The hardest thing was to avoid temptation. My mates – who were still grafting – would call me up and offer me 20 kilograms of cocaine or give me a tip-off about a drug dealer I could rob. If I had given in, I could have made £100,000 in a matter of hours. By teatime, I could have been rich again, but I’d had enough and just kept looking at my baby while I was on the phone to these people. I’d be knee-deep in nappies with Richard and Judy on the telly in the background, Abbey on one arm and the handset wedged between my ear and shoulder, and I’d think, ‘No, I don’t want to go to jail.’

The problem was that I didn’t know how to be anything else other than a taxman. Then I had a bright idea. Why not try and apply some of the skills and techniques I had learned as a gangster to the business world? That was how I found myself in the world of legitimate debt recovery, loan arbitration and security negotiation.

My first job was to help save Cream, the world-famous super club. The security firm who ran the doors – let’s call them Ozone Security – were making life difficult for Stuart, one of the owners, so he came to me to get them off the door. Ozone were pretty hard-hitters and had been investigated for four murders and linked to countless other shootings and maimings. So, I said to Stuart, ‘I’ll get Ozone to a meeting, and all that you’ve got to do is back me up.’ The job was all about front, because at the end of the day it was me against 14 roid-head, killer doormen.

I got my game face on and bounced into the meeting. Once there, I made sure that I looked all 14 of them in the eye and said, ‘Stuart doesn’t want you on the door any more.’

The Ozone boss sneered at me and said, ‘Why?’

‘Because I’m taking over, that’s why,’ I replied.

Now, what they shoulda done was pick me up and throw me out the window there and then. However, they knew that if they did that to me, they could get themselves sucked into some serious ninja violence – if I decided to take a step back into the dark side. You see, they didn’t know I was going straight. They thought they were still dealing with the Devil.

I could see some of them starting to make moves. But I knew my Devil stare could freeze a man’s blood. I watched the dissenters – the ones I could tell really wanted to machete me – and said, ‘There’s no point in behaving. Yous are off the doors – end of story. You know what I mean, lad? That’s it. It’s the end. You’ve had a good run, but I’m doing it now.’

Amazingly, they swallowed it. They put their tails between their legs and just got off. The path was now free for me to take over the door. However, Stuart still wasn’t happy. He didn’t know I had turned over a new leaf and feared I would cause him the same problems as the Ozone lot. He panicked and asked my old friend Alfie Lewis to do the contract.

By then, Alfie had a well-established security firm that trained police officers, and he had a squeaky-clean reputation. He came to see me to sort out what was a rather delicate situation. He said, ‘Look, Stephen. He’s offered me the door, and I’d like to take it.’

I simply replied, ‘Brown envelope, Alf. Brown envelope and I’ll move aside. Simple.’

He said, ‘Well, how much do you want?’

‘Well, I’ve got rid of Ozone, and Stuart has got his club back.’

At that time, Cream was killing it, taking hundreds of thousands of pounds per week and millions more in official spin-offs. However, the real money was being made front of house, with the door team selling Ecstasy. Obviously, this was done covertly, and the owners and managers of the clubs had no knowledge of the illicit trade. Nevertheless, some of the doormen had become multimillionaires. One of my mates was making fucking 30 grand on a Saturday night. It was only after Leah Betts died in November 1995 that they clamped down on it. Nonetheless, I was going straight and wasn’t interested in making 30 grand a night, so I told Alfie and Stuart to make me an offer. A few days later, they paid me 20 grand to step aside – not a bad fee for a 15-minute meeting. That’s when I realised I could make a lot of money using my brain and my tongue, as opposed to a gun and a knife.

However, the pull of the ghetto was strong. No matter how much I wanted my life to be peaceful and pure, there were always demons trying to drag me back into hell. Often, it was only the petty squabbles of everyday life – family disputes, fallings out, etc. In the past, I would have dealt with them like a gangster, but the next bit of work I did – although only small – taught me a gigantic amount about how to collect a debt without resorting to criminality and how to resist the pull of the ghetto.

My nephew Daniel has got a bigger heart than King Kong, but he’s also got killer eyes. In the early 1990s, a few pioneers tried to set up ‘head shops’ in Britain, Amsterdam-style coffee bars where you could smoke weed and purchase all the technical apparatus you would need to grow a skunk farm. Daniel went into business with partners from Anfield called Norman and Owen, one of whom was the son of a well-known old-school face. The police quickly closed the shop down, and Norman was arrested. Even so, Daniel reckoned Norman owed him 17 grand. After a year of trying to collect his debt, Daniel came to me for help. In the past, I would have gone in straight away – all guns blazing – if only to save face for the family.

