Arthur Thompson (gangster)

Arthur Thompson (September 1931 – 13 March 1993) known as "the Godfather", was a Scottish gangster who made his mark on the streets of Scotland in the 1950s. He then went on to take charge of organised crime for over thirty years. He was born in September 1931 in the industrial area of Springburn, Glasgow. He died in Glasgow on 13 March 1993 from natural causes – a heart attack – at the age of 61. According to rumour and later newspaper reports, he did not die in his bed, but paramedics took his body there following his death.

Thompson began his career as a money lender. He was said to crucify those who did not repay their debts, by nailing them to floors or doors.Protection rackets soon followed. He then went on to invest his money into legitimate businesses, which grew more and more over the years, making him a very wealthy man. By the 1980s, the Thompson family had entered the drug trade, led by Thompson's son Arthur Jr. It was rumoured that, by the 1990s, Thompson was earning some £100,000 a week as a loan shark (usurer).

Thompson was one of the most feared criminals in Scotland. In 1966, he narrowly escaped death when a bomb exploded under his car; his mother-in-law, in the passenger seat, was killed. Shortly afterwards, he spotted two men he suspected of the attack, Patrick Welsh and James Goldie, members of the rival Welsh family gang. He forced their van off the road by driving his own car directly at it – the van hit a lamp post and both men were killed. Thompson was charged with murder but not prosecuted as the police could find no witnesses who would testify. In 1969, Thompson's wife Rita forced her way into the Welsh home and stabbed Patrick Welsh's wife in the chest; she was jailed for three years.

On 18 August 1991 Thompson's son Arthur Jr (nicknamed "Fatboy") died after being shot three times outside the family home "The Ponderosa". A former enforcer for the Thompson family, Paul Ferris, was arrested, charged with the murder and remanded to HM Prison Barlinnie. On the day of Thompson Jr's funeral a car was found containing the bodies of two friends of Ferris, Robert Glover and Joe Hanlon, who were also suspected of involvement in his death and had been killed by gunshots to the back of the head and up the anus. Their bodies had been dumped on the route of Fatboy's funeral procession, so that his hearse passed their dead bodies. There was to be further drama that day as there was also a bomb scare at the cemetery where Thompson Jr was due to be buried. At his trial in 1992, Paul Ferris was charged with Arthur Thompson Jr's murder but was found not guilty and released without charge.

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