table.
24:44Whether that's true or not is another matter.
24:46And Devlin and McCartney, are they associates of McGraw, so to speak?
24:51They're associates to an extent. They're commonly known as the Snatches Bitches, which means that they will do his bidding for them, despite the fact that it's generally accepted that everybody knows what McGraw is.
25:09So anybody that's collaborating with McGraw are tied with the same brush, and quite rightly so.
25:15I get a sense that you might know more about that day than you're letting on.
25:24Well, contacts are very good.
25:26I think the police would probably like the public to perceive me as some gang-long volunteer that's got money or that, but if I'm out of gang-long volunteer that's got money, I fucking wouldn't be sitting trying to paint the main house and straight in the wallpaper.
25:49I feel like President Valdir, then. I must have about 12 sets of keys for different houses on a drugstore.
26:03I've made that a point that I don't stay in the same house tunics in a row.
26:09I'm not going to meet anybody.
26:11A lot of people maybe say you're paranoid and all the rest of it, but it's happened before in so many murders through the years that people have been enticed there with their ain't meant to be friends.
26:29They've been enticed to a place or a meeting or whatever.
26:32So I just make it a point that you're not going to meet anybody.
26:36And I've had to change my routine now. I don't stay in the same house two nights in a row.
26:43I've always had the attitude that you're not going to get by you, so if there's something going to happen, it's going to happen.
26:51And nobody will be able to stop it, apart from myself.
26:55By the mid-80s, Paul Ferris had become one of the most feared hitmen in Scotland.
27:06He was working for Glasgow's ruling crime boss.
27:10Arthur Thompson and his son had grown rich on the heroin trade.
27:13I travelled on this road 20 years ago when I was on the run for several attempted mortals.
27:26The route to the bloody feud that has erupted in Glasgow goes back 20 years.
27:32It's a story of betrayal and treachery.
27:35At the time, Ferris and his now mortal enemy McGraw were both working with Arthur Thompson.
27:43But in the winter of 1984, all that changed.
27:47Ferris' work as a brutal enforcer for the Godfather was bringing the unwelcome attention of the police.
27:54Wanted in connection with over a dozen murders, the 21-year-old gratefully accepted sanctuary
28:00in the Thompson family holiday home in Rossi, Isle of Butte.
28:12That evening, as Ferris and his heavily pregnant wife settled in, police helicopters were flying up to Clyde towards them.
28:22Ferris believes that Arthur Thompson's son, Fatboy, had set him up.
28:30The police found a bag of heroin along with a large bundle of used banknotes and a cache of weapons in the flat.
28:39Do you think a member of the Thompson family shot due?
28:45Without a doubt. Without a doubt. And I genuinely think it was Arthur Jr.
28:48The police are investigating the 13-14 attempt murders.
28:53And the 13-14 attempt murders in relation to recovery of £50,000.
29:00I was going out and down things. On reflection, looking back now, it's inconceivable it was me it was doing that.
29:09But it was. I take full responsibility for what it was done.
29:14I thought it was an exercise that you go through to prove your worth to these people and then you're brought into the fold, but it wasn't like that.
29:23Ferris never worked for the Thompson's again. Five years later, an attempt was made on the Godfather's life.
29:37He told the police that Paul Ferris had repeatedly tried to run him over.
29:42A year later, Arthur Fatboy Thompson, the Godfather's son, out on weekend release from prison, was at the gang's headquarters.
30:01The Provenmill Inn, brandishing a hit list.
30:04Arthur Thompson Jr. was near enough vanity sentence.
30:07His then wife picked him up and instead of going back to the house, which you would probably miss sexual relationships with your wife,
30:18he decided that he was heading into the city centre to buy a shoulder holster and powder, gun powder, to make up a whole series of bullets.
30:29I believe that he bought that and then was in the Provenmill Inn bragging about this list.
30:34It was like a hear ye, hear ye declaration on this is his hit list.
30:41I was fourth on the list.
30:43There was about twelve, I don't know.
30:46He's obviously playing up to the gangster chronicles.
30:49How soon after his declaration of the hit list, which you were on, did he get killed?
30:54About four hours.
30:55Four hours?
30:56The first bullet caught Fatboy on the cheek. The second smashed into his ribs, puncturing a lung. The third pierced his anus.
31:07It was the ultimate insult to the Godfather.
31:11Ferris was charged with the attempted murder of Thompson Senior and the murder of his son Fatboy.
31:22He also faced charges of supplying heroin, cocaine and ecstasy, illegal possession of a firearm and kneecapping.