The first thing I asked Daniel was, ‘What is your settlement figure?’ I knew he had probably exaggerated the actual figure he was owed. Sure enough, we arrived at four grand as a satisfactory amount. I went to see to Norman in my very scary black uniform. I allowed him to list the reasons why he thought he didn’t owe the money to Daniel. All the while, I wasn’t even listening. You have to be dogmatic, otherwise you find yourself being led up the garden path.

Then I said, ‘Are you finished? I’ve listened to what you’ve got to say, lad. Here’s my card. This is who I am. You owe our kid ten grand.’ This was simply the opening gambit. Remember, I was ready to settle for four grand.

The next time I went down, I took Daniel, and we opened talks in their kitchen. I said to Norman and Owen, ‘I don’t give a fuck who you are. I don’t give a fuck who you know. You’re going to pay this money, and you’re going to pay it before you go to jail.’ Then, in the interests of fair play, I bollocked Daniel as well: ‘I’ve told you about messing around with these white guys. They just think you’re a dumb nigger. They’ll turn you over as soon as look at you. Stick with your fucking own.’ It was all role play. I was saying this in front of them for effect. As a sweetener to Norman, I then said, ‘I know you’re going to prison soon for the head shop. One of my relatives is in there at the moment. You can either have a good reception when you land on K wing or a bad one.’ I could see him thinking, ‘He’s cornering me on the outside, and he’s cornering me on the inside. What the fuck am I going to do?’

The next day, I decided to switch the pressure from Norman to his partner Owen. This was a good debt-collecting tactic, just in case Norman decided to go to the police. Owen was a businessman who didn’t want any aggravation. I said, ‘Make me an offer, and I’ll go away.’

A little later, I received a phone call from Alfie Lewis. ‘Stephen, you’re going to have some problems over this debt that you’re trying to collect.’ He mentioned the name of a notorious crime family who had agreed to throw in their lot with Norman and Owen if it all went down to the wire.

I told him, ‘Well, Alfie, you know me. Tell them I don’t give a fuck. I don’t care who they are.’

‘Well, I know that, Stephen. I’m just phoning you up to let you know who’s involved. If you need anything, give us a shout.’

At that point, both sides were preparing their nuclear arsenals, polishing the warheads ready for mutually assured destruction. It was Cuban Missile Crisis time. It would soon escalate into a fully fledged gang war – if someone didn’t bring the matter back to the table.

Forty-five minutes later, Owen called me up. I said, ‘Look, I’m not getting a penny out of all this. My nephew’s a pain in the arse to me. Your partner’s a pain in the arse to you. We need to sort this out, lad. What d’you say?’

He said, ‘I’ll give you three grand.’

Remember that Daniel had said that he’d settle for four. I told Owen to make it four and we’d have a deal.

However, he replied, ‘No, I’m giving you three.’

I couldn’t be seen to have been bullied, so I went away, sat Daniel down and said, ‘Look, they want to give you three grand. No guns drawn. No aggravation. My advice to you is to take the three.’

‘Man, the Stephen of old would’ve got 50 grand,’ he argued, trying to pour scorn on my attempt to go straight. He was trying to use emotional blackmail to get me to step back over the line. I had to point certain facts out to him.

‘Look, you’ve been on this for 12 months and got fuck all,’ I said. ‘I’ve been on it for a day and you’ve got three grand. Shut your fucking mouth and take the money.’ I phoned Owen back and said, ‘That’s a deal.’

I understood that the biggest worry for owen would be looking like he’d lost face by giving over the three grand. So I said to him, ‘You’ll hear a lot of bullshit designed to wind you up, so I’m going to send you a text message, and I’m going to sign it with my name. When anyone says to you that the Frenchman’s stood on you or made a show of you, you show them it.’ I’d covered all bases. The text said:

In that world, being told what to do and being asked what to do is a universe apart. If you’re told what to do, you’re a boy. If you’re asked what to do, you’re a man.

Around that time, I had another revelation. Up until about 1995, you could’ve termed me anti-white. The truth was that I never really had much time for white people. I knew a lot of white guys and did a lot of deals with them, but, deep down, I’d always believed there was an insurmountable divide between us – never the twain shall meet. That was until I came across a young man called Christian Mark Nesbet, who changed my view of a whole race.