stephen-richards-author

Rockweiler (nickname) has settled down over the years, he is a man mountain, he stands some six-and-a-half foot tall, and is round about eighteen or nineteen stones in weight. He too works in Barlinnie, this dog was responsible for giving the Wendy House seg unit the tough name tag, as he dished out the beatings to some very hard prisoners in the past. I can__ take that away from him, but he was a bit of a shit bag as well because he wore the full riot body armour when he offered to fight.

As equally as one may use size, the cunning James Crosbie was once classified as the most dangerous man in Scotland, notorious for his daring bank robberies and escaping on a bicycle. He was the criminal mastermind behind many successful crimes carried out throughout the UK.

Aberdeenshire__ Peterhead jail housed the hardest, badest, meanest motherfucker prisoners in the Scottish prison system. So no one was surprised when the pressure pot jail finally erupted in to violence that has not been seen or equalled since.

They think giving people longer prison sentences is going to teach people a lesson. Well that is just fantasy, as we just take our drugs and violence in to the prison. Our brothers and sisters, pals or rivals outside plug the gap that has been left by the dealer that was selling the crack or smack in the first place. Just like kamikazes, when one is dead, fifty queue up to take their place.

There__ just no comparison between these hard men, some fight with their bare hands, some with their brains and some with weapons. Some have a sixth sense for survival, avoiding death with catlike ease. I don__ include any world champ at this or that, but I do include men that would wipe the floor with any world champion at anything you wanted to throw at them.

Now if you want to look to the medical profession for a true hard bastard, there is none harder, in my opinion, than the man I will now name. I mean, 99.9 per cent of doctors would want to protect their pension and keep in with the in-crowd, not, though, this man amongst men. The star witness against the screws from Barlinnie was Doctor Simon Danson.

By today__ standards, if you go by the early morning TV misery shows, my broken home family of mixed parentage siblings was quite normal.

There is no getting away from the fact, he is one of only a few screws in the system who are the real McCoy. Anyone reading this book who has spent time in Scottish prisons will no doubt agree, this chimp is up for it just as much as the prisoners. I personally would love to see more screws like him, as he doesn__ bother with all this shitty report piss. If you want to fight him, he comes into your cell, one-on-one, man-to-man.

From the tens of thousands of criminals I have mixed with behind bars and in the streets or have known of over the last three decades of my criminally active life, the Eighties, Nineties and Naughties, I have selected the crème de la crème of the toughest, maddest, hardest Scottish bastards that have ever drawn breath.

Adrian (not sure if real Christian name?) was a PTI in Perth Prison before he came to work in the special units with us. Adrian was a gentleman, but he was also a very, very hard man that didn__ take any shit. He is now working up in Inverness Prison, but I can tell you, this man can go for fun. I have witnessed him in action, I have been about all the diggers in Scotland ten times over and I would put this man up there with the best of them for a roll about with the prisoner.

Porkie and me came to some sort of agreement with the screw and the nurse, and after some haggling we gave ourselves up. After that, I never saw my friend Porkie again until we appeared at Edinburgh High Court, where we each got six years on top of our sentences for one night of madness. That just shows you how drugs can get a grip over your mind.

The screws are just as bad as us, maybe not now but certainly in the past they used to beat you with their riot batons, strip you naked, cuff your hands behind your backs and then take shots of kicking you in the head and body until you were knocked out.

Dr Danson made a series of claims about violent assaults on three prisoners by staff at Barlinnie. Three prison officers subsequently appeared in court charged with assaulting inmates.

If it doesn't take your breath away, make a bigger wish.

As for that Maxine Carr, she could have helped clear up the murders much quicker, but she chose not to grass her lover to the coppers, no one in the criminal world likes grasses, but this isn__ any normal criminal case. Huntley isn__ a criminal, he is a total fucking, monster beast who, if I had my way, I could hang him in Soham town hall for the families to see.

It was so funny, I witnessed this with my own eyes, Andy and the screw were like two WWF wrestlers, we were locked behind the grill gates cheering Andy on, the chants started. The chant was to the tune of Jingle Bells and went like this: Stab a screw, stab a screw, stab a screw today, all that fun it is to stab a screw on New Year__ Day, but it was only 29 December.

Once the screws left, most of the six or seven boys who had been overpowered by the SAS were not in any fit state to move, never mind talk. In May 1988 Malkie and Sammo and one other boy, whose name escapes me right now, got a total of twenty-seven years between them for mobbing and rioting and assault.

Brian __he Tax Man_ Cockerill - While I__ mentioning drug dealers, I have to give a mention to a man hated by the peddlers of soul destroying stuff, big Brian __he Tax Man_ Cockerill (AKA as Scot__ Brian), born on 16 December 1964 in Coatbridge, in Lanarkshire, at 6ft 3in, with 23 stone of rock solid muscle, his awesome power has made him a truly terrifying force in Britain__ underworld. A walking colossus, anyone who gets in his way and tries to stay there had better be ready for the hiding of their life.