With firms doing battle up and down the country, it was only a matter of time before innocent people got hurt. Even some players were attacked as the hooligans went looking for their weekly adrenaline rush. Ordinary football fans were also caught up in the violence. Darts, bottles, fireworks, even sharpened coins would be thrown on the terraces. This episode also hears from the families of those who died at the hands of thugs. 21 year old Wolves fan Gerald Comerford went to watch his team and ne...
Mar 28, 2025•27 min•Season 9Ep. 5
In the aftermath of the Heysel tragedy, Margaret Thatcher declared war on the hooligans. It was a watershed moment for English football. Tough new laws were called for - and the incident led to English clubs being banned from Europe for 5 years. But there was more trouble on the horizon. The mobs had found a loophole. Friendlies. And in August 1986, that led to a full blown riot on a ferry in the middle of the North Sea. Some of those onboard the ferry that night tell their side of the story. Wh...
Mar 21, 2025•24 min•Season 9Ep. 4
1985 saw some of the biggest and bloodiest hooligan riots in British football history. In March, Luton hosted Millwall in an FA Cup tie. Millwall’s notorious mobs rioted before, during and after the game. The Kenilworth Road ground was ripped to pieces, and the town was trashed. Police officer Andy Clarke was left fearing for his life as pieces of concrete and plastic seats were used as missiles. Just two months later, Leeds and Birmingham’s mobs clashed at St Andrews. Hundreds were injured, and...
Mar 14, 2025•26 min•Season 9Ep. 3
What turns a fan into a fighter? When faced with a choice, do you turn and run, or stand and fight? We meet the men who found themselves drawn into a world of running battles and riots during the 1970s and 80s. For some, joining a firm and fighting gave them a new identity. For others, it was the first time they truly felt they belonged. From a young age, Bill Gardner, also known as Mr West Ham, found a home and a family he never had on the terraces of Upton Park, one he would fight for. For ado...
Mar 07, 2025•28 min•Season 9Ep. 2
Former boxing champion and proud Evertonian Tony Bellew delves into the brutal world of football hooliganism. At its height in the 1970s and 1980s, it was labelled ‘the English Disease,’ a time when violence on the terraces was as much a part of the game as a half-time Bovril. Bellew hears from those who lived for the trouble, the men and women whose Saturdays weren’t complete without a brutal punch-up. He speaks to the innocent victims caught up in the mayhem, the families of those who lost the...
Mar 04, 2025•3 min•Season 9Ep. 1
A brutal attack on a Daniel family member results in lengthy jail sentences for a number of Lyons associates. The feud continues in prison and there are fears it could go on for generations to come. It was an attack so brutal that police initially thought the victim - a Daniel family member - had been shot in the face or injured by an explosive device. The attack was the culmination of the latest wave of violence in the bitter dispute. A police crackdown on the ongoing feud results in lengthy ja...
Dec 31, 2024•27 min•Season 8Ep. 7
After his public assassination in a supermarket car park, the hunt for Gerbil's killers begins. A death in the Daniel family heralds a brutal new chapter in the never-ending feud. With such a high-profile murder, police are under pressure to catch Kevin Carroll's killers, and the manhunt takes an international twist. A high-profile member of the Daniel family dies and after a period of relative calm, the dispute between the two crime groups reignites in a series of brutal attacks. One man is eve...
Dec 24, 2024•27 min•Season 8Ep. 6
Gerbil is recruited for a kidnapping plot which doesn't go to plan. Meanwhile, he continues his reign of terror as he seeks to build his drug empire - leading to a growing number of enemies out to get him. Gerbil's reputation is such that he is recruited to carry out a kidnapping by a Liverpool drug gang. Meanwhile, he doubles down on his efforts to take control of the drug trade in parts of Glasgow - taking dealers hostage and threatening them with violence. He gives one dealer an ultimatum and...
Dec 17, 2024•27 min•Season 8Ep. 5
Gerbil is on the warpath after being seriously injured in a drive-by shooting. What followed next takes the feud to another level of violence, with the police searching for answers. Kevin Carroll is out for revenge, but seriously injured, he has to enlist others to exact retribution. This time, however, innocents are caught in the crossfire, and detectives have to employ all the tricks in the book to catch those responsible. The lid is lifted on the murky world of hitmen for hire. For a who's wh...
Dec 10, 2024•29 min•Season 8Ep. 4
As Jamie Daniels' drug empire continues to grow, a violent feud begins with a rival crime family - one that will lead to an all out bloody war on the streets of Glasgow. After serving time for heroin smuggling, Jamie Daniel is back in business. But a road rage incident involving a family member and a rival leads to a murder unlike any seen before in Glasgow. And there's more trouble on the horizon, this time with a family from the neighbouring Milton estate - the Lyons. What starts as a dispute ...
