Vendetta paul ferris pdf

Publisher Description. Customer Reviews. More Books by Paul Ferris. The Ferris Conspiracy. An Irish Heartbeat. Deadly Divisions. Le guide pratique de la maladie de Lyme.

I brought in a couple of young pals who were more dextrous than me — quick at the counting, that is, but not quick enough. It would take days to count the whole haul but the delivery was expected to set off the next morning — sod it. Next day, as per usual, the money was delivered to Spaghetti and we thought no more about it until I got a phone call from the A Team a few days later. Now there was going to be trouble. So, in double quick time, I went off to see the young A brother in charge of the operation.

Believe me, if the As thought someone had ripped them off, hell would pay the thief a visit. There was no way I had any doubts about any of my people so I chatted about the details of the handover with the young A.

It seemed that everything was as normal except he had been away for a few days and had only checked the money when he returned. My people, his people, delivery on time, money never left alone … this was looking bad. A couple of weeks later, we had to make another delivery. Given the previous difficulty, I belled the young A and asked if it was to be the usual procedure.

The A man might have been young but I was in no doubt who was in charge. A couple of days later, I had Spaghetti on the phone creating a rumpus because he had been bypassed — not my problem. It seems that, when the young A was away, Spaghetti had decided to invest in a wee venture. That would have been no problem if it had gone right but it went well wrong.

One night, Spaghetti turned up at one of their clubs not looking very well at all and in his mitt he clutched a big holdall. In a private office out the back, he opened his bag and unloaded gold watches, necklaces, pendants, rings and as much bling as you could imagine. It was pathetic. The man should never have lowered himself to that but it just shows how much the experienced player feared the A Team.

There was something about that scene that I hated — the breach of trust, the fear of reprisal, the grovelling. There was no fall-out, no ill feeling, just a parting of the ways. Looking back, I can see that it helped me realise that that way of life was not for me any more. Other top teams might have taken my decision personally but not the As.

They remained good friends and saw to it that they did their bit to ensure the English players knew I was OK by them. Charlie Kray had been safe in Belmarsh Prison. The place was a jail within a jail. Newly built to house the highest risk prisoners such as the IRA, visitors were screened as much as inmates. When friends and families turned up at the main gates, they had to identify themselves not with the usual passport but sanctioned photographs and palm scanners.

After that, they were bussed from the gates to the secure unit. Much as I detested being in jail, I could almost understand the security measures. The place was jumping with very dangerous folk. Mullen had turned to organised crime and trafficking drugs big time with bases in Ireland, Manchester, Liverpool and London and is reckoned to be the man who sanctioned the hit on the journalist Veronica Guerin.

He was one very powerful man in more ways than one. I used to go to the gym for light workouts. You can get unfit and lazy in jail just at a time you need to keep fit and alert. Every punch smashed a big indentation in the bag and lifted the other bloke off his feet. Mullen would go hard at this for maybe half an hour and made it look so easy. Belmarsh was full of characters like Edgar Pierce, the Mardi Gras Bomber, and Charles Bronson, the man reckoned to be the most violent prisoner in England.

Jailed in for an armed robbery, Bronson could have expected to be free by about One-man riots and assaulting the screws all gave him added time. Then he started hostage taking with extras. In , he took a deputy governor of Hull Prison hostage, tied him up and threatened to kill him unless his demands were met. Another time he took three inmates hostage and demanded an Uzi submachine gun and, for reasons known only to him, an axe.

Also in Belmarsh was a gentle bloke, an actor by training, called Adnan Hoshnan, jailed for hijacking a Sudanese Airbus a couple of years before. Adnan and his extended family were en route for home where they knew they were going to receive a very hostile reception — jail at least, torture certainly and possibly death.

On the spur of the moment, Adnan took over the plane pretending a sauce bottle was a gun. Then he cleared the first-class section and moved his own family in. Well, why not? First class was separated from the rest of the plane by a thick, velvet curtain and this was duly closed to give the family some privacy.

And I did. The buzz you get out of pulling off some audacious job is half satisfaction, half wonder at your own nerve. Adnan instructed the pilot to head for England where he thought they would be fairly treated. As soon as Adnan and his family hit English soil they were nabbed by the SAS but he was delighted since jail time in the UK was far preferable to what was waiting for him back home. Then he met Charles Bronson and the hijacker became a hostage.