31:32Thompson Senior sought to avenge his son's death.
31:42War was declared in Glasgow. Blood would flow.
31:48Retribution was duly delivered on the day of Fatboy's funeral.
32:05Very famous bar, once belonged to Bobby Glover.
32:11Paul Ferris is in jail, accused of Fatboy's murder.
32:15And his two closest friends, Bobby, Bobby Glover, and the third of the amigos, Joe Hanlon, were found dead here in the car.
32:24Shot through the head.
32:26Outside, Bobby's own pub. Big insult, big insult.
32:29But worse than that was that very day Fatboy's funeral cortege would pass by where the bodies had been dumped.
32:37They were very close friends of mine.
32:40There was a lot of speculation flying about that because I had been involved in the murder of Fatboy Thompson.
32:46They must have been involved in the murder of Fatboy Thompson.
32:49If you wanted to hurt Paul Ferris at that time in 1991, one easy way to do it would be to hurt his two very, very close friends.
32:55They weren't just business associates. They were tight. They were very, very close friends.
33:00And they weren't just hurt. They were executed.
33:02It was a definite execution. It wasn't even a hit.
33:06They had been taken by force, put in a situation and summarily executed.
33:12Goed through the head.
33:14Ferris believes McGraw was behind the death of his friends.
33:18Despite no concrete evidence, it's widely rumoured that McGraw arranged for the corpses to be laid out in a Glasgow pub.
33:25For Thompson Senior to view before they were dumped in a car.
33:29It was a symbolic killing.
33:31The murders of Bobby and Joe have never been solved and never will be solved.
33:35But it's well known that Thomas McGraw had a hand in it, seemingly, to try and buy a favour with Thompson, the Godfather.
33:43At the time, Paul Ferris and Bobby and Joe were deemed to be the up-and-coming chiefs.
33:48They were going to take over. All very capable in different ways.
33:54And have the deaths of Glover and Hanlon been avenged?
33:57The crime is a great source of vengeance, isn't it?
34:01In a sense that loads of folk involved have since met tragic ends.
34:04But they're involved in organised crime anyway and it's a chance all these guys take.
34:16Arthur Thompson never recovered from his son's murder and 18 months later died of a fatal heart attack.
34:23The funeral of Glasgow's last Godfather was attended by gangsters from all over the UK.
34:34One man who was noted for his absence was the Godfather's one-time protege, Paul Ferris.
34:43Thompson's crime empire was now up for grabs. But who would seize the Godfather's crown?
34:53The names on everyone's lips were Ferris and McGraw.
35:00Arthur Thompson, senior, appeared as a prosecution witness at the trial in 1992 and gave evidence against me in 1992.
35:09I had the utmost respect for that man and his family until he appeared in the witness box and gave his evidence.
35:17I was shocked. I could not believe it.
35:19It transpires that he had been collaborating with authorities for a numerous amount of years.
35:29So when he died there, a parent was obviously going to be somebody who was engaging with the authorities and that wasn't me.
35:34But it turned it to be the time I got a licensee.
35:47Cleared of the murder of the Godfather's son, Ferris would become a legend in the underworld.
35:53The media nicknamed him Lucky.
35:54But Ferris' lucky run was to be short-lived.
36:00Just five years later, he was back behind bars, this time for gunrunning.
36:18With Ferris brooding in prison, McGraw was now free to pick up the remnants of the Thompson crime empire.
36:29But when Ferris was released in January 2002, the underworld braced itself.
36:35You're a man who's always regarded as saying you never forget and that eventually vengeance will be yours.
36:48Have you put vengeance and revenge behind or are you still waiting for your time with various people?
36:54I would like to think that I have put it behind me, but it's one of these situations if you come across somebody that you've not seen for quite a while and there's issues still to be addressed.
37:07This is where the grey area comes into it.
37:09Have you got enough self-control to leave it at that?
37:13Or are you actively going to do something about it?
37:15There's a difference between sitting and plotting and planning to wreak revenge on that.
37:21I've got no time for sitting and plotting and planning. The only plotting and planning I'm doing is constructive.
37:35Since Paul Ferris is released from prison, five of McGraw's henchmen have been the target of gangland hits.
37:41Most of the crimes remain unsolved.
37:48Ferris himself is not immune to threats.
37:53The man with the big reputation claims it's a risk he's learned to live with.
37:58I mean, you've got a long memory.
38:07Think of the people who you've done damage to on behalf of others in the criminal world, on behalf of your own kind of motives when you were at it.
