How crime boss Jamie Daniel's death led to fresh violence in long-running Lyons feud

Daily Record

11-06-2025

Crime Reporter Norman Silvester's series on the history of Scotland's notorious gangland war today examines the death of crime boss Jamie Daniel and how it led to a fresh wave of violence.
In July 2016, feared Glasgow crime boss Jamie Daniel died following a four-year battle with cancer.
From humble beginnings shoplifting, loan-sharking and stealing car wheels he had become one of Scotland's most powerful and wealthy underworld figures with criminal connections across the UK and even further afield.
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But that empire like Jamie was coming to an end. His death, at the age of 58 seriously weakened the Daniel family with no obvious replacement in sight.
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Their bitter rivals the Lyons had murdered Jamie's enforcer and son in law Kevin "Gerbil" Carroll six years earlier.
They had also forged an alliance with the powerful Irish Kinahan organised crime group, now based in Dubai, with global connections in the drugs market.
Among the mourners on the day of Jamie Daniel's funeral at Clydebank Crematorium was his 26-year-old son Zander Sutherland, who was then serving a 13-and-a-half year term for heroin dealing. He was allowed out of prison under guard to help helped carry his father's coffin into the crematorium.
Six months earlier at an appeal hearing in Edinburgh Zander Sutherland asked for his sentence to be cut, claiming he was born into a life of crime and had been brought up by a criminal family. He also claimed he had been under pressure to join the "family business", so wasn't entirely to blame for his actions.
Sutherland claimed he was only at director level in the operation and not the Chief Executive. His appeal was rejected and Sutherland told his 13-year term for heroin dealing was "reasonable".
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However appeal judge Lord Carloway added:"The appellant raised an interesting point about the effect of an offender coming from a criminally oriented family."
On the day of his father's funeral Elvis Presley 's classic hit In the Ghetto was played as the 600 mourners packed the crematorium.
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They included Daniel's 41-year-old wife Debbi, his three brothers, son Francis "Fraggle" Green and daughter Kelly Green.
The 30-minute non-religious service, carried out by a civil celebrant, made no reference to Daniel's criminal past but instead described him as a loving family man who had fathered 10 children. A scrap metal dealer who enjoyed bungee jumping, hunting, jet skiing, playing pool and supporting Rangers
The celebrant added: "He was someone who liked to be in control and was usually two steps ahead of everyone else. "You either loved him or hated him. But Jamie liked it that way."
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Jamie Daniel's underworld dominance had remained secret until January 2003 when our sister paper the Sunday Mail named him as the number one criminal in Scotland in their award winning Crime Inc series.
Then his criminal empire was said to be worth £16 million a year. Over the years Jamie Daniel earned a reputation as someone not to be crossed.
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Two doorman who had attacked a family member at a Glasgow nightclub were said to have had their cars blown up. And in 2000, Daniel was linked to the murder of drug dealer Frank McPhie, a career criminal who was shot in the head by a sniper outside his home in Maryhill, Glasgow.
McPhie was said to have assaulted a Daniel family weeks earlier. The murder to this day remains unsolved.
At the time of his his death Daniel's main business was believed to be cigarette smuggling, earning up to £1million a month. Apart from a four-year sentence for heroin dealing in 1983, and 12 months for a road rage attack in 2010, Daniel was always one step ahead of the law.
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In August a 2019 Channel Five TV documentary claimed he had used contacts with a Scottish Asian family to ship large quantities of heroin from Pakistan into Scotland.
Former Detective Inspector David Moran who had investigated the murder of Kevin Carroll six years earlier added:"He had the reputation of being one or two steps ahead of the police and pretty much untouchable"
The Lyons responded to Daniel's death with a brutal campaign of violence and intimidation, which included five attempted murders in five months. In December 2016 a nephew of Jamie Daniel. who cannot be named for legal reasons, was attacked in house in Robroyston, Glasgow, and hit on the back of the head with a machete and seriously injured.
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A month later a 31 year old Daniel associate suffered a fractured skull after he was set apon in Glasgow's Cranhill. The next victim, Gary Petty, was attacked outside an Italian takeaway in Maryhill, Glasgow on March 2017.