Thank God Bronson let Adnan go when his demands were met — ten Big Macs, the edible kind not the shooters — with extra cheese. In Belmarsh, I met an old friend, Dessie Cunningham. Bronson ended up knifed, hospitalised and almost breathed his last. Dessie was no slouch in other words. The trouble was we discovered that the pub belonged to the Arif Family, one of the big London firms. That was one night out that could have turned really nasty and long term. Noel helped us smooth the troubled waters, good man that he is.

Dessie had advised me to get a lawyer called Paul Robinson from London to fight the gunrunning charges. When Dessie recommended Paul Robinson I knew his opinion would be sound and it was. For a hard man, Dessie also had a big soft spot — something that was not unusual in my experience. When he was coming close to the end of his sentence and his girlfriend ended their relationship, he killed himself — it was the loss of a great guy and a good friend.

The ship had been converted to a jail because all the other prisons were bursting at the seams. It still made me think of convict ships and the old days of sending bad boys and girls off to Australia. My time with Noel was all too brief before he moved on to his watery jail. But the bold Noel had plans other than jail. When the prison wagon pulled up outside the courthouse, two armed men — one dressed as a postman with a mailbag slung over his shoulder — rushed the van blasting away with guns.

Along with Hobbs, Noel vamoosed and has never been seen since. Well, at least not by anyone wearing a blue serge uniform. There was me worried about the politics in the English prison system.

Nothing to worry about. Guys like Dessie and Noel Cunningham carry great respect in that system. Simple as that. My friend and co-accused Arthur Suttie is also well respected. In Belmarsh he shared a cell with an Italian bloke called Angelo Casalli. Angelo was a right character. He was good company and could keep you going with stories about his adventures all night, every night. When I met him, he was awaiting trial on cocaine smuggling.

Once that was behind him and he was released, he went and stayed with my sister Cath for a while. Then he popped home to Italy to visit his family.

As soon as he arrived, he was nabbed by the cops and put under house arrest as a suspected member of the Mafia. That was a few years ago and, last I heard, he was still there in his house under arrest. For all the stories Angelo told us, he never once mentioned the Cosa Nostra but maybe there was even more to him than met the eye. Strangely enough, this was on a Saturday afternoon when it was a total lock-down in Belmarsh but standing there in the doorway was a governor, the head of security, two screws and a big dog.

I had to be in serious trouble — the alternative was even worse to contemplate. I was on my feet in a split second. My stomach flooded with acid and a dull ache pressed my chest. This was the procedure for a close family bereavement for sure. The staff group moved off with me in the middle. With every step, my feet felt heavier and heavier. Relief swept through me and I started to laugh, snigger nervously. I was aware that the phone call was being taped.

They all were in Belmarsh. Why are you phoning? I was meant to be in a hell of a state, in hospital and maybe not going to survive. My mother was very much alive but worried sick for her youngest boy. The Evening Times had been running with quite a number of fabricated stories about me. I knew where they all came from. An ex-friend of my brother Billy, Donnie McMillan from Drumoyne, had a cousin who worked at the paper and he was feeding him tales and probably getting drinking money in return.

Donnie was a wannabe of the lowest order. He was an arsehole but a dangerous one when it came to upsetting my family.

Relief turned to anger. The governor had heard everything between Carol and me. Belmarsh was absolutely dripping with cameras. The only thing you could do in private was have a shite and even then they watched you enter and exit the cubicle.

Besides, I was standing there whole and well in front of him. The medical I demanded was carried out the next day and it proved the obvious — that there had been no beating.

My co-accused on the gunrunning, Arthur Suttie, was an old friend of Frankie. At the first chance he got, he was on the bell to him and explained the situation.

Frankie was fizzing and lived up to his reputation of Mad Frankie by first offering to phone the paper and then, when he realised how upset my old dear had been, proposing to go up there and sort out the hacks personally. That was taking it too far. The phone call did just fine. But I did it for accuracy and, much more importantly, as independent proof to my mum that I was all right.

The authorities reckoned he had too many connections with Ireland and was too notorious by half to be safe. He had to be planning to break me out.

Jaimba had been grilled for hours in some airless room. When they eventually gave in to his demands for a drink, they brought him an open can of warm Coke.

Freed an hour later, Jaimba went mad — truly mad. He was hallucinating and saw monsters crawling out the walls to get him. Within a few weeks, he was locked up in the State Hospital Carstairs, a very unwell man. Jaimba is convinced that MI5 drugged him with that Coke. Far fetched? One morning, very early, I was wakened roughly by a screw shaking me. Ordered to dress and pick up my belongings in double-quick time, I was soon led from the block. What the hell were they going to throw at me now?