38:16Somebody made a tent in your life you wouldn't deal with a...
38:20Somebody made a tent in my life.
38:22I'd act on it.
38:24If I get information that somebody's of a mind to wreak some sort of violence against me.
38:32Of course I'll react.
38:33You wouldn't go to the police in 999?
38:35Nah.
38:37You wouldn't say I need help.
38:38I don't deal with the police. I've never dealt with the police.
38:42We always had a kind of, an unwritten rule that we deal with our own problems.
38:48We deal with the punishment aspect.
38:52What punishment fits the crime that had been done against us.
38:59And if somebody's silly enough to make an attempt or, in worse cases, somebody's actually been given some money to go and commit an offence against me.
39:14I've had a variety of different people coming back and saying,
39:17We've just took 20 grand off of Mr X.
39:21To take you out?
39:22Yeah.
39:23How much would they say? How much would you like?
39:24I'd fucking laugh.
39:26That was funny.
39:27But the fact that they came back and told me in the first place was crucial enough.
39:32Because they knew if I found out that this plot existed then I would act on it.
39:49Paul Ferris is determined to stay out of jail and claims to have reinvented himself as a legitimate businessman.
39:57His chosen career, consultant for the private security industry, has raised many eyebrows.
40:06His reputation as Glasgow's most feared gangster appears to be an advantage in this line of work.
40:15Unconvinced by his career change, the police have maintained their surveillance on Paul Ferris.
40:20I've made a declaration when I was freed from prison. I was going straight. A lot of people were laughing and joking with regards to that.
40:29Have you gone straight black and white straight or have you gone straight grey?
40:33I don't think anybody can ever actually turn around and say they can go absolutely straight.
40:39Because I've still got friends that are criminals.
40:42People who are absolutely straight don't ever have these sort of associates in mind.
40:48I would never give up that friendship.
40:50So, in a way, there is still a grey area.
40:52What do the police think you're up to at the moment?
40:55Oh, everything.
40:56What do they think?
40:57Everything.
41:04Suspicion also surrounds Paul Ferris' associate, Mark Clinton.
41:09Since walking for McPhee's murder, he has been involved in a number of violent incidents.
41:13And now the police want to talk to him. This time, about drugs.
41:19They're saying they've found a substantial amount of drugs in my brothers in his wife's house.
41:25But they've not charged his wife or him. They're saying it was me.
41:30And it's not my house.
41:31I don't know how they can work that man out. I'm not a householder. I've not the keys for the house.
41:44So how can they tell right away that it's mine?
41:49Surely they must need to do tests for DNA or not?
41:54Are they after you then?
41:56Most definitely.
41:57The advice I've been given is to...
42:02Go.
42:07Are you going to take that advice?
42:08Definitely.
42:11As I say as the other one, I'm not going to be out to have in this city anyway.
42:15But this is just the icing on the cake.
42:19The proof in the pudding in the middle of this.
42:27I'm not going to put them on the cake.
42:28I don't want them to try to run the catalyst.
42:29Despite mounting pressure from the police and the underworld, Mark Clinton couldn't resist a farewell drink in town.
42:43police and the underworld, Mark Clinton couldn't resist a farewell drink in town.
42:53Justin, are you alright? I'm setting up for you there, man.
42:56I've just got to meet some of my mates now and get a couple of shandies.
43:43Clinton ended the night at Glasgow's newest strip club, Legs & Co.
43:51At 3.20am on Sunday morning, Clinton was once again involved in violence.
43:57He was left bleeding and unconscious on the pavement.
44:13Clinton was rushed to casualty in an ambulance. His brother feared the worst.
44:34He was in a coma.
44:36Is the situation getting worse? Are there going to be more deaths?
44:55I think, to be honest and fair on it, I don't know.
44:59The indications are not looking too clever.
45:01There are still probably a few old scores to get settled.
45:08And then those old scores, if they do get settled, there will be other ones to settle.
45:12So it's a never-ending look.
45:20After three days in hospital, Mark Clinton, the indestructible henchman, is back on the streets.
45:31Tam, the licensee McGraw, was finally convicted by a Scottish court for drink driving.
45:39It's understood he's now spending more time in his villa in Tenerife.
45:43For the first time, Paul Ferris seems to be in a position to inherit the crown he was groomed for as a young man.
45:55A crown that fits well, but one he protests he has no interest in.
46:00In January 2005, Paul Ferris signed a six-figure movie deal.
46:11Robert Carlyle is tipped to play the wee man in the story of his life.
46:15Special thanks to Mark and he comes to the
46:30You