Paul Ferris, Glasgow's Notorious Gangland Figure Turned Best-Selling Author, Dies at 62

Paul Ferris, the Glasgow gangland enforcer who reinvented himself as a best-selling author chronicling his life in organised crime, has died at the age of 62, according to reports confirmed by those close to him.

Ferris is understood to have passed away on Tuesday night at Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow following a short illness. The news was first shared publicly by photographer Brian Anderson, a longtime friend, who announced the death on his Naked City Facebook page.

Describing Ferris as a best-selling author and a "former notorious criminal," Anderson wrote that news of the death "will come as a shock to many who knew him throughout the different chapters of his life." He later told BBC Scotland News that the two had maintained a friendship spanning a quarter of a century despite their very different professional worlds.

"We got on really well. I found him polite, funny and kind," Anderson said. "It was a shock to everyone that I remained friends with Paul for 25 years." The photographer first encountered Ferris in 2002 while on a newspaper assignment, a meeting that developed into an enduring personal connection rather than a purely journalistic one.

Ferris occupies a singular place in the history of Scottish organised crime, a figure whose notoriety was cemented by one of the most closely watched criminal proceedings ever held in the country. He stood trial accused of the murder of Arthur Thompson Jnr, the son of crime boss Arthur Thompson, who was shot dead outside the family's home in the Blackhill area of Glasgow in August 1991.

The trial that followed, beginning the next year, was described at the time as the longest and most expensive criminal case in Scottish legal history. More than 300 witnesses were called to give evidence across 54 days of proceedings, with costs estimated at around £4m. The scale of the case reflected both the seriousness of the allegation and the intense public fascination with the underworld figures involved.

The prosecution's case rested heavily on the testimony of Dennis Woodman, who claimed that Ferris had confessed to the killing while the two men were both being held in Barlinnie Prison. Defence lawyers mounted a robust challenge to the reliability of that evidence, arguing that the case against their client was deeply flawed and that the credibility of the key witness could not be trusted.

After the jury deliberated for more than 24 hours, Ferris was acquitted of murder and all other charges in 1992. The verdict marked a defining moment in his public life. To this day, no one has ever been convicted of Thompson Jnr's killing, leaving the case unresolved more than three decades later.

Six years after walking free from the murder charge, Ferris was jailed for seven years in 1998 for gun-running, a conviction that reinforced his reputation as a significant figure in Scotland's criminal networks even as he continued to deny involvement in the killing that had first brought him national attention.

It was after his release that Ferris began to construct a second identity as a writer. His first book, The Ferris Conspiracy, was published in 2001, offering readers an insider's account of the Glasgow underworld and the legal battles that had defined his life. He went on to publish a number of further books in collaboration with writer Reg McKay, who died in 2011.

The reach of Ferris's story extended well beyond the printed page. His life was adapted into the 2013 film The Wee Man, which featured Line of Duty star Martin Compston in the lead role. The film brought Ferris's narrative to a new generation and further embedded his story in popular culture, transforming a figure once defined by criminal notoriety into a subject of cinema.

Ferris's death has prompted reflections on a life that spanned sharply contrasting chapters, from his years at the centre of gangland violence and high-stakes courtroom drama to his later career as an author and public figure. The reaction from Anderson underscored how the man himself often differed from the public perception shaped by his reputation.

For those who followed Scotland's organised crime landscape, Ferris remained a compelling and divisive figure, remembered simultaneously for the violence associated with his name and for the books that sought to explain, and perhaps reframe, that history. His passing closes a chapter on an era of Glasgow's criminal past that continues to intrigue writers, filmmakers and the public alike.