It felt like I was following these guys about. What the hell was going to happen here? I already knew he would be out to get me because of what he had been told about a recent robbery — the very reason he was in jail. And, what was more, the prison service knew that fine well.

Each prison keeps a friends-and-foes file detailing people who are close to others and people, like Mick and me, who are likely to kill each other.

Yet they still set us up as neighbours. An accident? Mick Healy was a well-known Glasgow player. He was very capable and had made a big name for himself when locked up in Shotts Prison in the s for an armed robbery. Shotts is a long-term jail and pretty secure. However, all that was behind him by this time and had nothing to do with the grief between us. I thought back to last time Mick and I had met.

He was always big on the talk but, when it came to the action, he was reported missing too often. It was just common sense. His fingerprints were all over the place and legitimately. My paw prints, however, were going to show up nowhere near the place. He was meant to be experienced. He should have understood that. Loud strains of Bob Marley and the Wailers seeped through the front door. I nodded to the guy with the key and he opened the door gently, quietly.

A brisk toss of my head told him to get the hell out of the place. Whatever was going down, I could do without a witness. Especially that guy. Totally unreliable. He was the one who told me that a certain party was putting it about that I was untrustworthy, that I talked to the cops — the same party sitting in his flat listening to some reggae. Being thought of as a trader with the bizzies was the lowest of the low, in my opinion. Any rumours to that effect about me had to be quashed — whatever it took.

Well, not my taste really. I scanned the room for guns and found none. That was sloppy. Not Mickey Healy.

He was made of stronger stuff though on edge, wary, maybe a little scared. Standing over him, I kept the pistol trained on his nut. His face went a deep red. I was sure I caught a flicker of electricity when those names were mentioned. My ex-boss Thompson was the so-called Godfather of Glasgow and McGraw was better known as The Licensee for trading information in return for never being prosecuted for his own crimes. Both of them would like to ruin my reputation.

For some reason, they felt threatened by me. Healy might well have spoken to both. It was one that we had proven to be a forgery by getting the alleged author himself, a Mr A Vannett, to say so in court, under oath. Well-educated bloke — uni degrees and stuff. He pointed out all these spelling mistakes. Said it was a fake. Told old Thompson I wanted fuck all to do with it nor should he.

Or maybe Blink? Do you? He looked blank. Aye, I do. I decided — but only then — not to shoot Mick Healy. Little did I know it would explode in my face in an English jail. Besides, how could I tell him it was his very own pal, the man with the key, William Lobban. In the late s to the early s, Lobban had been on the run from jail and my two mates, Bobby Glover and Joe Hanlon, and I were asked to shelter him so we did.

We put him up in a safe flat for a while and then, for about nine months, he actually lived with Bobby, his wife, Eileen, and their son. After the call, Bobby announced he had to go to a meeting and called Joe Hanlon and asked him to drive him. Mick Healy, oblivious to that at the time, was pally with Lobban. The robbery went belly up and the gang were soon captured. At their trial, out of the blue, a certain Mr X offered to give evidence to the court, on behalf of the accused, as long as his ID was kept secret.

Mr X spun a web of stories about me being the mastermind of the robbery and setting them up to be caught. The poor south-coast judge must have wondered what the hell he had got into as tales of organised crime in Glasgow were woven in his court — tales and fabrications. Mr X admitted that he had an extensive criminal record himself and had been involved in the Glasgow scene as well as elsewhere.

In jail in Perth, his bad conscience got the better of him and he thought everyone was trying to kill him. That did the trick and he was transferred to prison in England for his own safety. After the Torquay trial, Lobban and Healy ended up in the jail together, coaccused on other charges dating back to the s. Well, how would you feel about the guy who set up your best friends to die?

The early omens were good. Now, I believe you. Fuck sake, who can blame you? All I need is the whole truth. Just how good I was soon to learn. One other very nasty rumour also spread — that I was planning to supply Loyalist groups with the guns — and there I was in Full Sutton which, at that time, was packed with top IRA men. That rumour was a death sentence and no doubt but I was oblivious to it all. A personal recommendation from Dingus was all that the IRA needed.