A Ryan Fitzsimmons, 34, was attacked and seriously injured by a masked gang the following month outside his home in Clydebank.
His only crime was that his older brother Martyn had been charged with shooting Lyons associate Ross Monaghan.
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The most savage attack was on Steven "Bonzo" Daniel in May 2017 - also Jamie Daniel's nephew.
He was chased through Glasgow by two cars after attending a Rangers game at Ibrox
Daniel's car eventually crashed on an off ramp of the M8 in the Port Dundas area.
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He was subjected to a horrific attack with machetes and knives which left him with facial wounds so severe that police initially thought he had been shot.
In May 2019 six associates of the Lyons family were jailed for a total of 104 years at the High Court in Glasgow after being found guilty of the five murder plots.
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The judge, Lord Mulholland, told the gang: "You sought to turn Glasgow into a war zone for your feud. "There is no place for this type of conduct, retribution or the law of the jungle."
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Graeme Pearson saw the rise of the two factions during his time as Director General of the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency between 2004 and 2007.
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At that time organised crime groups like the Lyons and Daniel families were increasing their wealth by purchasing drugs directly from Europe rather than traditional sources south of the border in cities like Liverpool and London.
Mr Pearson, who is also a former Labour MSP and party justice spokesman, saw how their operations began to resemble the boards of large companies with directors and chief executives.
He said:"Anyone who knew anything about criminals in Glasgow knew there was an ongoing feud and ill will between the two families. "The local police were getting information and they were getting evidence and and they were convicting people. "What changed was the sheer wealth that came into play when the drugs business went to a new stage. "They discovered that the European market was an easy place to do business."
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Mr Pearson believes one way of stopping the never ending violence is more cops on the beat disrupting the day to day activities of gang members. He would also like to see tougher Proceeds of Crime Laws to target their illegal earnings
Mr Pearson added:"If you allow dirty money to infect clean money you take it all. "That's where you really hurt them."
Mr Pearson also wants the UK Government working with the authorities in Dubai to prevent organised crime groups like the Lyons and Daniels operating there.
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Senior members of both factions are currently behind bars where the violence has continued. Prison officials have been forced to keep the rivals in separate jails. Since March there has been a string of attacks in Edinburgh and Glasgow on Daniel family members and their associates with police making more than 40 arrests in a crackdown codenamed Operation Portaledge.
The violence is said to have been orchestrated by Dubai based ex-Rangers ultra and Union Bears leader Ross McGill, as a reprisal against Edinburgh Daniel associate Mark Richardson over a £500,000 cocaine deal allegedly paid for with fake money.
Lyons crime boss Steven Lyons has also been based out in the UAE for a number of years where he has strengthened links with the Kinahans.
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In the latest development on May 31 two members of the Lyons crime clan Ross Monaghan and Eddie Lyons jnr were shot dead at an Irish bar owned by Monaghan in the Spanish holiday resort of Fuengirola near Malaga.
Lyons was in the resort on a golfing holiday with fellow members of Dullatur Golf Club in Cumbernauld and had taken them to the bar to watch the Champions League Final. Eddie Jnr was short first then the killer turned his gun on Monaghan before escaping in a waiting getaway car.
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Mr Pearson said of the long running Lyons-Daniel feud:"Their people are sitting in our prisons and they are a threat to the prison system. At the same time they are reaching out into the communities from within prison and trying to maintain their power.
"On the back of that you have the new first division coming through who are saying these old guys are in the jail, we don't need to bother with them, we'll do our own thing and that creates the violence we now witness."
TOMORROW: The tangled web of friends and enemies of the gangland kingpins shot dead in the Costa Del Sol.
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