Dec 03, 2024•31 min•Season 8Ep. 3
Jamie Daniel begins his rise from the tough streets of Possil in north Glasgow - first as a scrap metal dealer and then as a major player in the city's flourishing drug trade. One of ten children, Jamie followed his brothers into the family scrap metal business. But as heroin took hold in the city, he spotted a business opportunity that would catapult him into the big league - importing large quanitities of the drug into the country. The city's underworld was changing too. From the razor wieldin...
Dec 03, 2024•34 min•Season 8Ep. 2
A bloody and bitter feud between two of Glasgow's most notorious crime families which has raged for more than two decades, leading to violence and murder. Why the Daniel crime group and the Lyons crime group fell out isn’t clear. The story goes it was linked to the theft of a stash of drugs – or because the Lyons were encroaching on Daniel territory. Whatever the cause, the dispute exploded into a series of astonishingly violent tit for tat attacks which have cast a dark shadow over the city of ...
Dec 02, 2024•3 min•Season 8Ep. 1
It’s New Year’s Day 1994 and Tyneside is waking up to the news of Viv Graham’s brutal murder. There is tension in the air and nobody knows what is going to happen next. What follows is a spiral of repercussions and tragedies which have spanned the decades and are still being felt to this day. In the final episode, presenter Livvy Haydock meets pathologist Dr John McCarthy, who walked the scene of Viv Graham’s murder hours after his death, before carrying out his autopsy. It was the start of one ...
Jun 28, 2024•33 min•Season 7Ep. 7
Viv Graham is released from prison following a vicious assault on rival bouncer Stu Watson. He needs to make up for lost time and remind everyone who is boss. But while he’s been away in jail, Tyneside’s nightlife has been transformed in an explosion of ecstasy. This is one fight Viv Graham won’t be able to win. In this episode, we follow Viv Graham as he tried to reassert his dominance on Tyneside’s nightlife, following his spell in prison. His services were in just as much demand as ever among...
Jun 21, 2024•27 min•Season 7Ep. 6
It’s the summer of 1989 and the atmosphere on Tyneside is febrile. The economy is shrinking and tumbling towards recession but at the same time the nightlife is bouncing. And among the criminal underworld battles are raging to control the supply of drugs into pubs and clubs. Viv Graham is right in the firing line and danger lurks on every corner. This episode tracks Viv Graham as he linked up with a member of the notorious Sayers crime firm. Graham was recruited to lead a vicious gang attack on ...
Jun 14, 2024•28 min•Season 7Ep. 5
Viv Graham is right at the peak of his powers. After starting as a nightclub doorman in Gateshead, he has grown to become the most powerful figure in Tyneside’s booming nightlife, with a vast pub and club protection empire. But trouble is brewing because a new party drug is landing and it’s going to turn his world upside down. This episode charts the arrival of ecstasy in the North East and the dramatic changes it had on the region’s nightlife. A prominent DJ in Newcastle, Tom Caulker, remembers...
Jun 07, 2024•27 min•Season 7Ep. 4
Viv Graham, a young man from the country, is about to land in the city and make a very big impression. In fact he’s going to take over the town. This episode charts Viv Graham’s meteoric rise. It follows in his footsteps as he went from being a complete unknown, to single-handedly controlling a pub and club door protection empire, which spanned Newcastle and beyond. Viv’s first move was to approach one of the city’s most colourful characters – Paul Tucker Grant – a doorman and boxer, who’d later...
May 31, 2024•31 min•Season 7Ep. 3
On New Year's Eve 1993, Viv Graham, a 17-stone man mountain, stepped out of a Tyneside pub and walked a few yards towards his Ford Sierra Cosworth. But he never made it. Lurking in the shadows was a gunman who fired three shots at him from close range. Viv, who ran a pub and club protection empire which spanned Newcastle and beyond, dragged himself back to the pub but his life was slipping away. The murder of Viv Graham, right in the middle of his heartland territory, sent shockwaves through Tyn...
May 24, 2024•24 min•Season 7Ep. 2
A new series of Gangster tells the story of Viv Graham, a man who ran a protection empire which spanned Newcastle and beyond. Viv Graham, a 17-stone man mountain, a man feared and revered in equal measure, came to dominate Tyneside’s nightlife through brutal and uncompromising violence. His murder, in an organised hit on New Year’s Eve 1993, sparked recriminations and repercussions which echo to this day. It remains one of the country’s most notorious unsolved murders. Presenter – Livvy Haydock ...
May 20, 2024•4 min•Season 7Ep. 1
The EncroChat hack has given the police unprecedented access to the secrets of organised crime. Nearly four years on from the hack, the detective who led the Met’s EncroChat investigation, DCI Driss Hayoukane, reveals what the police have learnt about OCGs which they didn’t know before. Presenter Mobeen Azhar hears about the impact of the EncroChat operation from Driss and from the National Crime Agency. There have been thousands of arrests, 200 threats to life averted and tonnes of drugs seized...