They listened to Mickey — thank God. Even though he assured me that the hit was lifted, I could feel a cold sweat on my brow. The rumour must have been circulated by an enemy of mine — either a street player or one of the blue serge mob. Having been brought up in a city that rages with sectarianism just below the surface, I had never taken sides and would never have traded guns to one or the other.

The rumour was so far removed from the reality, yet so potentially lethal, it had to have been set off deliberately. He smiled. It was the first time my wish to be wealthy had saved my life — or so it seemed. Whatever it was had happened twenty-three years earlier and still the IRA remembered.

With that matter safely dealt with, I was now concerned with my life and getting as much of it back as I could. In other words, I was appealing against my sentence. It was time for the Old Bailey again and an unexpected delay.

With his successful book, McVicar, turned into a best-selling film of the same name, starring Roger Daltrey of The Who, John turned to writing and broadcasting for a living. At one point in the s, he was the anchorman for a late-night chat show on TV and I was invited on as a guest.

As we were chatting before the show, he seemed to be acting the hard man but a very soft, politely spoken hard man at that. I got the impression he was acting the game because of my reputation. Cue for a laugh. He really was knackered. Just the trick. You maybe should stick to a couple. Twenty minutes later, he took another four off me. As we were set for the cameras to roll, I asked him if he was feeling better. Five minutes into the interview, his fingers began to fidget, rustling the papers he was holding.

His speech was getting faster and faster, his throat was becoming drier and drier and he swigged continuously from his glass of water.

John McVicar had overdosed not on speed but on over-the-counter Pro Plus, a remedy designed to aid recovery from hangovers. The stuff was stacked full of caffeine and could give even an athlete the jitters. Aye, right. He hit eight banks and foreign exchanges in the most straightforward way. His old boy was scooping more than that back in the s.

Scott knew all about fine art and what was worth what. Dressed in the leathers and motorcycle crash helmet, he and Russell hit the Lefevre Gallery in London. Russell Grant McVicar had been nabbed and, on the day of my appeal, he was going to plead guilty or not guilty before we could get on with my business.

Inside the courtroom, the clerk of the court read out the first charge which was long and wordy. After the record had been changed, the clerk read out charge two and asked Russell how he pled.

He should have been in and out of that court in a jiffy. What was it? A judge in bad mood? Not a good omen for me, I reckoned. As the clerk stared at Russell, five minutes passed. Then ten minutes, then fifteen minutes — one hell of a long silence in a court of law. Now that I know how he did it, I forgive him but he had me going for a while. Later at trial, Russell was found guilty. He was sentenced that hard for taking the piss out of the Old Bailey.

When I was finally allowed to have my appeal heard, my sentence was reduced from ten to seven years. Now that was more like it. Back in Full Sutton I took stock. The IRA had accepted that false rumours had been spread about me and the Loyalists so the heat was off.

It was going to be me. What the hell were they planning next? The sausage was sizzling under the grill, the oil in the frying pan popped and spat and the kettle was already boiled. Then the room filled up with big black guys. All I knew was that they were angry, very angry — with me.

Fuck me but the growls turned to shouts and what were clearly threats in any language. Just as I was deciding which one to whack first with the frying pan, one of their number walked forward holding his hands up.

The others got the message and shut up. I smiled back, wondering what kind of a saddo of a mother names her child after a football club and a fish.

Not his face, not his body just his eyes as, behind him, his oblivious mates glowered down at me, desperate for one false move, one signal so that they could have an excuse to happily go in for the kill.

All the guys were from Jamaica and considered themselves to be jailed in a foreign land. They had fought for a long time to have the right to a pork-free kitchen. Everton needed more convincing. Here I am, miles from home, slung into an English dungeon. Love it or hate it, that movie and Mel Gibson looked like saving me from a right doing.

Finally, Everton turned round. The brothers had agreed to allow me to use the kitchen, provided I accepted certain conditions regarding the cooking of pork, washing up and so on. Back on the wing with my breakfast, I met Grant Turnbull, the bloke who had given me the grub. I thanked him for the very fine nosh.

In due course, I became friendly with them all, especially Everton Salmon who was doing a life stretch for a shooting.

Most of them were in for violence, including murder, and drug trafficking. I often went back to their kitchen but I always obeyed their rules. They also taught me a great deal about the Jamaican style of cooking. Who said prison was a complete waste of time? Breakfast down and thoroughly appreciated, I was now on the lookout for a certain prisoner. I thought back to a conversation in the textile shop at Full Sutton jail with Mick Healy — the same Mick Healy the jail had set me up with as a neighbour fully expecting warfare between us.

