The media once called Mark Clinton Scotland's most dangerous man. This film looks past the headline at the enforcer from Calton: a devoted Celtic supporter, a man with diabetes and loved ones who cared for him, and a figure at the centre of one of Glasgow's most notorious unsolved killings.
A reputation made on the street
Clinton grew up in Calton, raised by a father he deeply admired. His reputation came from confrontations on those streets, cutting up lads who had crossed him or given his father a hard time. The blade was his weapon of choice, and the violence was up close. Men like that, the film says, are rare, and crime gangs always want them.
It was in Barlinnie that he met Paul Ferris. The story goes that Ferris left canteen at Clinton's door to help him out, as a proper villain would for a fellow con in need. It was the start of a friendship with consequences.
McGraw's war
By 2002 Tam "The Licensee" McGraw, once one of the wealthiest men in Glasgow, was paranoid that the newly released Ferris would take his empire. A £100,000 contract was put out on Ferris; the men given the job were Ferris's friends, who took a £10,000 deposit, told him everything and spent it on a party.
McGraw was later attacked and stabbed several times, his body armour saving his life. The papers blamed Ferris. Friends of Clinton say it was Clinton; the narrator is clear that this came second-hand and is up for debate.
The Springcroft
On 8 March 2003, in the Springcroft pub in Baillieston, families were watching the Scotland rugby. A man in a grey hoodie walked up to Billy McPhee, McGraw's main man, and attacked him with a six-inch blade. McPhee died of his injuries.
Mark Clinton was charged with the murder. Released on bail under Scotland's 140-day rule, he was, the film says, threatened by McGraw's men and told to help set Ferris up, or face new witnesses against him. He refused.
The case collapsed. One of two witnesses doubted their identification: the attacker was described as slim with a hook nose, not stocky like Clinton. McPhee's murder remains unsolved.
After
Clinton's later years were hard: drink, drugs, a street beating that left him in a coma for three days, a prison sentence over a security dispute, and a flat full of booby traps against anyone coming for him. He died in January 2019, aged 48, in circumstances police did not treat as suspicious. His friends and family remember a good man.