Feb 11, 2024•32 min•Season 6Ep. 7
The truth unearthed about Met police officer PC Kashif Mahmood is stranger than an episode of the fictional drama Line of Duty. And it was evidence unearthed in the EncroChat operation which made him plead guilty. PC Kashif Mahmood had won five awards for his outstanding service as a police officer. But he was secretly working for an OCG in east London. A detective from the Met police’s anti-corruption unit talks publicly for the first time about the most brazen case of corruption he’s ever seen...
Feb 04, 2024•29 min•Season 6Ep. 6
Little is known about who invented the EncroChat network and who owned it. Even the police who investigated the criminals using the network, know little about who’s behind it. Journalists David James Smith and Joseph Cox explain what their investigations into the company reveal. Plus, why an expert in cryptography thinks the whole EncroChat operation could fall apart on a legal technicality. Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Series Producer: Andrew Hosken Editor and Executive Producer: Innes Bowen Catchin...
Jan 28, 2024•29 min•Season 6Ep. 5
In the wealthy village of Denham in Buckinghamshire, Lee Hannigan and Harry Hicks-Samuels play the part of successful businessmen really well. Hannigan has a car garage, a mansion with a Ferrari on the drive and a place in Dubai. Hicks-Samuels is only 27 but has a watch business and flat in a luxury development. But the secrets of where their money really comes from are on their EncroChat phones. Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Series Producer: Andrew Hosken Editor and Executive Producer: Innes Bowen Ca...
Jan 21, 2024•29 min•Season 6Ep. 4
It's April 2020, and the Metropolitan Police are overwhelmed with messages hacked from the EncroChat network. Buried among the millions of texts and photographs, are the outlines of a murder plot. An anonymous EncroChat user is trying to source a gun and some ammunition for a drive by shooting. Will the police discover the messages before it’s too late? And will they be willing to risk the secrecy of the entire EncroChat operation by arresting someone on EncroChat evidence alone? Presenter: Mobe...
Jan 14, 2024•29 min•Season 6Ep. 3
Police across Europe prepare for a top-secret operation: the hacking of EncroChat, an encrypted phone network favoured by organised crime groups. EncroChat’s server has been discovered in northern France. The French police are planning to secretly inject some code into the users’ next software update. If it works, police could be reading the criminals’ messages for weeks. At the Metropolitan Police in London, DCI Driss Hayoukane is summoned to a confidential meeting where he hears about the plan...
Jan 07, 2024•28 min•Season 6Ep. 2
A 6-part true crime podcast documenting the biggest organised crime bust in British policing history. It happens in 2020 when police in France penetrate an encrypted phone network called EncroChat. According to police, the phones were used exclusively by criminals. For over two months, police forces across Europe were reading the secret communications of major league criminal networks. The Metropolitan Police, working with the National Crime Agency and other forces, used this information to unco...
Jan 03, 2024•2 min•Season 6Ep. 1
Despite the landmark trial of 2004-05 leading to several convictions for the murder of Charlene and Letisha - the gang murders in the city continued. What more could be done to tackle the violence? In the final episode in the series, we look at how a combination of one man’s brilliant gang mediation and West Midlands police’s Operation Ventara slowly started to turn the tide and begin the process of restoring peace to the city of Birmingham. At the same time as the police were making inroads int...
Dec 08, 2023•34 min•Season 5Ep. 7
It’s late 2004 and the buzz of police helicopters and sea of armed police around Leicester Crown Court creates a tense, intimidating atmosphere as one of the biggest murder trials of the decade gets underway. West Midlands police have the men they believe responsible for the deaths of Charlene Ellis and Letisha Shakespeare ready to stand trial for their crimes. But this was not going to be an easy conviction. Detectives had identified 75 people they believed could provide key evidence - yet all ...
Dec 01, 2023•32 min•Season 5Ep. 6
As the new century begins, the gang war in Birmingham intensifies. Bloody retaliation follows each shooting and we eventually reach the point where there is no longer any trace of mutual respect between the gangs. A gang war that began with vintage and adapted firearms had reached the point where submachine guns were the go-to weapon of choice. On January 1 in 2003, a group of innocent teenage girls were getting ready to celebrate the arrival of the new year together at a party in the heart of t...
Nov 24, 2023•29 min•Season 5Ep. 5
With the Yardie threat receding, the Johnson Crew and the Burger Bar Boys vied for dominance in the city. Guns became the weapon of choice, and nowhere felt safe; even the celebratory Handsworth Carnival turned into a scene of extreme gang violence. Territorial battle lines were drawn, with the Johnsons claiming the B6 postcodes of Lozells & Aston, and the Burgers controlling the B21 Handsworth area. It was in the 1990s that the names of key players began to emerge through the smoke of gun b...
Nov 17, 2023•30 min•Season 5Ep. 4