Not only were they to be disappointed on that point, Mick also warned me of certain troubles. Said to look you up if we ever crossed paths. Paul was the lynchpin of the Salford Team, one of the most respected and biggest gangs in the northwest of England. If Paul Massey said he was innocent, that was good enough for me.

See you about. The way the bloke had announced his name, he obviously expected me to recognise it. In truth, I was clueless but Mick Healy was about to put me right in that same textile workshop in Full Sutton jail. Clearly a hit job, the three had been killed only weeks after young Leah Betts had died after taking E. The dead men had been so involved in the ecstasy market there that the cops surmised there might be a link.

But that was for later. Right now, I was giving all my attention to Mick Healy. But he likes to play the big gangster. Friend to friend, Paul, give Vella a wide body swerve. It had taken the notorious VO8 Firearms Department, usually deployed on matters of national security, to crack that team.

We were just chatting, reminiscing about the good times in Salford and nearby Manchester. I mentioned being taken along to a Prince Naseem boxing match when, not once but twice, I thought a bomb had gone off in the stadium.

It turned out the Salford boys had contacted Ando and Tabbo in jail and advised them to watch the gig on TV. The explosions had been set up just for their entertainment — wee messages of solidarity from the outside. What the hell was Vella up to? If Mickey Healy said that Jason Vella was trouble, he meant it and no doubt.

Vella was now an inmate at Frankland Prison. The very day I was arrested for the gunrunning, I knew I was in hot water with her.

It was no laughing matter. My mum, Jenny Ferris, is one of the strongest people I know. When I was just a nipper, my old man had been jailed — first for not paying tax on a small bus company he ran and then for a bank robbery. Say it quick and it sounds as if I come from some crime dynasty but it was more interesting and messier than that. We were a well-off family by Blackhill standards. The whole area became more and more rundown. They filled unmarked vans with big bruising polis in boiler suits and cruised the scheme.

Afterwards, the targets were mostly just thrown out on to the road and no charges were made. The beatings were the point. These were the meat wagons and they dealt in terror. Then you had families like the Welsh crew, possibly the ugliest bunch of men ever seen anywhere. For decades, they had a feud with Arthur Thompson as they tried to take over his territory. Poverty and violence — that was Blackhill. But my dad wanted to make a good, straight living through his bus business.

When they jailed him for not paying the tax that was due, he lost all that. So, while he was in Barlinnie — known locally as BarL — he and some cronies planned a bank job, using a school bus full of kids as their getaway motor.

And it worked till some loose-lipped gang member started spending the loot like money had gone out of fashion. Billy, my older brother, was already in jail for murder so Mum was left on her own to take care of us kids. Even though I was very young, I could see she was working numerous jobs at once — hard jobs like cleaning or scrubbing pots in a hospital kitchen.

I owed my mum — big time. After my pals Bobby and Joe got murdered, I was sick of that whole scene. Too many people now traded with the cops and would stick you in as soon as look at you. I was already turning away from crime, working a number of legit businesses like installing fitted kitchens and the security game and I was doing very well.

One of the reasons I was moving away from crime was to give my mother back some of the loving care she had given me. My old man had died in so she was on her own and deserved to be looked after a wee bit.

Now there I was arrested on bloody serious charges. It felt like I was letting her down and I needed to talk with her pronto — no chance. Arrested and deemed to be a highsecurity risk, I had to get the phone numbers I wanted to call cleared by the security screws and that took three weeks.

When I was eventually allowed to call, she was quiet, off-hand, a bit hurt. And I felt like shite. Help was at hand in the form of the bold James Addison, the man who was still wanted on warrant for the gunrunning by the Old Bailey and various courts across the country.

She liked him and there was no surprise in that. The day he was born, I was the proud preening father — just another man cradling his wee boy and thinking he owned the world. I did — it was right there in my arms. It was a time of great optimism as well. My businesses were making good profits. There was the counterfeit dough scam planned and, if it all worked out, Dean would grow up wanting for nothing. It was also a time of determination.

At one point, I was to sort them out with a house. We are unable to find iTunes on your computer. To download from the iTunes Store, get iTunes now. Open Apple Books to buy and download books. Opening the iTunes Store. Do you already have iTunes? Les meilleurs alicaments naturels View in iTunes. Deadly Divisions View in iTunes.

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