Heather Bellamy heard John Lawson's story.

Heather: What was the criminal activity that your life progressed into?

John: By now I had really come to embrace violence as a friend and I went straight to the nightclubs and become a bouncer. I was working in some of the toughest clubs in Manchester, Birmingham, Oldham and Blackburn. I worked with a group of men who were all ex-Special Forces. The manager of the security industry would send us to nightclubs where there was a lot of violence and trouble and the local teams couldn't handle the situation anymore. So the level of violence began to escalate in my life. We would now go to clubs to try and clean them up. We had to be very violent, I'm afraid and we considered ourselves real tough guys.

At the same time, my uncles from Glasgow were now living it up in London. They were making a lot of money and were involved with the Maltese Mafia who ran most of Soho. My uncles were heavily involved with the sex industry, running peep shows, hostess bars and brothels. I was lured down there by money. I was married and divorced at a young age and had a young son and became a single parent. I just wanted to provide, I wanted money. So, off I went to London, which would eventually take me to jail for the first time.

I began to work for my uncles where we encountered lots of gang intimidation. There was a lot of money and they were making fortunes. I was very heavily involved in the sex industry and one day an American tourist didn't want to pay the bill. I threatened him and the police caught me and I was sent off to jail for nine months, of which I served four and a half.

That did nothing for me, but make me more determined to get seriously involved in crime. By this stage I was just 22-23 years old. I got out of prison and had to come back to Birkenhead for a time, so the heat would come off the family name and I went back on the doors as a bouncer.

I joined a biker gang called the Nomads and we lived a life that was outside of the law, doing our own thing and acting like real idiots. I was getting involved in all sorts of capers and affairs and still heavily involved in security and running the doors. We would work in clubs where people would sometimes shoot at you and we used to think that this was great and that it was exciting, but I was a real fool.

It began to get worse and I got involved with my uncles again down in London. To my shame, I don't say this in any boastful way, but I ended up running the biggest brothel in London and earning lots of money. That was the kind of man I was.

I wasn't happy, I wanted more. Nothing seemed to satisfy me. After a family fallout with my uncle, I came back up north, got married and went back to Scotland and craved excitement and life and money.

I trained to become a bodyguard. I was always good with my fists and martial arts and I began to work with some really well known bands and groups like AC/DC, REM and at the height of my career, I was working with The Rolling Stones. At the time I thought, "This is it. I've made it in life. I'm married, I've got a nice house." But again, I wanted more.

The circles that I was now mixing in were on the fringes of society. We met a lot of gangsters and a lot of so-called businessmen, but these guys were into serious VAT fraud in the millions and millions of pounds. Those men, when they have a problem with money, they really don't like getting their hands dirty. They would come to idiots like me and my men, the real scumbags, the kind that would happily do anything for money and I'm sorry to tell you this, but I got involved in quite serious crime, going after these kind of people that had stolen money. All the time I was believing that I was a good man, because I didn't drink, or smoke, or do drugs. They were the baddies and we were just doing society a favour. That's how I tried to justify it, but by now my life had really spiralled out of control.

With my men, I was kidnapping gangsters in broad daylight and impersonating police officers, holding them hostage and just being horrible; things I don't even want to talk about now, because it feels like it's glorifying the violence and I'm just so ashamed of so many things. Suffice to say I had a lot of blood on my hands.

It got into the millions of pounds. We were sent abroad to find people that owed this money and do whatever it took to make them pay. It even got to the point where I was stupidly considering murder. There was one particular man who owed thirteen million pounds to our client and I knew he was gonna have to be shot, because he would want to come after us after losing that kind of money and he had the means to do so. I was such a cold hearted animal, but finally, thankfully, the police caught up with me and I was sent to jail.

Heather: How would you describe who you were in that period of your life?

John Lawson

John: I wanted success, money, a big house, a big car and all the things that this world is driven to go after. That's the sign of success, the bigger your house, the bigger your car and I was prepared to do whatever it took.